---Vehan's P.O.V.---
Night settled and it got dark in my room as always.
Walls cluttered with paintings and posters,
a messy desk declaring me a certified procrastinator,
the same glass window.
Nothing out of place.
Nothing strange.
Except me.
My mind kept replaying the whole day on a loop.
Raghav's voice cracking.
Ayan's slap echoing in my ears.
Mira's eyes…
Sleep felt impossible.
My pillow was too hard.
I flipped it to the cold side still no help.
The sheets were warm from how much I was sweating.
I kept turning to the wall and then the other side,
back and forth, back and forth,
trying not to drown in my own thoughts.
I even tried counting backwards...
It always works but tonight my mind outran the numbers.
I started getting anxious. My chest tightened, not painfully, but something felt wrong.
Like something inside me was moving without my permission.
"Just sleep," I muttered, almost pleading.
Time blurred.
Minutes, hours, I don't know.
But at some point the exhaustion finally kicked in.
Darkness swallowed me.
And then... I was dreaming.
It wasn't a dream.
Dreams are vague.
This was too real.
The air reeked of rot.
Dampness clung to my skin.
My hands touched mud, thick and cold, not my bedsheet.
When I lifted my head, the world around me had changed.
Swamp water stretched out like a dying mirror.
Trees twisted in distorted shapes, branches curled like skeletal fingers.
The land looked dead… but breathing.
The sky above was bruised red, like it had been bleeding for hours.
And creatures that doesn't exist watched from the fog.
My heartbeat pounded in my throat.
Wait a minute! Why am I here?
This is a dream. A dream.
Right?
Except it didn't feel like one.
This place and everything here isn't supposed to be real.
Then I heard it.
A low, rhythmic clicking behind me.
Like bones tapping together.
Or something breaking over and over again.
My breath stopped.
I turned.
A tall, thin figure stood there!
Slender, jerky, trembling, like a puppet whose strings were being pulled by unsteady hands.
Its head twitched.
Its limbs creaked.
Its shoulders were uneven, arms too long,
and its hollow eyes glowed a bit dim, full of terrifying red.
The clicking grew louder.
Crrk. Crrk. Crrk.
It stepped toward me.
And behind it, through the fog, I saw a massive, infected tree... its bark cracked, its branches infested , a faint red glow pulsing inside its trunk…
Like a heartbeat.
Like my heartbeat.
It looked horrifyingly similar to the gulmohar tree in school.
My legs moved. I tried to run.
But the creature ran toward me, faster than it looked.
Suddenly, the world blurred.
Someone whispered my name.
And just before the creature reached me!
"Vehan! Vehan!"
I snapped awake.
Sweat drenched my shirt.
My fingers clawed into the blanket like I'd been falling from a height.
My sister, Kavya, stood beside me, panicked.
"You were shouting… what happened? Are you okay?"
I couldn't speak.
I stared past her, at the dark corner of my room... Kind of expecting something to step out.
She knelt down and wrapped her arms around me.
"Hey… it's okay. Calm down, bro."
But the sound didn't leave completely.
It faded slowly…
like something trying to follow me but stuck behind the boundary of a dream.
Crrk.
I swallowed hard.
Something had changed.
I didn't know what.
But I could feel it... Deep inside my bones.