Darkness didn't last forever.
Raghav slowly drifted back into consciousness.
At first, he thought this must be death.
Or perhaps… hell.
Because nothing made sense.
His body felt strange.
Weak.
Unresponsive.
He tried to move his arms.
They barely twitched.
He tried to open his eyes.
But everything around him was dark and blurry, like he was trapped behind a thick veil.
Panic slowly crept into his mind.
What is happening…?
He tried to breathe deeply.
But even breathing felt difficult.
Heavy.
Slow.
As if something surrounded his entire body.
Like he was floating inside a soft prison.
Or… inside water.
The sensation was suffocating.
His chest rose slowly, painfully.
Each breath felt shallow.
His limbs felt bound, as if invisible ropes held him in place.
No matter how hard he struggled, he couldn't escape.
Am I… trapped?
Raghav's thoughts moved slowly.
Sluggishly.
Like thick fog clouding his mind.
Fragments of memory drifted through his consciousness.
Rain.
Headlights.
The sound of metal crashing.
His wife's voice.
"I never loved you."
The memory stabbed his heart again.
Even here… wherever here was.
Pain followed him.
Time passed.
Or maybe it didn't.
He couldn't tell.
There was no day.
No night.
Only darkness and the strange pressure surrounding his body.
Sometimes he heard sounds.
Muffled.
Distant.
Voices perhaps.
But they were unclear.
Strange.
The words meant nothing to him.
They reached his ears like echoes from another world.
Occasionally, a faint light appeared through the darkness.
Dim.
Blurry.
But he could never focus on it.
His body was too weak.
Even thinking felt exhausting.
Soon his consciousness would drift away again.
Into sleep.
Sleep became his only escape.
When he slept, the memories faded.
The betrayal.
The pain.
The crash.
All of it disappeared into quiet emptiness.
But every time he woke up…
He was still trapped.
Still floating.
Still breathing through the strange suffocating prison around him.
A terrifying thought slowly formed in his mind.
Is this hell?
Was this his punishment?
To remain trapped forever…
Unable to move.
Unable to speak.
Unable to escape.
His thoughts grew slower with time.
The more he slept, the harder it became to remember things clearly.
Even the faces of his children began to fade.
Their laughter.
Their voices.
Their smiles.
All slowly dissolving into distant shadows.
Then one day…
The voices outside became louder.
Clearer.
He still couldn't understand them.
But something was different.
The world around him began to tremble.
The soft prison holding his body suddenly tightened.
Pressure surrounded him from every side.
For the first time since awakening—
Raghav felt fear again.
Something was happening.
Something big.
Something unavoidable.
The prison began to squeeze him.
Forcing his body forward.
Pushing him toward the faint light he had seen before.
The darkness started to crack.
The voices outside became urgent.
Loud.
Panicked.
And suddenly—
A blinding light exploded across his vision.