"Reality is often disappointing to those who Dream High, cause Reality likes to be simple. And what is simple to Reality is complex to us”

In a small cozy corner of a room lies a Sitar that looks like as if time has taken a toll on it. The rusty yet perfectly tuned strings waiting to be strummed and brought to life paint a picture of a well disciplined Musician. Next to it lies a table, an old Rosewood table . On it lie bundles of books and papers and all things stationery. As expected from a Teenager who’s just gotten into 11th Grade. The table also houses on it an old picture of an even Older man, a man with brown eyes, a bald head and the mark of wisdom, silver hair. In another corner, beside an open window lies an altar on which resides an idol of the Goddess of Wisdom and knowledge, Saraswati. Sitting next to her is the Preserver himself, Lord Vishnu laying on his Serpentine bed, Anantasesha. Ash is spread on the Altar from all the incense sticks that are burned as an offering to the various idols of the Gods.

Just opposite to the Altar, there is a bed, a typical Indian Rani bed with four wooden beams on the four corners of the bed to support the frame. Originally the frames were designed to hold curtains that the queens can close to ensure privacy. But that tradition is long gone, so as their establishers. The bed is covered in a clean, pure cotton bedsheet that has intricate patterns, all sorts of Indian motifs. On the bed lays a boy, a not so special looking boy deep in his sleep, exploring in the world of dreams or to be accurate The Ocean of Dreams while hugging tightly to his Kol balis.

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“Where am I? This place is familiar, am I on Howrah bridge?” Said the boy in utter shock and distress. “I was just sleeping in my room, soundly after finishing all those extra assignments. Oh god, this sucks. It’s even raining here” the boy is muttering in disbelief to himself. “But…. Wait a minute if this is Howrah bridge then how is the road so empty and silent. This is impossible!!!” he is bewildered by this realization. “This is too much to be Real. I guess… I am still sleeping….so, that means I am dreaming. Hmm. That’s more plausible but why is this feeling so real. Man! I am done.” He arrives on the conclusion that he is dreaming but is still kinda unsure. “the Howrah bridge is never free of cars, to the point that it is said that it’s never been dark and silent at the same time on the Bridge. So what’s gotten into it now?” Seriously confused, he starts looking around to check the situation a bit. “Looks like there’s been a lightout. A lightout this persistent in Kolkata… surely the authorities are getting lazy everyday. It’s raining quite a lot and the wind’s is in a bad mood too… ugh I would like to wake up now. This dream sucks. Why it’s so Real!!!!!!” he lets out a skreech with all the frustration that he has accumulated.. “ok, now calm down and let’s move out of this place. I am already pretty drenched. I need to get some shade” calming himself down he starts moving forward to look for some shelter in this heavy rainstorm. He is accompanied by furious gusts of wind and the rattling sound caused by wind beating on the bridge’s frame, making the bridge sway a bit. The River ganga underneath him is singing a song with it’s waves falling and rising, a song familiar yet new and furious.

“The atmosphere is Gloomy…. It’s Gloomy like hell… no .. It’s Gloomy like the mood I get when my mom forcefully puts bitter gourd in my plate and I have to finish it. Ugh!!!!! I hate Bitter gourd!!” . He still is moving forward but the bridge isn’t seeming to end, arriving on this thought he mutters to himself with his eyebrows raised, “I have been walking for more than an hour or more, but I haven’t reached the other side…. There is really something fishy going on. Umm, this is quite scary. I need help. Let me try calling for help”. He takes a long breath and with the full force of his lungs, he shouts out “Is anyone here? Please help me!!! I am lost and drenched. If anyone is out there please respond to my plea!!!! Hello!!! Somebody please respond!!!” he raised his voice higher and higher until it began to hurt. But it was all in vain. Not a single soul responded. The only reply he got back was the echoes of his own pleas. Disheartened and drenched he sat down in the middle of the road, with the hope of being saved chipping away to nothing. Two little streams of tears also now join the rain, going down his cheeks and falling on the road. With a shaky voice he says “This is very weird…. This is not right…. There is something very fishy going on up here. Something…. Urgh…. Something out of this world. Oh god I want to wake up now. Seriously I am scared now. Please help me God. Please…Hel…” he is interrupted by the sudden sound of a car horn at the most unexpected moment. “ There is a car out there. Finally!!!! I have hope. I still have hope. Oh yeah!!!. Let me call them for help”. Overjoyed and excited, he quickly stands up and wipes his tears and with his new found force fueled by hope he screams. “Hey over here!!! I am here!!!!”. He notices to lights beams coming from the distance in front of him. In the heavy rain he couldn’t see much, he could only see the headlights of the car and barely see the outline of the car. He then starts waving his hands in the air in order to signal them. “Over here!!!! Come here!!!”. He is overjoyed when he sees the car is moving towards him and the outline of the car is getting clearer and clearer. But then out of the blue he hears another horn, this one was different and was more heavy.

“What now? Another car is coming. No this sound, it is not from a car it’s something bigger. A truck!!!?”. He looks back and yeah it was a truck , a big oil truck honking quite robustly. He quickly moved out of the road, almost falling in the Ganga, it were not for the railing that’s there on the bridge. He hurries to set get on the footpath on the side of the road. To his dismay he hears a sound, a sound which you get when you slide a eraser on a wet white board. “looks like the tire slipped”. He quickly notices the honking truck slipping and losing control, the car that was coming to him started honking too. But to no avail, the weather took its toll and the car to that was coming towards him lost its control too and headed straight in front of Over speeding truck. “Drive to the left!! The Left!!!!” he shouts to the car driver. But he was late, in the brink of a second the Car brutally collided with the truck and hit the right railing of the bridge. The whole bridge was shaken. Pieces of concrete and the parts of the car exploded in all directions. The boy quickly hid behind a pillar of the bridge and was safe. But was terrified. Oil started spewing out. The scared boy was just about to peak from behind the pillar to analyze whether it’s safe for him to come out or not.

Suddenly the sky roared and sent all it’s might in the form of a lighting bolt, shattering down few of the cables in its way to destroy the two crushed vehicles. The vehicles already crushed and still were managing to keep their form up but the lightening destroyed the very frame of the truck and ignited the oil that was spewed all around. The tank on the truck exploded, causing a blast so destructive that it destroyed two lanes of the road and two columns of cables. This de stabilized the bridge, causing it to bend to the right. The fire kept spreading, following the flow of oil and burning each and everything that came it’s path. Our boy was still hiding behind the back of the pillar, luckily managing to escape the fire due to the tilt of the bridge to make the oil flow out of the bridge. “I want to go home!!! I can’t take this anymore. This is a freaking Nightmare.” He is completely fed up with the situation he is in. He has no control whatsoever on the environment. The sight of all the elements being engaged in an Intricate display of Nature’s wrath. The fear and uncertainty of death was chipping away our little boy. by this time he remembered about the drivers of the truck and the Car. “I don’t think they would have survived all of that… I mean nobody can.. Right?” he is confused whether he should go to check whether they are alive or not. “The fire is still quite furious, even in the rain it’s managing to survive and spread. This is only possible only due to the fact that this a dream. As this is a dream thus, I should not care about who is in there, any way it’s not going to be real….” Coming to this conclusion he starts carefully moving away from the fire and while holding the railing, or what’s left of it to keep himself from slipping from the now tilted footpath. When he has just taken two or three steps on the footpath, he heard a voice calling to him, asking for help. He started looking around to find the source, and to his horror the sound was coming from the car.

“This is… not possible. After all that. Oh boy, what am I saying, I have to help them”. He quickly leaves the relic and starts running towards them, not minding the fire. But the fire takes it’s toll on him, the fire burns through the jeans and damages the skin. This causes him to let out a shriek in pure pain and disarray. “Aah! It’s Burning!!! Ou! Ou! Now this is too Extreme for a dream!!! Why am I burning! This is supposed to be a dream.” Enduring the pain,he keeps moving forward the car with Determination in his eyes.” There’s no going back now” he says to himself pretty loudly to keep himself motivated. He kept pushing himself but the pain made the few meters now seem, like a few miles. He barely managed to reach the car.

But now the calls for help were not any longer there. There was only silence and smoke and heat all around. He tried to peek from the now cracked window. But the he could only see the back of a man wearing a white shirt. “He mister! Are you conscious? This is no time to sleep, wake up we need to go, the bridge is swaying badly” he started to pull the man out, but the man was heavy which lead to him falling on the road. He quickly put the man aside and then started checking his pulse. To his horror, he found no pulse, he kept checking, once from the wrist, once from near the cheeks, but it was of no use the man was dead. “He’s dead!! Uh! but I can’t stop here. I have to check for others too.” Closing the man’s eyes, he went towards the broken car to look if more people were there. His intuition was telling him there supposed to be more people there. When he looked again he found a airbag was guarding the left seat, but clearly there was an outline of a man's figure and a hand completely lifeless. Just when saw the hand a sudden shiver ran down his spine, he completely froze in fear, his eyes widened and his face became pale as if something had taken his soul out of him. He stuttered “No…it…can’t be…That watch… that’s impossible. That watch…. No, I am overthinking, there’s no way. I mean other people can also have the same watch, even though it’s an antique there’s no way. There’s no way.. right..”.

he then tried to deflate the airbag, but it didn’t shirk a bit, the whole car was so badly damaged that it the nothing in was functioning properly. “Dhurrr…… this stupid airbag is not even budging a bit and with each moment my anxiety and fear is killing, what a lovely combo. Let’s look for something sharp, to put this airbag to it’s final beauty sleep”. He then started looking in the car only to find the the back was also covered in by big airbags and in the dark he couldn’t see anything. Letting out a cry in tremendous frustration he said “Dhur!!! it’s already dark and hot here, I can’t see a thing and these Freaking piece of shit can’t keep anyone safe from catastrophes like these, but rather cause more nuisance.” In the dark he began to look for something sharp, but suddenly his hand encountered something soft, he reached a bit more and he could feel fingers. “There is someone here!” he shouted. He started pulling, but the airbags were still blocking the way. He was able to pull a bit of the person’s foot out. He then found out that the the person was wearing a saree. He stopped and paused for a moment, and then started carefully looking at the saree. He couldn’t see much but from what he got, made his heart almost stop for a moment.

“No!!! This is not possible!!!...This is ridiculous. This dream is ridiculously horrible. I can’t take this anymore… I want to wake up now… it’s a nightmare… please tell me it’s a Nightmare… Tell me..” he shouts with pain but nobody answers, only the howling wind. The shock makes him blank and before he could contemplate the complex circumstances he's in. A huge thud and cracking sound is heard. He tries to look outside the left window to look but, then the road cracks, the cracks widening every passing moment and eventually the road breaks down opening a cavity which swallows the car whole. The car fell through the cavity into the Roaring Ganga underneath.

Causing a huge splash in the River Ganges, the car starts it's momentary journey. As the car windows were open water started to flow inside the car, making the car starts sinking.

"Ahh!!!....Water is entering the car, it's sinking.... oh God!!! I can't swim!!! I am gonna drown!". He quickly tries to exit out through the window but then he remembers that he was not alone in the car. he turns back swiftly and starts to unbuckle the couple's seatbelts, while doing so, he's hands are getting covered in blood, but he's not in a State to care.

“Why aren't these belts coming off quickly, I mean why? of all the possible situations! why?” he was trying to unbuckle the unconscious women's seatbelt, but it was stuck. Quite badly stuck, it was not nudging a bit. The situation was not quite good, the water by that time was filled up to the steering wheel.

“Please help me God! Just for today!!! I never ask you for much, I always put up my prayers on time, I always sing you Bhajans, So please today help me get out of here... It's not only about my life but... of... their's as well...So please help me!!! this Once." The water by this time had engulfed them completely, at this point They were drowning and the Soaring and Roaring Ganga, ever Ruthless as ever kept sweeping them away downstream.

Our boy was Completely underwater at this point, he was trying to get some air by getting his head out of the window. All of which went in vain. They were atleast 5 ft underwater, and we're ever progressively sinking, with each passing moment their chances of survival were dwindling as our boy was running out of air. Still trying to open the seatbelt of the woman, completely exhausted. he's running out of air, lack of oxygen was now making his already lacking vision blurry. The already difficult task was getting even more difficult and complicated.

“Please, Please, just for today, just for now. please Help me. save me!!! someone!!!" Constantly praying inside. His hands going cold and sensation less. and just as when he was about to faint. The belt, unbuckled. All that effort in vain. The soared again a final time pushing our listless boy out of the drowning car.

All tired and exhausted, without even having an ounce of energy left in him to even think clearly, moving was something impossible. completely aware of the fact he submitted himself to the flow and river kept sweeping him down and deep in its unending dark depths. With all his little left strength he murmured “This if a Dream, no this Nightmare Suc..."

Before he was able to complete his sentence, he felt something. Something big, something large, he felt on his back. He felt that the flow of the water had completely calmed down and now the Soaring River was no more but now it was flowing calmly as if a small spring flows.

He then felt that thing was coiling around him. it completely coiled him from chest to feet. It felt to him as if he was engulfed by soft cushions which were covered by small smooth scales. He still was able to sense his surroundings somehow until now he was lifeless and had almost accepted being drowned to the Deep dark depths of the Ganges but now he felt as if his body is filled with energy and courage. Still confused he opens his eyes.

To his surprise the muddy dark atmosphere that he expected was not there, instead he was greeted by a clear marine hue, Glistening with the Moon Shinning bright above. He then looked at himself, completely covered engulfed in huge soft white coils of pure comfort. Still confused he looks down to find that the coils were extending down till the Unknown blue depths.

Just before he could contemplate anything, he takes a deep breath and to his surprise he was able to breathe. Completely taken aback from this, totally panicked. “This is seriously weird...” Suddenly a voice spoke,

"It's Time, the great awakening... it's here.. be prepared.. Time to wake up!!!"

Still dazed he looks up in the direction of the voice and Finds to Gigantic eyes, mystical eyes, beautiful Aqueous blue eyes, eyesstaring at him through his soul. He started to feel drowzy. he slowly fel began to fel asleep. While the voice kept repeating itself.

“Wake up, It's Time, The awakening is here.. Dreams and Reality, the boundary dwindling..”

Just before falling asleep he murmurs “Who are you, what's awakening?” he's eyes close and everything turn black.

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“oh, where am I, is this my room.” I stood up straight with a strong jerk. “That was mind-boggling. I almost died... That was a weird dream... But was that Really a Dream?"