The Awakening in Kurukshetra

The blinding white of death was replaced by the warmth of the sun—blazing, ancient, divine.

I gasped awake, sprawled on cracked earth, surrounded by a battlefield where time itself trembled.

Kurukshetra.

But I wasn't supposed to be here. Not again.

My name was Aryan in my previous life—a regular guy obsessed with mythology, especially the Mahabharata. I'd read every version, from Vyasa's Sanskrit epic to modern retellings. But then, I died—hit by a speeding truck in Delhi while crossing the street and listening to a Mahabharata podcast of all things.

Now? I was reborn in the Dwapar Yuga, standing amid warriors of legend. My body—different. Taller, stronger. Dressed in the simple robes of an ascetic, but my skin radiated with a glow I hadn't noticed before. A voice echoed in my mind:

"You are the Chosen. Dharma is splintered. Timelines are broken. You will decide what stays and what changes."

Before I could even process it, a stream of visions hit me like arrows—alternate futures: Abhimanyu surviving the Chakravyuh. Karna fighting beside the Pandavas. Draupadi never humiliated. The war... never happening at all.

I could change it all.

Power surged in my veins. I could feel time like strings in a cosmic harp. I could pluck them, cut them, weave them into new melodies. But with each choice, Dharma shifted. The weight of destiny was heavy.

From the distance, I saw Bhishma—on his chariot, a force of nature. Arjuna, barely a youth, stood confused near Krishna. Time was aligning with the moment before Arjuna would refuse to fight.

"If I interfere now, everything changes."

But fate had already marked me as an anomaly.

I raised my hand—and time froze. Every soldier, arrow, even the wind paused.

Except one.

Krishna turned. His smile deep, knowing.

"You came early," he said, stepping through the frozen battlefield.

"You knew?"

"I always know. But this time, you're not just a player—you're a scriptwriter. The question is, will you act with wisdom… or ego?"

I looked around, at the armies, the death hanging in the air, the choices waiting to be made.

"I want to fix it. All the pain. The betrayals. The injustice."

Krishna laughed softly. "Then you must understand: to change the past is to gamble with the soul of the future."

The battlefield shimmered, and a new path unfolded before me—a timeline where I would walk not as a hero, but as a variable.

And the Mahabharata… would never be the same again.