"Wake up, sleepyhead. The sun's already kissed half the sky."
Mrudhula's voice came with the scent of warm milk and tamarind chutney, drifting in through the small window of their hut. Hari stirred under his faded woolen sheet, his forehead slick with sweat. His eyes opened slowly, blinking against the sunlight filtering through the slats in the roof.
Another dream.
Another night lost in something he couldn't hold onto.
"Hari?" her voice called again, closer now.
"I'm coming," he said, voice hoarse.
He sat up and rubbed his face. His chest still felt heavy, his breath slow. The dreams had been happening for weeks now—maybe longer. Every night, they came like waves, swallowing him whole, leaving only fragments behind. And no matter how hard he tried to remember, they slipped through his fingers like sand.
All he could recall were feelings.
Heat. Wind. Screams.
And a voice. Distant, broken, calling out to someone—but not to him.
Never to him.
The morning unfolded like any other. The sun rose over the fields, painting the soil golden. Birds flew low over the rice paddies, and the village children began their daily chaos—running, yelling, pulling each other into games of tag and pretend sword-fighting with sticks.
Hari was already at the well by the time Ravi walked past with the oxen cart.
"Careful with that rope," Ravi said, nodding toward the handle. "It's loose near the pulley."
"I know," Hari replied, without looking. "I'll fix it after lunch."
Ravi paused. "You're quiet this morning."
Hari forced a smile. "Just tired. Didn't sleep well."
Mrudhula had already asked the same thing over breakfast. She'd even touched his forehead and asked if he was falling sick. He'd shaken his head, insisting he was fine.
But the truth was far stranger than he was ready to admit.
The first time the dreams came, they were vague—just flashes of light and roaring sounds, like waterfalls made of fire. But now… they were sharper. He didn't see faces, but he felt them. He didn't know names, but he woke up with foreign words on his tongue, burning until he swallowed them down.
Last night had been the worst.
He remembered standing on something—high, crumbling, ancient. The sky above had been blood-red, the earth below cracked and screaming with voices he couldn't see. Wind tore at his clothes, and something behind him—a shape, massive and glowing—moved like it was alive and angry.
Then a whisper in his ear.
"They must not awaken you."
And he had opened his mouth to ask who—who was he, who were they, and what was he supposed to do?
But the dream ended, like always, in silence and smoke.
That evening, Hari sat alone near the edge of the village, where the fields met the wild grasslands. He picked at the dry stalks of wheat and stared at the horizon. The sky had turned orange, and somewhere in the trees, a koel called out for its mate.
He could've told his parents.
He knew that. They would listen. They always did.
But what would he even say?
That he dreamed of storms? That he felt warmth in his hands when he was scared? That sometimes, when he stared at the river too long, it whispered back?
No. It would only worry them.
They had given him a life full of love. A simple life. One with soil under his nails and laughter in the wind. He didn't want to burden them with things even he didn't understand.
So, he chose silence.
One night, a few days later, Ravi and Mrudhula sat by the fire inside their hut, quietly sharing roasted peanuts. Hari was pretending to sleep, but their conversation drifted through the thin curtain that separated his bed from theirs.
"He's been different lately," Mrudhula said. "Quiet. Distant. He used to ask so many questions. Now he stares at the sky like it owes him an answer."
Ravi sighed. "He's growing. That's all. Boys go through changes."
"Not like this," she said softly. "There's something in his eyes, Ravi. Something… old."
Ravi was silent for a long while. Then he said, "Maybe he's not meant for this life. Maybe the gods gave him to us only to borrow him back one day."
Mrudhula's breath caught. "Don't say that."
"I don't want it either. But you've seen it too. He's different. And one day, someone's going to come looking for him. Or something's going to awaken in him. We have to be ready."
Hari turned his face to the wall, eyes wide open in the dark.
He had never felt more afraid… or more certain that his time of peace was slowly slipping away.
A week later, as the full moon rose above the hills, Hari woke in the middle of the night once again. But this time, he wasn't sweating. He wasn't panicked.
He was… calm.
In the dream, he had seen a massive gate.
Not real. Not made of wood or stone. It floated in a void of starlight, pulsing gently like a heartbeat. And behind that gate, he knew something waited.
Power. Fire. Truth.
He didn't reach out to it.
Not yet.
But he knew—deep down—that the gate would open someday.
And when it did, nothing in his quiet little village would ever be the same again.