And The Story Continues! [part 1] [Win Exiting Prizes]

…Joko was on his way home after working on his rice farm all day. The glowing light in the sky guided him home, like a night sun.
His foot hit a cylindrical object on a secluded path and, although he stumbled away with a hiss of pain, he was still curious about what it was.

With a flashlight he could see the object clearly; it looked unremarkable at first glance, it was like a cylinder carved using superior wood with swirls and spirals decorating the outer shell.

Joko took it home and examined the cylinder even more. As he did, the fragile top came off and a yellowed, rolled up parchment fell on the table. He looked at the paper apprehensively, his fingers tracing the unfamiliar drawing on it. It was a depiction of constellations, very clearly labeled and neatly drawn…but something about the constellations was wrong. Joko did not know them - not from the books he had seen at the village school, not from the stars he had looked upon on countless clear nights. The lines between the stars formed disgusting shapes, almost human and yet twisted, with too many limbs or hollow gaping mouths.

Beneath his fingers, the parchment began to hum, a low and sonorous sound, a lot like the revving of a machine. The ink of the drawing shimmered and then rippled as if it were alive. The constellations shifted, rearranging their positions to form a new and unrecognizable map. At the center of this new map was a star, a circle of interlocking spirals that pulsed faintly, like a heartbeat.

In an instant, the light from the outside sky was glowed brighter, streaming in through the gaps in Joko’s bamboo walls like liquid fire, pooling around the parchment and filling it with light. Shadows danced unnaturally across the room, stretching and twisting bizzarely.

Outside, people had run out of their houses, screaming in fear, crying out prayers. The light by now was blinding and blinked incessantly, like a beacon heralding destruction, and Joko could feel its heat from inside his house.

At that moment, he felt nothing but fear and dread.

It was obvious that the light in the sky was a beacon; something out there was on its way, and it was his curiosity that had hastened the process.

Whatever it was, he had opened a map that would lead it straight to Karyamukti…

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