Angat felt a new kind of calm. The panic was gone. Now, he was just... curious. He understood the big picture now. The world had rules, like a system. And his own life had been a small part of it.
But that just made his own situation weirder.
"Okay, Narad Ji," Angat said, feeling more clear-headed. "I get it now. The big cycles, the gods showing up... it's like a cosmic plan. But that just makes my case a real head-scratcher." He looked at the celestial messenger. "What about me? What was the bug in your system that decided a regular guy like me should get unplugged? I was just a coder. I wasn't important."
Narad, who usually looked perfectly calm, suddenly seemed awkward. He shifted his weight and tapped his tablet nervously.
"Ah. Yes. That." he started, his smooth voice a little strained. "Let's call your case a... system anomaly. Your death was not in the main script. A real outlier."
"An outlier?" Angat pressed. "How? I was in a taxi in a storm. That seems pretty standard."
"It's the context," Narad explained, lowering his voice. "This Kali Yuga you were in... it's not the standard build. It's more like a... corrupted version The Maha Kaliyug. The bad energy from people the greed, the hate its's creating interference. It's like a static that's messing with higher functions."
Angat's eyes widened. "Messing with what?"
"Core processes," Narad said gravely. "In some parallel instances, the Avatars the intended fixes are being terminated before their processes even start. And in others..." He paused, looking troubled. "In others, the local environment is so toxic it's corrupting them. The solution becomes part of the virus."
A cold feeling settled in Angat's stomach. "That's... horrifying. That's the system failing."
"It's a critical failure state," Narad confirmed. "And in your world, this corruption has a name. It's embedded in your global corporate framework. You've heard the rumors. The shadow networks."
Angat blinked. "Wait. You mean... the Illuminati? But that's just a conspiracy theory. Internet nonsense."
"Is it?" Narad replied, sounding a bit frustrated. "Or is a 'conspiracy theory' just what people call a truth that's too complex to face? You were there, Angat! You saw the data harvesting, the profit-over-people logic, the wars that look good on a balance sheet. You think that's all random?"
He didn't wait for an answer. "This network is real. They don't run governments; they own the platform. Nations are just user interfaces. Their goal is a full system takeover to turn humanity into a managed resource."
"But how did it get this bad?" Angat asked. "You said this is a Maha Kali Yuga. What makes it different from a normal one?"
Narad sighed, like a teacher explaining a difficult concept. "In a normal Kali Yuga, goodness declines slowly. People become more selfish, but the divine framework remains intact. It's like a system running slow, but still functioning. This... this is different. The corruption has become systemic. It's not just in people's hearts anymore...it's built into your institutions, your technology, your very way of life."
"Give me an example," Angat said, the programmer in him wanting specifics.
"Think about your social media," Narad said. "Designed to make people angry, to divide them. Your food filled with chemicals that make people sick. Your medicine ..soo expensive many can't afford it. Your education teaching people what to think, not how to think. This isn't accidental, Angat. This is by design. The system has been optimized to create suffering, because suffering makes people easier to control."
Angat thought about his own life the constant pressure to perform, the endless cycle of work and consumption. "So it's not just that people are bad... the whole system is pushing them to be worse?"
"Exactly!" Narad said, pleased he was understanding. "In a normal age, evil is like a weed here and there. In this Maha Kali Yuga, evil is the fertilizer everything grows in. The very soil is poisoned."
He pulled up more data on his tablet. "Look at your environmental crises. Not accidents...but symptoms. The earth is rejecting this corruption. The floods, the fires, the strange weather patterns... these are the planet's immune response. But the system is so compromised, even these warning signs are being ignored or exploited."
"The ancient people predicted this," Narad murmured, showing Angat the Sanskrit text.
"कलौ खलु भविष्यन्ति नराणां मनसः क्षयः ।
धर्मस्य च परिभ्रंशो द्रव्यलोभो विवर्धनः ॥"
(In the age of Kali, minds will decay; righteousness will fail and greed for wealth will keep increasing.)
He looked up from the tablet, his expression serious. "But the sages never imagined it would get this advanced. The greed isn't just in individuals anymore ...it's algorithmic. Built into your economic systems, your political systems. It's a self-perpetuating machine of suffering."
"This greed they've systemized... it's not just social corruption. It's like a virus in reality's source code. That storm you were in? The 'buffer error' that took you instead of the driver? That wasn't weather ...that was local reality crashing from the poison."
He let the words sink in.
"Your world is fighting an unseen war. And you, Angat, weren't just unlucky. You were friendly fire in a cosmic conflict."
Narad's expression softened. "And the world itself is suffering system stress. The planet's spiritual resources are depleted. It's sending error messages, begging for a system restore."
"Wait," Angat said, a thought occurring to him. "If the system is this corrupted... how can anyone fix it? If even the Avatars are failing..."
"That's the million-dollar question," Narad said, his voice dropping. "The old methods don't work anymore. Sending a single divine being to fix everything... it's like trying to patch a critically compromised system with a single line of code. The corruption just works around it."
He leaned closer. "That's why your case is so interesting. A random person, caught in a system error... sometimes the most unexpected glitches reveal the deepest flaws in the code."
Angat thought about this for a moment. "So what happens now? If the system can't be fixed the usual way..."
Narad smiled mysteriously. "Sometimes the solution isn't a patch. Sometimes you need a complete system reset. Or... sometimes you find a workaround so clever the corruption never sees it coming."
He put a hand on Angat's shoulder. "Somehow, the termination signal hit the wrong process. It wasn't your scheduled end. But don't worry ....even errors have purpose in the grand design. Now let's get you out of this liminal space."
Angat sighed deeply. "Ugh. Yes. The grand design," he said flatly. "A design where I get randomly uninstalled. Wonderful. Well, I'd love to leave, but I can't move. I'm just... background noise here."
Narad smiled. "Ah, that's because you're in raw consciousness state. No physical interface. Here, let me initialize a temporary shell for you." He reached out, his prayer beads glowing. He touched Angat's forehead.
A wave of cool energy spread through Angat. Suddenly he could feel presence, location, being. It was like booting up after a crash.
"Whoa," Angat said, marveling at the sensation. "It's like I have a body again. So... where are we exactly? What's our location?"
Narad peered into the grey expanse. "Well, you're stuck in an unresolved connection state. Between the earthly server and the underworld node. To get you properly logged back to Earth, we need to route through the lower level for authentication, then we can hop back up."
"So we have to go down to go up?" Angat asked, confused.
"Standard security protocol," Narad explained. "Can't have souls just popping in and out of existence without proper authentication. Would cause all kinds of reality fragmentation."
Suddenly, Narad's tablet chimed urgently.
Om Om Om.
A priority message flashed:
"हे नारद, यदि पुनः मीटिंगं लघुकथया विलम्बयिष्यसि, अहं प्रमोशनं न शिफारस्यामि।"
(Narad, if you delay another meeting with your stories, I won't recommend your promotion.)
Narad's eyes went wide. "That's management! We have to move now or I'm stuck in celestial helpdesk forever!" He grabbed Angat's newly formed arm. "No time for explanations—we're on the clock!"
As they began moving through the formless void, Angat had one last thought. "Narad Ji... if the system is this broken... what chance do we have?"
Narad gave him a look that was both weary and hopeful. "The system may be corrupted, Angat, but the source code is pure. We just have to remember how to understand it."