The air was thick with smog, a constant reminder of Earth’s slow decay. The neon lights of Mumbai flickered overhead, casting strange shadows over the masses below. People scurried through the streets, heads down, lost in their own worlds as they rushed through the chaos of the city. Drones hummed above, their cold eyes scanning every face, every movement, ensuring that the city’s laws — written by the corporations that controlled it — were enforced.

Vihan sat in his cramped apartment, a single flickering monitor illuminating his gaunt face. His fingers flew across the keyboard, scanning lines of code faster than most could follow. He wasn’t just a hacker — he was a ghost in the system. A ghost that lived on the fringes, unnoticed, unimportant. Or so he thought.

He was just another cog in the machine, a forgotten soul in the sprawling city of Mumbai, where the wealthy few controlled everything, and the rest were forced to survive in the underbelly. But for Vihan, that was the price of freedom. To remain unnoticed was to remain free.

His eyes narrowed as a line of strange code appeared on the screen — it wasn’t part of any program he recognized. It was old, archaic even. He traced the code, his pulse quickening. This wasn’t something anyone should have access to. It was encrypted with layers of complexity that even he, an expert hacker, struggled to decipher. But there was something undeniably compelling about it, like a whisper at the edge of his consciousness.

A few hours later, the code unlocked, revealing a series of symbols — ancient Sanskrit letters. His eyes widened. He knew these characters; they were from a text he had come across in his childhood, buried in old books that most people had forgotten. The prophecy of Kalki, the 10th avatar of Vishnu, the one who would come at the end of times to restore balance to the world.

But it couldn’t be. The stories were just myths, legends passed down through generations. Kalki was only a story told to keep people hopeful in an age of ruin. Or so Vihan had always believed. Yet here it was, in front of him: a coded message about the return of Kalki, sent from a source so powerful it had to be hidden for centuries.

Vihan leaned back in his chair, staring at the screen, the weight of the discovery settling in. What did this mean? Was Kalki real? Was he a savior, or a weapon?

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Before he could process any further, the room’s lights flickered, and an urgent ping echoed from his secondary terminal. It was an encrypted message — too many layers, even for him to decrypt immediately. But there was something familiar about the pattern, something he couldn’t shake.

He hesitated for a moment, then opened the message. The words that appeared were simple but chilling:

“They know. They are coming.”

His heart raced. He quickly disconnected his systems, locking down everything. Someone had found him. Someone knew what he had uncovered. He had to leave, now.

As he grabbed his bag and moved toward the door, his thoughts swirled. Who were "they"? And why were they coming? The prophecy of Kalki was just a story, wasn’t it?

But deep down, he knew: he had just unlocked something far bigger than himself.

 -----

Outside, the streets of Mumbai were more chaotic than usual. The hum of drones and the neon glow created an eerie atmosphere, one that seemed to pulse with an unnatural energy. Vihan pulled his hood up and blended into the crowd. As he moved through the alleyways, he couldn’t shake the feeling that someone, or something, was watching him. Every step he took felt heavier, more deliberate, as if the world around him was closing in.

His comm device buzzed. A message from an unrecognized number.

“We know what you’ve found. Come to the old library. It’s time.”

Vihan’s mind raced. The library? That place had been abandoned for decades, swallowed by the rise of corporate-controlled information hubs. The old texts, the ones from his childhood, the ones that mentioned Kalki — they were locked away in that place.

He didn’t know who sent the message, but he didn’t have time to second-guess it. If there was any chance of uncovering the truth about the prophecy, about the return of Kalki, he had to follow the clues.

He sprinted through the streets, past the crumbling remnants of old Mumbai, where the shadows of the past still lingered. He didn’t know what awaited him at the library, but he knew one thing: everything was about to change.

As Vihan neared the library’s entrance, a cold wind swept through the city, carrying with it a whisper — a whisper of fate.

Kalki was coming.