Raghav fell asleep the moment his head hit the pillow. His body had given out completely. After an entire night of thrilling, terrifying discovery—controlling files, launching apps, even bending video playback with just a thought—he had pushed himself to the very edge of collapse. His mind, usually so active, finally surrendered to the sheer physical exhaustion.
There was no time left to think about the disturbing dreams he'd had before, the ones he barely remembered. No room in his head for questions about what had happened days earlier, the red sky or Priya's desperate face. He didn't remember Priya's face.
He didn't remember the grotesque monsters pouring out of the gate in the sky. Only the powerful, exhilarating rush of what he could do now, this impossible ability, lived brightly in him.
And the dream returned.
It was bright. The sun was high, casting long shadows on the smooth pavement of a vibrant city. For a moment, Raghav thought he was awake again—because everything looked too clear, too sharp to be a dream.
He looked around; a wide cityscape stretched beneath him—bustling, crowded, alive with the everyday rhythm of human life. It was undeniably Hangzhou. He recognized the towering skyline, the sheer density of the crowds, the distinct buzz of daily life playing out under a deceptively bright morning sun.
People were everywhere: walking briskly, talking loudly on their phones, laughing freely, rushing to unseen destinations. Vendors called out their wares, selling steaming hot buns and cheap cigarettes on the sidewalks. Traffic blared through intersections, a familiar, chaotic symphony. Everything was as it should be, vibrant and ordinary. But Raghav felt uneasy.
He glanced around again. Something was off—not with the city, but with the way he felt inside it.
"Why am I here again?" he whispered aloud, his voice lost in the city's calm noise. "Why another dream?"
And then, like a switch being flipped, everything changed.
The ground beneath him shook. It started as a tremor, almost playful—barely enough to make people pause. Someone laughed nervously and looked around. A cup rattled on a table. A dog barked in the distance.
Then the tremor became a roar. A sharp, heavy thud, like something impossibly massive slamming into the planet's very spine. It wasn't a rumble; it was a single, devastating blow. Dust and glass exploded into the air.
A car veered sideways and dropped straight into a yawning pit that opened in the middle of the street. Children screamed, clutching their teachers. A vendor's cart tipped over, fruit scattering like marbles.
People stopped instantly. Heads snapped up. They looked around, confusion turning to dawning fear on their faces. Then the world truly convulsed. Buildings began to sway violently, a sickening dance.
Glass shattered from hundreds of windows at once, raining down like deadly shards of ice. A massive skyscraper nearby groaned, a sound of tortured metal and concrete, then twisted slowly, grotesquely, and collapsed like a cheap folding chair, disintegrating into a dust cloud that swallowed the sky.
Screams, raw and primal, tore through the air from every direction, then quickly multiplied, forming a horrifying chorus of terror. The streets cracked open with a deafening roar. Wide, dark chasms ripped through the asphalt.
One of them crumbled right in front of his eyes. Sidewalks buckled and splintered, throwing people off balance. Before they could react, before they could even understand, people vanished into these sudden, gaping holes, swallowed by the hungry earth.
Dust filled the sky, thick and choking, turning the bright morning into a murky twilight. Sirens blared, a piercing, urgent wail, then died out, cut short by the spreading destruction.
Electric signs flickered wildly once or twice, then went dark, leaving the city in an unnatural, ominous silence. He watched a woman trip and fall, her last sight the massive side of a nearby building crumbling onto her, burying her instantly.
Flames erupted, a sudden, angry orange, from a ruptured gas line, spreading quickly, burning through the ruins. People ran from the spreading fire—only to fall into collapsed metro tunnels, their desperate cries swallowed by the echoing darkness.
Raghav froze. Not again. Please, not again.
Then another quake shook the ground violently, and this time, a massive office tower in the distance collapsed inward, vanishing in a thick cloud of gray smoke.
"NO!" he shouted. But no one heard him. He turned frantically—he had to help, had to do something.
But he couldn't. He wasn't part of this world. He wasn't really here.
And then he saw him. A boy, no more than six or seven, stood alone in the center of the road. Dust covered his clothes, and blood dripped from a scrape on his forehead. He was crying, screaming for someone who wasn't there.
Raghav rushed toward him. "Hold on! I'm coming!" he shouted, dodging debris. The boy's lip trembled. He reached out. Raghav lunged. His arms extended—and passed through the boy's body, like smoke. He couldn't touch him.
"No… no, no, no—"
A jagged crack opened up next to them. The ground shook violently. The boy stumbled backward, teetering on the edge.
He lunged toward the boy again, desperation burning through his veins. His voice cracked, hoarse but urgent: "Hold on! Please!"
But his hands closed on nothing—just empty air, like trying to grasp smoke. Panic screamed inside him as he reached again, fingers trembling violently.
The boy's tear-streaked eyes locked with his, silently pleading. Time stretched agonizingly, every heartbeat thudding like a drum in his ears. Around them, the nightmare raged on—the city breaking, buildings toppling, people screaming in slow motion.
Raghav clenched his fists, teeth grinding, and tried to pull the boy away from the widening fissure. But the ground kept shaking violently, and the earth seemed to snatch the child inch by inch.
His frantic touches passed through the boy as if he were a ghost—untouchable, unreachable. His own breath came fast and shallow, voice breaking with helplessness.
The boy stumbled, teetering on the ragged edge of the pit. "Wait!" Raghav begged, voice cracking with raw emotion. "I'm here—don't go—please!"
But before he could grasp him once more, the boy disappeared—swallowed whole by the yawning chasm.
"No… no… no!" Raghav's scream tore from his throat, raw and primal, echoing in the empty spaces around him. The trembling in his body spread like wildfire; his knees buckled and he collapsed into the dust and rubble, hands gripping at broken stones as if to anchor himself to reality before it slipped away.
The world fell silent—save for the ringing in his ears and the ragged scrape of his own breath. The scream clawed to escape his throat but stuck, a strangled echo of all his agony and rage
"Why? Why are you showing me this?" he yelled into the dream's broken skyline. "Why can't I do anything? What am I supposed to do?"
But the world gave him no answer. Only sirens. Screams. Cries buried in concrete.
And then he woke.
He was soaked in sweat again, his pajamas clinging uncomfortably to his skin. His breath was shallow, coming in ragged gasps. His hands were shaking uncontrollably. His bedsheet clung to his skin, tangled around his legs as he thrashed.
The fan spun lazily overhead, its gentle whirring utterly indifferent to the terror that had just ripped through him.
He sat up slowly, carefully, staring into the dark room, trying to make sense of where he was. His heart thundered in his chest, a frantic, painful drumbeat that echoed in the silence. He tried to remember what he saw. Something had happened. Something truly terrible.
He knew he saw people die. A city fall. But the clear images were already fading again like previous dream, slipping away like sand through his fingers. He remembered places full of big buildings. That was all. A distinct, lingering echo of a place.
It had been so vivid. Not like a regular dream. More like a memory. Or worse—like a vision. I was there. I saw it. I felt it. The boy's face still hovered in his mind. The helplessness. The look in his eyes before he vanished. That memory, raw and persistent, left him hollow, empty.
The wonder he'd felt the night before—the incredible excitement of discovering this new, unbelievable ability, the thrill of bending the digital world to his will—was utterly gone.
All that remained was the echo of a scream that hadn't left his mouth, a chilling reminder of his powerlessness in the face of that kind of destruction. He felt a deep, profound sadness, a sense of loss that overshadowed any joy.
He showered in silence, the cool water doing little to wash away the lingering chill of the dream. Didn't touch his computer. Didn't try to practice anything.
He couldn't bring himself to. The dream had shaken something fundamental loose in him. Something he didn't understand, something that twisted his perception of his own unique gift.
He dressed slowly, his movements stiff and mechanical, grabbed his bag, and stepped outside into the rising heat of the city.
The street bustled like always. Vendors argued. Cars honked. Life moved forward with its relentless, indifferent pace. But Raghav didn't feel part of it. He felt like an outsider, a ghost in his own life, haunted by a future he couldn't quite remember, yet felt with terrifying clarity.
In the office, he sat at his desk and stared at his monitor. The glowing screen, usually a source of fascination since his discovery, now seemed to mock him.
He didn't test anything. Didn't think bold, delete, fix. He typed normally. Used the mouse. Followed every standard step, forcing himself into the mundane routine. He didn't want to touch that part of himself. Not today. Not after what he had seen, what he had felt.
The cursor blinked patiently, waiting for him to act, to take command. But he hesitated. Because now, even the screen looked dangerous, a potential gateway to another, unspeakable horror. He tried desperately to focus on his work.
Tried to lose himself in the familiar, comforting rhythm of routine. But his mind kept circling back to that agonizing moment in the dream—the boy crying for help. And the way his hand had passed through the boy like mist again and again, useless and transparent.
Like he didn't belong in that terrible place. Like he was watching something he was utterly powerless to change.
He clenched his fists under the desk, digging his nails into his palms, the physical pain a small anchor in the storm of his thoughts. What good was this power… if he couldn't use it when it mattered most, if it couldn't save a single life from such overwhelming destruction?
For the rest of the day, he barely spoke. Did what was needed. Answered questions with quiet, clipped nods. Inside, his thoughts spiraled, relentless and terrifying.
Was this power connected to the dreams? Was the dream a glimpse into a future he was meant to prevent, perhaps with this power? Or was the dream simply warning him? Were they warnings? Messages? Fragments of the future?
"I don't understand…" he whispered, staring blankly at the screen. "Why me? Why now?"
No answers came. Only one terrible truth sank deeper into his mind: This wasn't the end of the visions. It was only the beginning. And a new fear that this incredible gift… came with a terrible price he hadn't even begun to understand.