Everything is blurred.
Not the gentle blur of sleep, not the watery distortion that tears leave behind. This blur feels deeper, heavier—as if the world itself has forgotten how to stay in focus.
My head is splitting.
The pain is not sharp; it is worse than sharp. It is a dull, crushing pressure building inside my skull, like something trapped within my mind is trying to break free through bone and flesh. Every pulse of blood feels violent. My heartbeat echoes loudly in my ears, each thud shaking the fragile stillness around me.
Thud.
Thud.
Thud.
For a moment I cannot tell whether the sound is coming from inside my chest or somewhere outside in the darkness.
Cold.
That is the first thing I truly register.
The floor beneath me is freezing. The chill seeps slowly through my cheek, through my jaw, through the side of my neck. The stone is mercilessly cold, the kind of cold that does not merely touch the skin but travels inward, settling deep inside the body.
I try to move.
The effort feels enormous.
My fingers twitch weakly against the floor. The surface feels smooth—marble, perhaps—but the texture seems strangely distant, as though my hands belong to someone else.
The air smells faintly of dust and old paper.
Somewhere far away I hear rain.
A steady, relentless rainfall tapping against glass windows.
For a moment the sound comforts me.
Rain always had a way of calming the mind.
But tonight the sound feels distant, almost unreal, like something happening in a world that is not mine.
My chest tightens suddenly.
A sharp pain shoots through my ribs and settles beneath my sternum.
My breath stutters.
I try to inhale again, but the air feels too thin, too fragile. My lungs expand only halfway before another wave of dizziness crashes through me.
Darkness presses closer.
Not ordinary darkness—the kind that disappears when you switch on a light.
This darkness feels dense.
Heavy.
Alive.
It surrounds me like deep water.
I blink slowly, trying to force my vision to clear.
Nothing changes.
The ceiling above me is nothing but shadow.
The room feels enormous and empty, yet strangely suffocating at the same time.
For a moment a terrifying thought slips quietly into my mind.
Where am I?
The question floats there, unanswered.
My memory feels fractured.
I try to recall how I came here, what I was doing before this moment, why my body feels like it has been abandoned inside an unfamiliar place.
Nothing.
Just fog.
Then suddenly—
A beam of light slices through the darkness.
The brightness is violent.
I flinch instinctively as the sharp white beam lands directly on my face.
My eyes burn.
A voice follows the light.
"Hey… uthho… yeh sone ki jagah nahi hai."
The words reach me slowly, as if they must travel through thick layers of water before entering my ears.
The beam moves closer.
"Wait… kya tum theek ho?"
My eyelids feel impossibly heavy, but I force them open.
The light stings.
For a moment all I see is brightness and shadow, shapes dissolving into each other. Then slowly a face emerges behind the beam.
A man.
Older.
Concern etched across his features.
A security guard.
I try to speak, but my throat feels dry and fragile, like something inside me has forgotten how to form words.
"Ahh… mera… sar…"
The words barely escape my lips.
The man kneels beside me quickly.
His voice is sharper now, worried.
"Hey! Sun rahi ho? Tum theek ho?"
My vision spins again.
The ceiling seems to tilt sideways.
I struggle to focus on the man in front of me.
"Uncle… main… kahaan hoon?"
My voice trembles, thin and unfamiliar even to my own ears.
"Yeh jagah… kya hai? Main… yahan… kya kar rahi hoon?"
For a moment he simply stares at me.
Confusion crosses his face.
Then realization dawns.
"Tum library mein ho!" he says quickly. "Library band ho chuki hai. Bahut der ho gayi hai. Raat ke 1:30 baj rahe hain."
Library.
The word echoes strangely in my mind.
Library.
Rows of books.
Silence.
Study tables.
Dim lights.
But the memory refuses to form clearly.
The guard continues speaking, his voice rising with concern.
"Tum andar kaise reh gayi? Itni der tak kya kar rahi thi yahan?"
His questions swirl around me like distant noise.
My head is spinning again.
The darkness thickens.
For a brief moment it feels as if the entire room is dissolving.
The shelves disappear.
The ceiling vanishes.
The light becomes a distant star floating above a vast black ocean.
And suddenly—
I feel like I am drowning.
Not metaphorically.
Not emotionally.
Physically.
Cold black water closes around my body.
Deep.
Endless.
The sensation is so vivid that my lungs begin to panic.
The water feels heavy, ancient, suffocating.
It pulls at me slowly, patiently, as if it has been waiting for me to fall into its depths.
I try to gasp for air.
My chest refuses to cooperate.
The pressure builds rapidly inside my ribs.
My heartbeat is no longer steady.
It has become chaotic.
Wild.
Uncontrolled.
The guard's hands grip my shoulders.
"Beta? Beta! Kya hua tumhe?"
His voice sounds distorted now, like something heard from underwater.
I try to answer him.
I truly do.
But the words refuse to form.
The darkness closes further.
My vision narrows until only a thin circle of light remains.
The guard's face becomes distant.
His voice stretches into a long echo.
"Beta… sun rahi ho…?"
My body suddenly feels weightless.
Then—
DHAADMMM.
The impact reverberates through the marble floor as my body collapses fully.
For half a second the world becomes silent.
Completely silent.
Then panic erupts around me.
"Arre! Kya hua? Beta! Sun rahi ho?"
Footsteps shuffle.
Fabric rustles.
A phone appears in the guard's shaking hands.
"Hello! 108! Jaldi ambulance bhejiye! Ek ladki behosh ho gayi hai—haan, library mein—breathing fast thi—please jaldi bhejiye!"
His voice grows distant.
The rain outside continues to fall, steady and indifferent.
Inside the silent library, surrounded by thousands of unmoving books, my body lies motionless against the cold marble floor.
But somewhere deep within the darkness of my mind—
Something has awakened.
And it is watching.