"Time is not a line. It's a river—wild, unpredictable, and ancient. And some, chosen or cursed, can hear its whispers."
Dark clouds rolled over a vast battlefield that never existed—yet somehow always had. The air shimmered with the heat of war and the pulse of centuries. Warriors clashed beneath crimson skies. Arrows whistled like forgotten truths, swords clanged like bells tolling for dead kingdoms.
At the heart of the chaos, a sage in saffron robes stood unmoving, untouched by time or blade. His eyes were closed, lips murmuring in a language lost to every era except this one. He held aloft a glowing artifact—an intricate disk etched with Sanskrit symbols, humming with cosmic energy. The Chrono Key.
Around him, time began to warp.
A Mughal cavalryman charged beside a British Redcoat. A robotic drone from the future screamed overhead. A freedom fighter with the flag of 1947 fought side-by-side with a Mauryan warrior from 300 BCE.
Reality tore open like fabric stretched too thin. History itself was bleeding.
And from the shadows, a figure cloaked in temporal distortion whispered:
"It's already begun."
---
Present Day – 2125 A.D.
A projector clicked, casting faded images of ancient texts onto a classroom wall at the National History Institute of New Delhi.
"—and so, we assume the Chrono Sutra is simply myth," the professor droned.
A single hand shot up at the back of the lecture hall.
"Professor," Arjun said, voice sharp, "what if it wasn't a myth, but a coded message from those who understood time better than we do?"
The class chuckled, used to Arjun's strange ideas. Even the professor smiled indulgently.
"Arjun," he said, "Your passion is commendable. But legends aren't proof. They're stories—colorful, exaggerated echoes."
Arjun leaned back, tapping his pen against his chin.
Or warnings... he thought.
Outside the window, the sky shimmered with strange light—just for a second.
---
After class, Arjun lingered in the empty lecture hall, staring at the words "Chrono Sutra" still glowing faintly on the screen.
He wasn't just curious. He felt it in his bones—an itch he couldn't scratch, a memory that didn't belong to him. Every ancient story felt like déjà vu. Like he'd been there.
"What if... the myths are messages left behind?" he whispered to himself.
He didn't know it yet, but the river of time had already begun to twist around him.
---
As Arjun packed his bag to leave, a gust of wind swept through the classroom—though the windows were shut.
A single page flew off the professor's desk and landed at Arjun's feet. It wasn't from any book in class.
He picked it up.
It was a hand-drawn map of ancient India, but there was something odd. A spiral symbol was inked over a location deep in the Himalayas—where no city or ruin should exist.
And beneath it, in faint red ink:
"The river remembers those who walk backward."