The Kingdom Of Crucio

“Grandma! Grandma come, come!”, shouted the kid from her bed.

“What what? what happened?”, questioned the grandmother who was out of her breath from running up the stairs at full speed.

“I am not sleepy at all”.

With a frown on her face, the grandmother replied, “I told you not to sleep in the evening time Betty dear. You will not get proper sleep in the night and wake up the next day all grumpy and sleepy. That is why you don’t understand anything in the maths class”.

“I am sorry!”, said Betty with puppy eyes and a sad face which was a technique nine-year-old Betty invented to use whenever her grandmother is mad at her.

“I am very sleepy Betty dear and you are wide awake. What should we do?”, asked the grandmother.

“How about a story?”, asked Betty.

“No, said her grandmother. She continued, “You tricked me multiple time by asking me to recite a story for you and you did not sleep for the entire night”.

“No Grandma, I promise I will do my best to sleep after the story.

With little confidence on her trickster granddaughter, she went downstairs to get some coffee to prevent herself from sleeping.

“Ready?”, asked the grandmother.

“But where is the story book grandma?”, questioned Betty

“I don’t need a story book for this special story my dear. The story I am about tell you is still fresh in your grandma’s mind”.

“Yaaay let’s start then!”, said Betty with a bright smile on her face.

-X-

The hero of our story goes by the name of Ethan Griffin, who is a handsome young man from the city of Westchester. Ethan did his degree in archaeology during his college days which was an unusual study to take during his time. After finishing his graduation he joined as a Junior Epigraphist at a private company. He quickly progressed in his career through hard work and eventually became an Archeologist at a government museum.

One day he got a call from the museum about a newly discovered cave at the bottom of a waterfall that could contain ancient artefacts. Though it is extremely difficult to reach the cave, with the right tools the archaeology team was able to do it. The team was able to get inside the cave which looked enormous. The contents inside the cave looked like remnants of a king’s chamber which was a treasure as it was left untouched and Ethan’s team was the first to reach there.

Ethan was inspecting the room and the throne of the King caught his interest. He got suspicious as the throne was extra wide than a usual throne. He started to question the reason behind a wider throne. The team completed its first day of the inspection and everyone was on their way to their campsite while Ethan continued his research. He was translating the inscriptions of the throne and concluded the name of the kingdom to be Crucio. Sleep-deprived and exhausted Ethan continued to research the inscriptions at the back of the throne. He wished to travel back in time and ask the King himself about his kingdom instead of the extensive research.

After a minute of translating the inscription at the back of the throne, Ethan suddenly heard a ‘tick’. He accidentally touched what seemed like a trigger switch which opened a portion of the throne the size of a hole. The hole was as big as a car window. He went to call his subordinates about his discovery but knew they would be asleep after a day of hard work. He could not wait till the next day to investigate the content behind the throne and decided to continue his investigation. He jumped into the hole which leads to a narrow passage. Ethan walked towards a dark passage until he hit a dead end. He slowly touched and slid his hand across the wall and pushed when he felt the trigger switch just like the one on the throne. A similar hole opened up at the top of the door. Ethan climbed up the hole and jumped to the other side. He found himself at a similar place which was at the backside of the same throne which perplexed him. He found it odd that it was the same room and throne. However, this was not inside an old cave anymore. Ethan had reached the actual kingdom of Crucio but was bemused as the science he was taught could not explain it. The king’s chamber was well lit with fire around the chamber and guards were positioned at the entrance of the chamber. He quickly tried to hide when he was seen by one of the guards. He embraced himself and tried to defend himself when the guard politely asked him.

“Your majesty, do you need anything? It’s a rare occurrence to see you awake at this time”.

Ethan did not understand what is happening and replied with a yes.

“You look to be in deep thought, your majesty. Can I get you anything to drink?”

“Yes”.

“What would you like?”

“Surprise me”, said Ethan as the guard walked away. He scrammed out of the chamber in search of a place to hide. He exited the chamber and entered the King’s Lair. Ethan saw a framed picture of the King himself who looked very similar to him. Ethan knew the reason why the guard thought he was the king. He kept moving from one place to another in search of an exit. Though Ethan was noticed by some of the guards, they did not question because of the similarity between the King and him. He finally escaped the Kingdom and walked towards his home but found only farmland in the place where his house was situated. Ethan knew right away that science stopped when he climbed inside the throne that day. After a few checks on the discovery, Ethan concluded that it was indeed the lost treasure of King Delroy Conrad and his Kingdom of Crucio. The legend of the throne was declared to be false by archaeologist ten years ago. The legend which proved to be true states that King Delroy Conrad had built a throne with the materials of a fallen super asteroid and it accidentally became supernatural. The throne had the power to travel through any time period the traveller wished for provided the traveller knows where the trigger switch is situated on the throne to open the portal. This proved how the King although having relatively smaller manpower for the defence was never dethroned and lived on until his successors declared the state to be independent. The traveller would be able to travel to any time but would arrive at the same location of the throne. Ethan knowing the ultimate discovery he made sneaked back inside the kingdom before dawn and travelled back to the present time to unravel his discovery to the modern world.

Upon reaching the present, Ethan called his boss on his phone to announce the discovery but hesitated to speak once his boss attended the call. Instead of telling the discovery Ethan abruptly ended the call. He knew that time travel is not something humans are ready for and knew there are evil people who exist in the world who would misuse time travel. He wrote all of the secrets about the throne and submitted it along with his will to his wife and daughter who would know about it after his death.

The End.

-X-

“Dear, you know that your grandmother’s last name is Griffin?”, asked the grandmother as she turned towards Betty who was already fast asleep.