अन्तः अस्ति प्रारंभः।
The end is the beginning.
A caterpillar dies, to birth a butterfly. Water evaporates to rain down. Dead carcasses fill the stomachs of vultures.Life gives way to death and death to life. In a vicious circle of different karmas...
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It happened unexpectedly, as many horrid things tended too. However, it was not night that led to the world enveloping in darkness that lasted for days.
It was a beautiful, sunny morning. Mihira had been teaching some children about the family tree of Yaduvansh, telling them about how Kunti and Shree Balram and Shree Krishna were related, when a scream echoed in the distance.
It sounded as if someone has ripped out the heart of the screamer's most beloved. Like someone had upturned life in its entirety.
The children sitting around her yelped and shrieked in returned, they had never heard the city so disturbed, a scream so broken.
"Children!" Mihira tried to control them, holding her hands up in a disarming gesture. "Listen to me—" before she could blurt some half cooked, absurd assurance, a loud gong sounded.
Goosebumps covered her arms, and Mihira resisted the urge to run as she listened to the frantic announcement that still managed to echo in the chaos.
"Citizens! We are under attack! Those of you who cannot fight, take the children, elderly and disabled and go to the nearest safehouses. Others—warriors— pick up your weapons and fight!"
Mihira looked around, catching various wild moments around her. She gathered the children around her, checking with every erratic heartbeat that they were still with her and uninjured. Holding the hand of the youngest, Vidyut, she began leading them towards the safehouse nearest to them— the one hidden securely behind the Narsingh Bhagwan temple. Looking behind her shoulder wasn't a new thing for Mihira, but seeing even children shudder with the fear of sinners in their city, something in her tainted soul burnt.
The old house was the same shape as other houses of Shambala, the only difference being that it was not lived in, at least not enough to consider it a proper home. There were no swastikas on the doors, nor the red handprints that indicated presence of a woman in the house. No designs around the walls and no mud stains on the floor.
Except— except that now it was holding many people in it, who had run to the house in a frantic disarray of bodies. Mihira ushered the children inside, counting all fifteen of them again with faint names echoing in the back of her mind.
Her eyes swept the area again, to check for an enemy or an ally in need but no one seemed to be present in the immediate area, already having run. She rushed inside, clicking the door locked behind her.
The interior of the house was much the same, however, it was filled with cabinets and boxes, weapons hanging on the walls and high on shelves. All sorts of swords, blades, knives, bows and arrows and even weapons that she didn't know the name of were perched on the shelves, glinting.
Mihira took a note of the people already there as she walked towards the weapons shelf. There were many men and women there, sitting together with eyes closed and chants falling like pleads. Their kids that Mihira had brought with her rushed towards them and something in her relaxed at seeing them.
