Invulnerable

We find the monster (or the monster finds us?)

It took me a long time to digest.  At base, we had kept a good partnership.  I could not believe how Kritika who was boiling with revenge and goofy Karan with all his silly jokes had failed to distract him.

The task seemed more impossible now than ever.  We had hardly six days to kill a snake monster, Kalki was after us and I was positive he knew where we were and did I just mention that the already gigantic snake had mentioned someone called Kali?  I knew Kali was a goddess but I did not think she would support the earth ending, even though we were travelling to Kolkata where Kali mata was very deeply worshipped.

I tried to keep my hopes up.  At least we knew what we were up against.  Well, sort of.

We were flying over a big city right now which could only have been Kolkata.

I took out my walkie-talkie. “Hello, is anybody there?  Natasha here, could you tell us how did Kalki escape like, did he run off or did he had some transportation device?”

The voice came back from the walkie-talkie. “This is Karan and I’m terribly sorry Kalki escaped. It was my fault.  Anyways, we were divided up into groups to search for monsters, scattered across the country and Kalki whistled and a dragon-bat monster flew down and picked him up.”

“A dragon-bat monster, seriously?  Well now we are doomed!” I said and stuffed the walkie-talkie into BOD.

“Prachi, we won’t be able to face him, he can control time.  He’ll be here any minute.” I said.

“I don’t think Kalki is an enemy.” Prachi said. “I think he wants to save the world as much as we do but he just has to follow orders from Shiva.  There is evidence.  If Kalki really wanted to end the world, he could have slowed down time till the monster was ready; wouldn’t that have been the easiest thing?”

I knew how much Prachi wanted to believe that.  It was hard for her to picture Kalki as a bad guy and I did not want to break the news to her, so I just nodded.

“Let’s descend,” I said.  Then I noticed her expression. “What’s wrong Prachi?  You are so pale! Stop worrying!”

“Look at yourself, Natasha.  Obviously something has happened that scares you and I don’t know about it.”

I knew I could not tell Prachi about my nightmare.  She was my best friend, but she would panic.  And Prachi performs better when she’s calm.  I just looked in front of me and replied; “First we need to concentrate about Kalki, and then think about…other things.”

“So, what is it?  I’ve known you long enough, I do understand that something is wrong with you and it’s not about Kalki.  Do not lie to me.” I just got it that Prachi was never going to leave me alone so I replied (the honest reply which involves eye contact!).

“Okay, Prachi, listen, when I fell asleep, I had a nightmare….” And then I told her my entire experience.

Prachi’s expressions changed from one of shock to horror.

“So,” she said after a long silence. 

“Prachi,” I said. “That’s a very awkward way to break a silence.”

“Maybe, but what happens now?” Prachi replied. This books, Demons and their deaths, it talks about all kinds of monsters from Hindu mythology. I’m about half way through, but there is no mention of the snake yet.  And I think you are right about Kali, I think I’ve read something before about a monster with that name.  We are not dealing with the goddess.”

“Great, so we have a giant snake and its boss to kill, which we know nothing about.”  We sat a few more minutes in silence and then I saw it; we must have been over the Bay of Bengal, the sea below was the same from my nightmares, blood red.  A shiver passed down my spine though the lava like water was smoking and hot.