Week 6 Storytelling: The Monster in the Mountains

Duryodhana did not always consider himself evil. In fact, He thought more that he was just misunderstood. When he was little his parents abandoned him in front of a firehouse and he never saw or knew them. He was put in foster care and had never known anyone to be family. Every once and awhile a family would come along and they that he would be a good son for them but a few weeks after his adoption he always found himself back in a foster home and he that’s the way he liked it. He made friends with the other fosters boys and grew up as a normal kid until the age of eleven.

                On his eleventh birthday he was in a strange house because he had been recently adopted. He did not like it much and he knew if he acted up he would be back with his friends. He made a plan to punch a hole in the wall once his "family" got home and convince them he was uncontrollable. Once the mother and father returned from work he ran to the front door and threw his strongest punch but instead of making a small hole in the door he completely removed the whole front half of the house. He stared at his hands as the parents called 911.

The woods Duryodhana lived in.
Wikimedia

                Sacred of himself and police involvement, he ran into the woods behind the house. He had never run as fast as he was and he was shocked at his own strength. Duryodhana ran for three days without stopping. He finally stopped when he was by a stream so he could drink some water. He set up camp and swore to never return to civilization.

                Every year on his birthday for the next seven years, Duryodhana would find himself possessing a new supernatural power. He tried to master his powers with his time in the woods but with a new one every year he found it hard to keep up. When he would try to cut down one tree his powerful swing would knock down seven or when he coughed he caught fire to his clothes.

                On his eighteen birthday, a solo hiker found him in the woods. After a long time of Duryodhana explaining who he was and why he lived in the woods the man decided to stay for dinner. Duryodhana was happy to have company after all these year but also feared for the man's life. During dinner the man introduced himself as Karna and the two instantly became friends. Karna would visit Duryodhana once a week and Duryodhana told Karna all of his secrets over time.

                Karna was not afraid of him and believed in the good he could do. Karna would challenge him to hold his breath long, run faster, and jump higher. Duryodhana looked forward to hear the challenges that Karna would make for him because he had always been to afraid to challenge himself. One day, Karna challenged Duryodhana to run up a mountain and come back in less than 2 minutes. Duryodhana had never completed the task in less than 5 minutes but he was determined. At the beginning and end of every race Duryodhana would tag Karna's hand to tell him to start or stop the clock.

                Duryodhana tagged Karna's hand and took off as fast as he could, kicking up dirt with each step. He got to the top of the mountain in less than 55 seconds and turned around with a smile. He raced down the mountain almost flying and as he reached Karna he was so proud of himself he did not hold back when tagging Karna's hand. As soon has their hands hit together they both her a terrifying crack. Duryodhana had cracked Karna's whole arm right off his body. Horrified, Karna ran back the town and told everyone about the horrible monster in the woods and Duryodhana lived the rest of his life alone.

Author's Note:

This week I used very little real facts from The Mahabharata. I used Karna as Duryodhana's friend because Karna swears his allegiance to Duryodhana in The Mahabharata. I changed Karna to be afraid of Duryodhana at the end because I wanted Karna to join his brother at the end of The Mahabharata but he did not. Another thing that is true to the original story is that Duryodhana has supernatural power. In fact, that was my inspiration. I felt that in The Mahabharata, Duryodhana had a new power in each episode. For example, at the end of the battle he is able to hide underwater which was never revealed to the reader before. The rest of the story was made up by me with no real other inspiration. Since I did not like Duryodhana in the original story, I decided to leave in exile at the end of the story. I made the time line in the modern age where foster homes exist and I made the setting somewhere with a large amount of woods that he would be able to run away in. Lastly, I made Duryodhana think of himself as misunderstood because I feel that there are two side to every story and usually both side think there thought process is right.

All accounts of The Mahabharata are found in The Public Domain found below
Mahabharata Online: Public Domain Edition