Aman had finally done it. He was officially a doctor. He stood there the weight of the degree finally sinking in, feeling a rare surge of pure, unadulterated pride. So many had fallen by the wayside, crushed under the relentless pressure of exams and the soul sucking exhaustion of forty eight hour shifts. But he had endured.
He knew, however, that he hadn't walked that path alone. Sophie had been his gravity. They had become each other's anchors in a sea of medical textbooks and caffeine fueled madness. Whenever Aman was on the verge of total breakdown and he was human, he had broken more then once, Sophie was the one who reached into the dark and pulled him back. He looked at his reflection in the mirror, then turned to her: she was beaming at him, her face lit with a triumph that matched his own
They had survived . "We're doctors now Aman. That means the era of sleeping until noon is officially over". She told him, her voice a perfect blend of firm authority and playful teasing. " We have to start looking after our own health before we can even think of touching a patient".
Aman, a notorious night owl who thrived in the quiet hours of 3:00 AM, just groaned. Even during the peak of medical school, he had always found a way to squeeze in a few hours of gaming to keep his sanity. " What do you mean i can't play video games anymore?" he asked, his lips twitching into a grin " is that in the Hippocratic oath now?"
"Shut up dork, i have a present for you", she said snagging his arm and dragging him towards the door. Her apartment was a reflection of her mind: clean, minimalistic, and organized. Shelves were packed with clinical precision and a coffee table sat dead center in the living room. But the walls....the walls were different story. They were covered in bizarre paintings, violent splatters of colors and jagged lines that looked like a child had been given a brush and a nightmare.
Aman sighed internally. "This generation has a weird taste in art". He didn't notice the way the colors seemed to swirl if he looked at it for too long. "So coffee or beer?" she asked heading for the kitchen. "Only an idiot would drink coffee in this heat. And besides, i have tasted your coffee, i would like to keep my stomach living thanks".
The banter was easy, a familiar rhythm they had perfected over years of friendship. Finally, Sophie emerged. She was holding a wall clock. "You didn't have the decency to pack it, did you?" Aman asked, his grin widening as he took the gift. "Shut up dork. Just take it she snapped back.
For a second, their eyes met. Her blue eyes were soft, yet they held a depth Aman couldn't quite navigate, a swirling oceanic intensity that made the room feel a fraction smaller. Back in the present, Aman stood in the suffocating silence of his apartment, staring at that very same clock. It had been years since she gave it to him. He wasn't a superstitious man, but the rhythmic, steady tick-tock of that specific clock was the only thing that could truly calm his mind after a long day of blood and bone.
Now, the pendelum was frozen. The silence was deafening. " I hate going out in this heat," he muttered to the empty air, his sounding thin without the clock's accompaniment. He grabbed his keys. He didn't care about the sun pr the sweat. He needed those batteries. He needed the heartbeat of his room to start again.
Aman rarely ventured after his shifts. The hospital was a vacuum that sucked the life out of him, leaving him with just enough energy to collapse into bed and order his world through a smartphone screen. He was a man of digital convenience. But today, a strange, phantom impulse tugged at his sleeve. He wanted to go on an " adventure" " chuckles".
That voice again, dark, amused and echoing in the hollows of his skull. "An adventure that will change his life forever." The moment he stepped out of the apartment building, the world tilted. Banaras was in the grip of a scorching afternoon; the sun was a white hot eye that seemed personally offended by everyone beneath it.
Yet, Aman's body began to turn ice cold. He touched his own forearm and recoiled, his skin felt like it had been stored in a morgue freezer. "what is happening to me?" he wondered, his brow furrowing in a mix of professional concern and primal fear. "Earlier i was a furnace, and now i am a corpse". "Did i pick up some rare tropical pathogen in the ward?".
His Harley was parked just a few feet away, its chrome mocking him in the sunlight. But a heavy invisible hand seem to push him toward the sidewalk. He felt compelled to walk. "Fate is a vicious comedian." the voice mused. " it makes a man walk when he has the wings of a machine."
As he walked, a prickle of unease climbed up his spine, sharp as a needle. He glanced over his shoulder. A large, ink black dog was trailing him, its movement silent and predatory. Aman wasn't startled, strays had always been drawn to him, as if they sensed a kindred loneliness. The first shop was a mere two minutes walk . " Bhaiya battery hai kya ?"( Brother do you have batteries?) Aman asked, his voice sounding thin in the heavy air.
"Nahi bhaiya abhi khatam hua," ( No brother they just finished) the shopkeeper replied without looking up from his accounts. Aman sighed, the cold in his bones deepening. I should have just taken the bike. He set off for the next shop, five minutes further into the maze of the city. The black remained a few paces behind, the rhythmic click-click-click of his claws on the pavement matching the beat of Aman's slowing heart. "Is he hungry?" Aman wondered.
He stopped and turned, reaching down to pat the beast's head "Ruk tujhe dukan mein jake biscuit deta hoon," ( Wait, i will give you biscuits when we reach the shop,) he murmured, his doctor's instinct to care for the living overriding his fear. He turned back to the road, and that's when the bells began.
Clang, clang, clang. The rhythmic tolling from a nearby temple cut through the city's noise. "snIff", Aman's nose wrinkled. A sharp, unmistakable scent of raw alcohol filled his nostrils, thick enough to taste. There were no bars here, no liquor stores, just ancient stone and incense. As he reached the iron gates of the temple his footsteps faltered.
A figure stood there, framed by the temple's shadows, watching Aman with a haunting, knowing smile. The man's face was as pale as fresh snow, his hair a shock of ash, grey. But it was the eyes that stopped Aman's breath, they weren't human. They looked like twin pits where something ancient and violent was being kept was being kept behind bars of fire.
In a heartbeat, the ice in Aman's veins turned to gasoline. The freezing cold was replaced by a searing, agonizing heat that felt like his skin was being melted from the inside out. He gasped, clutching his chest, his eyes locked in the stranger it was the same man. The monk from the operating table. The man who was supposed to be sedated, intubated, and clinging to life in he ICU.
He was standing. He was smiling. And he was waiting.