The Cursed Shell

42

Brute read on. He still could not find anything he had missed the last time. What he was reading was already read by him - famous sayings from ancient epics; description of the war of Mahabharata; famous episodes from Shiv Puran; more about the main ten avatars of Vishnu and more.

Right now, he was on the page which described the death of Hiranyakashyapa.

Hiranyakashyapa, the leader of the Asuras at the time, had a strong hatred towards Vishnu. This was because Vishnu killed his brother while he was trying to kidnap Mother Earth.

Hiranyakashyapa also had imprisoned the Devas, as he could not kill them, he just used to torture them. He wanted everyone, whether on Earth, Hell, or Heaven, to worship him only. The prayers or devotion for anyone else was illegal under his rule. So it was insanity to worship any God in his empire.

Even after this all, his son, named Prahlad, was going to be the biggest devotee of Vishnu in history. Hiranyakashyapa was not aware of this fate. But if he were, he would have killed his own son even before he was born.

Later when his son grew older and now was ten year old, he asked his son, "Whom do you worship?"

"I worship the greatest of all", replied Prahlad.

His demon father was pleased after hearing this as he thought that Prahlad was talking about him.

Then Hiranyakashyapa asked, "Is your God there in front of you?"

"He is everywhere", Prahlad replied.

This reply confused Hiranyakashyapa. "Who is your God?"

Hiranyakashyapa lost his temper after he heard his son's reply - "Vishnu".

He ordered as many people as he could to kill his son, but everytime, Prahlad was saved by Vishnu.

Finally, when none of the tricks could work. Hiranyakashyapa's sister, Holika, came ahead to kill Prahlad.

Agnidev, the God of fire, had granted a cloth which could stop fire from touching the person wearing it to Holika. So Holika sat in fire with Prahlad, covering her head with the cloth. But it is not easy to kill a big-hearted devotee of Vishnu. There came a breeze and the cloth flew off from Holika's head and fell on Prahlad. As a result, Prahlad survived the fire, but Holika died burning.

A few days later, Hiranyakashyapa himself tried to kill his son, as it was impossible for Vishnu to kill the demon as he was granted with a boon from Lord Brahma that he could die neither in his house, nor out of his house; he could be killed neither by a man, nor by a woman; he could die neither in air, nor on ground; none of the humans, Gods, animals or demons could kill him; none of the weapons could kill him.

But before he could kill his son after tying him on a pillar, the pillar broke into pieces and a half-human, half-lion appeared. This was one of the ten main avatars of Vishnu and was called Narsimha, who wasn't a God, human or animal. He dragged Hiranyakashyapa till the door of his palace, which was neither inside his house, nor outside his house. Then Narsimha kept Hiranyakashyapa on his thighs so that he was neither in air, nor on ground. And as he couldn't be killed by any weapon, Narsimha killed Hiranyakashyapa by tearing his chest off by his razor-sharp nails.

Brute kept translating everything he was reading to Krystene.

Josh was still looking the view of the sky outside the under-sea tower from his phone which was showing the CCTV footage of a camera fixed on the top of the tower. It was necessary for the clouds to fade away for the ritual to be done.

"Mr Lamb," Dunkirk said, "if you surrender, your imprisonment will be reduced. You'll at least not be sentenced to death."

Josh laughed. It seemed to be a joke to him. "You think I am afraid to die? I am going to kill myself after this holy activity is performed, so you need not to think much about my life."

The scenario would have been much easier if Josh had not threatened to press the TeE's button. And Josh wasn't even afraid to do so. Appointing assassins is easy with the help of CoFFe and TeE if you are capable of giving them almost a billion dollars for that work. And Josh's net-worth of forty-six billion would be of no use after his death, so he wouldn't fear to pay them.

"By the way," Josh said, "has anyone of you watched Vishnupuran, the show which was telecasted in 2000? Thanks to the creators of that program who created a reason for the change of my thoughts."

"You're not a human!" Duke snapped.

"I know, right?" Josh chuckled.

"That show had thousands of viewers," Dhawan said, "but none of them turned evil like you did."

"I agree," Josh walked towards Dhawan with TeE still in his hand, "this is because there is a difference between what they saw and what I saw. They saw it from Vishnu's point of view, but I saw it from the Asuras' point of view. And that is enough to change you into a hater from a devotee."

"You didn't see how good the Gods were," Dhawan said. "Although I don't know much about Hindu stories, but I do know that the Gods are heroes according to them who save the world by appearing in different avatars."

Josh stepped closer to Dhawan, making a fierce eye-contact with him, not in a romantic way as many of you may be thinking. "You heard those three words you just said in your sentence?"

Dhawan crossed his eye-brows.

"Those three words," Josh said in a little hushing tone, "according to them, you said. Highlight this phrase, Dhawan. According to them. Everyone just saw what they showed. They showed the story of Gods in which they were heroes, the creators, the saviours, the destroyers of evil, but they usually hide or don't pay much attention to those parts of stories in which the demons are heroes."

"That is what I am saying," Josh continued, while walking back towards the corner of the room, towards the cursed shell, "they just show what Gods gave us, but they don't show what they took away from us."

Then he again checked the sky from his phone. It was still cloudy.

"What if the moon hides behind the clouds for the whole night?" Dunkirk asked. "All those years, all those sacrifices, will they all get wasted?"

"Who said that?" Josh turned towards him. "This isn't the last full-moon. Chandradev, the God of Moon, is still alive. And the Moon won't die until the Gods come to an end. I have patience, I can wait. And till that time, you all will stay here, in this tower. And if anyone of you tries to do some stuff against me, I will press this button." He pointed his finger towards the TeE. "So you better shut up and witness the end."