Raghav lived an ordinary life. In the bustling city of Jaipur, he worked a steady office job, met friends on weekends, and followed routines so predictable they seemed etched in stone.
Every morning began the same way: the shrill cry of his alarm at 7:30 AM pulling him from sleep. Tea, toast, and the familiar, faint hum of the metro outside his window. His life felt like the spreadsheets he spent his days buried in—neatly formatted, painfully dull.
By 9 AM, he sat at his desk in a mid-sized financial consulting firm. His fingers moved methodically over the keyboard, tweaking numbers, creating charts for meetings he barely cared about.
"Raghav, the Q3 report—again, please," his manager's voice sliced through the monotony, as repetitive as the task itself.
Lunch was uneventful: dal chawal or a sandwich eaten half-listening to whispered office gossip. He preferred the background noise—white noise—to real conversation. Sometimes, he texted friends about weekend plans—a movie, a drink—but even those moments felt like echoes of better days.
His coworkers were polite but distant. Small talk revolved around traffic, weather, the latest cricket match. No one shared much, no one asked.
It suited him fine.
Evenings were quieter still. He cooked something simple or ordered food online. Then he spent hours scrolling aimlessly, reading meaningless headlines, or lost in books. Sometimes he called his parents.
"Fine," he said, the word tasting hollow, a lie both sides accepted.
His thoughts felt heavy, his ambitions dimmed. Life had shrunk into survival.
That night was supposed to be like any other.
But when sleep came, it did not come gently.
He didn't know when it happened, but he wasn't just dreaming. No, this was something else—something deeper, something more real.
Raghav opened his eyes, expecting the soft glow of his apartment, but instead found himself standing in the middle of a city. A city that was… destroyed.
Buildings stood in ruins, their once-towering forms now crumbled heaps of concrete and steel. The streets were empty, save for the occasional figure shuffling aimlessly through the wreckage.
The sky above was a deep, sickly red—like a giant bleeding wound hanging over the city. The air was thick with an oppressive silence. No honking cars. No bustling crowds. Just the sound of his own breath in the stillness.
Raghav's heart thudded in his chest. Where the hell am I? is any of this is real?
He took a cautious step forward. Glass crunched beneath his shoes. The silence was so absolute it rang in his ears.
Fear shot through him. What is this place?
He took another step, his legs suddenly felt heavy, as if the ground were pulling at him. His head spun. He couldn't make sense of it. This wasn't a place he recognized. This wasn't real.
He turned, looking for an escape, then the ground rumbled beneath his feet.
In the distance, a towering gate creaked open with a sound like grinding metal and tearing flesh. From the darkness beyond, creatures emerged.
Some walked like men. Others crawled or slithered, their bodies twisted into nightmarish forms—bone, claw, shadow, flame.
Raghav stumbled backward, his breath quickening. What the hell is this? What is happening? His chest throbbed with panic. He turned to run, but his feet felt heavy. His legs refused to move.
"No! I have to get out of here!" he screamed—but his body wouldn't respond.
The monsters advanced. One turned toward him, glowing eyes boring into his soul.
Just then, a blinding flash of light pierced the sky, followed by a thunderous roar. A nuclear missile streaked overhead, and with a silent explosion, it struck the monsters. The blast shook the earth, sending debris flying in all directions. The monsters died—disintegrated into ash, their twisted bodies vaporized by the sheer force of the strike.
Raghav's pulse slowed, but only for a moment. From the smoke and destruction, more monsters emerged. They just wouldn't stop. More came.
Panic took over. Raghav's mind raced. A nuclear strike? Where am I? Am I dead? am I dreaming? Why can't I wake up?
He was looking around to find something or anything that made sense. Just then, his eyes were drawn to a flickering screen—somehow still working amidst the ruin—almost hidden on the side of a broken tower.
On it, he saw Priya—his friend from college. Her face was a mask of profound grief and desperate urgency, looking far older than he remembered. Her hair was streaked with gray. Her eyes were sunken deep into their sockets. Her shoulders sagged with an unspeakable weariness that went bone-deep. She stared straight into the camera, her breath ragged. Her voice, when it came, was a raw, creaking whisper—thick with unspoken terror, as if each word tore at her throat.
"It is the year 2050," she said, her gaze piercing, her expression hollow. "And the world's population… is now just under 500 million." Her voice cracked, full of pain.
Raghav froze.
"Only 25 years ago, we lived normal lives—jobs, families, cities full of people, but then the world changed and the systems collapsed." In just 25 years, the population of the world dropped.
The screen flickered again. Static hissed in the background. "We didn't think it would happen this fast. But it did. No one was ready." She looked down, then back up at the camera. "If this footage survives… remember what we lost."
The feed cut.
Raghav stared at the broken TV, his mind a swirling mess of disbelief. Was this real? Was any of it?
Suddenly, he noticed a man running toward him, panic in his eyes. Behind him, one of the monsters was closing in. The man's desperate gaze met Raghav's, as if pleading for help.
Raghav reached out instinctively.
But his hand passed through the man like mist.
The man screamed as the monster tore him apart, his cries swallowed by the surrounding destruction, but his eyes were still fixed on Raghav, pleading for salvation.
Raghav wanted to scream.
He wanted to run.
He wanted to save him.
But he couldn't move. His legs were rooted to the ground.
The monster turned toward him, its glowing eyes locked on his. It took a step forward. Raghav tried to run. But it was like his body was no longer his own. He tried to scream again, but all that came out was a strangled gasp.
Then, the darkness took him.
He gasped awake. His body was soaked in cold sweat, his pajamas clinging uncomfortably. He sat up, shaking uncontrollably, his hands gripping the edge of his blanket as if it could keep him from falling back into that nightmare.
The room was dark. Silent. Almost too quiet after the storm of the dream. His heart hammered in his chest, a frantic drum. The fan above spun slowly, its gentle whirring seemingly unaware of the horror he'd just lived through.
He tried to breathe slowly, tried to make sense of it. But already, the dream was falling apart in his mind—like a sandcastle washed away by a rogue wave. He remembered flashes—Priya's terrified face, the impossibly red sky, the monstrous gate, the creatures, the blood. But the details were slipping away fast, like smoke in the wind—just out of reach.
He wiped his face, his skin clammy, and stared into the oppressive dark of his room. What had he just seen? And why did it feel so incredibly real—like a memory, not just a dream?