To the seeker in all of us.
SAMPLE PREVIEW
To the seeker in all of us.
I was standing on a rope bridge that felt older than memory.
The ropes were frayed, the planks bent in strange bows, every part of it looking personally insulted that I’d dared to step on it. Below me… not quite fog, not quite water. Something in between. Thick. Living. Breathing. A bronze bell floated on its surface, turning slowly — as if keeping an eye on me.
Then the whistle came. A long, sharp, impossible train whistle.
I spun around. Tracks had appeared behind me — woven straight into the rope bridge, as if someone had glued two nightmares together. Far on that impossible line, a train was climbing upward, straight into the clouds. For a moment, it looked like it might vanish into the sky itself.
Then it shifted direction. It wasn’t climbing. It was coming for me.
At the other end of the bridge stood a man. Back turned. Robes old enough to be archaeological artifacts. He didn’t react to the charging train or the groaning bridge or the river-creature below us. He just stood, utterly still, like he’d been carved from patience.
“Hello?” I called out. The wind shredded my voice. The bridge swayed violently, and I was clinging to it with the desperation of a drowning man.
“HEY!” I shouted.
The man didn’t turn. But the wind brought me shreds of his voice, thin as paper: “…wrong… bridge…”
The train’s lights erupted behind me, bleaching the world white. The voice came again — louder, but torn by the storm. “…wrong… wrong bridge…”
And then, at last, the man lifted his head. Still not turning. Still statue-still. But his voice boomed through the storm: “ANANT! YOU ARE STANDING ON THE WRONG BRIDGE!”
The words hit me a heartbeat before the train did. I spun—too late. The left rope snapped. Then the right. The world vanished from under me. I fell — straight through the fog-water, into a darkness that felt endless.
Something cold touched the back of my neck. I jolted awake.
Chest tight. Breath ragged. T-shirt stuck to me with sweat. My room was still. Silent. Real. Pale moonlight spilled through the window. I lay there staring at the ceiling, heart thundering, as the last wisp of the dream slid through the darkness: You are standing on the wrong bridge.
And in that moonlit quiet, it didn’t feel like a dream. It felt like a warning.
The cold from the balcony followed me back inside, clinging to my t-shirt like a second skin. I slid the glass door shut, sealing out the gray NCR morning, but the silence in the room felt different now. Thinner. Fragile.
It wasn’t really morning yet. It was night pretending to be morning, the kind of in-between time where the body is awake but the world hasn’t admitted it.
I sat on the edge of the bed for a while, shivering, trying to let the last echo of wrong bridge dissolve into the walls. But the walls just stared back, blank and cream-colored, indifferent to my internal collapse.
The room stayed dark, but it wasn't cool. The oil heater in the corner clicked—a sharp, metallic tongue-cluck in the silence—and then resumed its low, electric hum. It smelled of burnt dust and trapped heat, a stark contrast to the living, breathing cold I’d just stepped out of.
I lay back down, but I didn't close my eyes. Sleep was a distant country I’d been exiled from. Instead, I watched the ceiling. The pale moonlight was retreating, sliding across the floorboards like a tide that didn't want to touch me.
I lay there for a while, maybe thirty minutes. Frozen. Just breathing in the dry heat, listening to the city slowly groan into existence. A car horn in the distance. The rattle of a security guard’s stick.
I watched the red digits of the alarm clock. 5:58... 5:59.
It was a standoff. At precisely 6:00, just as the internal mechanism clicked to fire, I slammed my hand down on the off button. A petty victory. A pathetic attempt at dominance over a Rs. 300 tyrant. But it was the only control I had.
I swung my legs off the bed. Another workday. Another rerun.
I forced myself up. The stretch was mechanical—a systems check for a machine that was already flagging. In the bathroom, I splashed icy water directly onto my face. The shock was violent. I looked up at the mirror. The face staring back looked hollow. The eyes were dark, rimmed with the kind of exhaustion that sleep doesn't fix.
You are standing on the wrong bridge.
Then, the uniform. Shower. Shave. Shirt. The white cotton was crisp, stiff. It felt less like clothing and more like packaging.
Next came the tie. I didn't fight it. I flipped the collar up and draped the silk strip around my neck. Cross. Loop. Through. Tighten. A voluntary noose for the corporate soldier.
Two slices of bread. Dry. Tasteless. Fuel, not food. Shoes. Polished to a lie. Keys. Wallet. ID card. Everything was normal. Routine. Predictable.
And yet, as I stood by the door, hand on the latch, the disparity hit me again. The apartment looked exactly the same as it had yesterday. But it felt… misaligned. Like a stage set where someone had moved the props two inches to the left.
I unlocked the door, the bolt sliding back with a heavy thud. I stepped out into the corridor, inhaling the smell of floor cleaner and other people's breakfasts.
I was walking into a day that looked exactly like yesterday. Exactly. And that was the most terrifying part of all.