Most people start their day with alarms. The alarm buzzed faintly at 5:15 AM. Not the loud, annoying kind, but the soft digital beep Nischal had grown used to. He reached out from under his blanket, found the button without looking, and pressed it with a small sigh. The fan above spun slowly, lazily slicing through the hot, heavy air trapped under the tin ceiling. Summer in Tarahara didn't wait for noon to get hot—it started burning from the moment the first bird chirped.
Nischal sat up, blinking at the faint light creeping through the thin curtain. His room was small, but it was his. He'd gotten it just two years ago, after his elder sister insisted he needed space to study seriously. It wasn't much—just a bed with a hand-carved frame, a sturdy wooden desk, a shelf filled with books, and a small mirror hung on a nail—but it felt like the only corner of the world that belonged to him. His father, a carpenter, had made most of the furniture. The bed especially had character—the legs didn't creak, the polish was smooth, and the headboard had faint patterns only a craftsman would bother carving.
His house was always awake before him. Not because they were early birds. But because no one ever really slept peacefully.
His father was already outside hammering something for the neighbor. Outside, chaos had already begun. A spatula slammed onto a hot tawa. A child whined. A hen fluttered past the open back door. And then came the familiar voice—his mother, sharp and irritated as always in the mornings.
"Bihan 4 baje uthera kaam garna parcha malai! Timi haru chai din bhar stueko, sutei gara maharaj ka khalak haru!"
From the room, his elder sister responded. "Uthera sangai sangaudai chhu ta hau mummy! Na risaunu na. Aaile kaam ma jana dhila huncha malai."
"Tyo tero badar bhai lai utha ta! Class jana dhila vai sakyo tyo stueko le!"
This was Nischal's family. Chaotic. Loud. Misunderstood. But caring in ways no outsider would recognize.
At 6:20 AM, Sudan dai's bike pulled up outside the gate. Nischal stepped out with his bag — washed yesterday, still damp. He had tied a string to the zipper that kept slipping off.
"La, chad!" Sudan dai called out, already with Hariom sitting behind him.
Nischal nodded silently and got on. Tribhuwan chowk to Itahari. A 30-minute ride, bumpy and hot. No helmets. No seat padding. Just three boys on a worn-out bike and the kind of silence only people who didn't need to talk shared.
They were his Korean class friends — not college friends. Not childhood besties. Just boys from the same village chasing the same escape plan.
Korea. The land of factory jobs and new chances.
The EPS institute near Itahari chowk was small, blue, and smelled of dry marker ink. Inside, the teacher stood beneath a flickering tubelight and scribbled Korean grammar on a whiteboard already stained with ghost-letters from yesterday.
Nischal sat on the last bench. He didn't talk. He wrote everything down neatly. Underlined the tricky parts. It was a long one a half hour.
By 9:15 AM, they were back in Tarahara. Nischal walked the rest of the way home. His sandal was beginning to tear. He'd glue it again tonight.
He ate daal-bhat, reviewed vocabulary, and then pulled out his sketchbook. No one knew he could draw. On the last page was a girl in a blue sweater. Laughing.
As for his college life, he had two friends. His two friends at his college called him "Google." Not out of affection — out of convenience. He had answers for everything. Why airplanes don't fall midair. Why humans dream. How hydraulic presses work. How Buddhist meditation affects brain waves. The signs of depression. The cycle of rebirth. The caste dynamics of medieval Nepal. All except names. He was terrible at names.
Even after a semester, he still referred to his own classmate as "the one who always sneezes." And the senior who wore shades? "Cool goggles bro."
He was ignored most of the time. His opinions were ignored in his house, in between friends and also in his class. Even corrected the teacher once — quietly. The teacher didn't hear. Some other student said the same thing louder. Everyone nodded. Of course. So, he didn't talk much unless asked something directly. He laughed at jokes he didn't like. Nodded during conversations he didn't want to be in. Ignored subtle jabs about his clothes or his looks or his "weird quietness." Not because he didn't care. But because responding would make things worse.
He knew how people worked. He read them like equations. He knew who was fake-friendly, who was secretly kind, who used words like masks. He saw through them all.
And yet... He smiled anyway. Because surviving meant socializing. And socializing meant pretending.
----
Nischal was getting ready — freshly ironed shirt, hair still slightly wet, report packed neatly in a folder.
He stared at himself in the mirror. Not out of vanity. Out of disbelief.
> "Maybe I'll see her today..."
He quickly shook his head.
> Don't be stupid. She probably doesn't even know your name.
He called her blue wali — well, his friends did. Because one winter, she wore this deep sky-blue sweater every day. And in a campus filled with dull greys and dusty reds, she looked like a soft pop of color in a dry, fading world. He used to secretly admire her. He was already in the last year of college and he knew once the report was done he would never see ger again. She had different ambitions, dreams and was a fairy when she smiled. It was the truth and so he never had the courage to talk to her.
He liked her quiet smile, the way she adjusted her hair, how deep her eyes were and how she actually listened when professors spoke.
He had never spoken more than three words to her.
Maybe less.
He wasn't sure.
But whenever she passed by, his friends — especially Kumar — would grin and nudge him.
- "La Google, tero blue wali aai!"
"Tyo sweater sangai ta jasto mann pani pighlincha ta!"
He laughed it off, of course. That's what he did best.
But inside, every little interaction — every glance, every shared bench, every coincidence — replayed for hours in his head.
- Maybe I'll portray her into a sketch tonight...
He zipped his bag, slung it over his shoulder, and stepped outside.
He remembered their short conversation last week at the college office, when he'd gone to check his report.
"bibliography milenacha ali. Sir le mero report heri saknuvo bhayo jasto cha, aaba timro palo hola, k kati milcha malai dekhau la!?."
"Huss vai alcha ni, mero ni tannai mistake huncha hola haha" he had replied.
That was it. Just a moment. But enough.
At 11:34 AM, his phone buzzed.
Kumar: "Report dinu cha 2 baje samma. Sir le bhandai hunuhuncha. Pachi lidainan re."
His heart stopped.
He thought it was due at 3:00.
He grabbed the file. He didn't own a bike. Sudan had his own work, he was a family guy after all. Safari rides were full.
He ran.
Across the tarred road that burned like a stovetop. Past buffaloes. The animal farm , the litchi trees, he passed by honey comb and chicken farm, the fish pond and he finally reached Tarahara.
He reached the edge of the highway, he was about to cross the road.
He took a step.
Then — a horn. Loud. Sharp.
A truck swerved.
One wrong step on loose gravel.
A flash of white.
and In that final flicker, he saw his home, He thought of his mother struggling with back pain. His father's hands, his sister whom he used to share all his problems with, His college crush- 'blue wali' whom his friends used to tease him by and then, he saw light.
And silence.
---
There was no pain.
Only a strange sensation — like sinking and floating at the same time.
The sky was purple. The ground, gone. A ring of fire circled him slowly.
Symbols appeared — ancient, geometric, impossible.
Voices echoed in a language that wasn't Nepali, or English, or anything human.
> "He who bore sorrow with silence shall now awaken.
He who observed, unloved — shall now be seen.
The world beyond has not forgotten your flame."
And then—
Nischal opened his eyes.
A world unlike his own stood before him.
And something inside him had begun to glow.