He was falling.
Wind roared past his ears, and the ground seemed impossibly distant.
Rocky slopes rushed beneath him as his body tumbled through empty space. He reached out desperately, grasping at nothing, while the mountain rose around him in jagged formations.
He remembered this.
He remembered the mountain.
He remembered the terrible instant when his footing had failed, the sudden lurch of his body, and the helpless realization that he was going to fall.
His stomach twisted.
No. Not again.
He tried to turn himself, to find something to hold on to, but the wind battered him from every direction.
The mountain blurred.
The sky spun.
And then—
He struck something.
Anand's entire body jolted.
He expected pain.
He expected the crushing impact of stone, the sickening sensation of broken bones, or the abrupt darkness that would follow.
Instead, there was a splash.
He plunged into water.
For one brief moment, relief washed over him.
Then he realized that he could not see the bottom.
He kicked instinctively, expecting to sink deeper, but his feet encountered a firm surface.
Anand froze.
Slowly, he lowered one foot.
The surface beneath him felt solid.
He placed his other foot down.
He was standing.
In water.
"What...?"
He stared at the rippling surface around his ankles.
The water stretched in every direction, its surface smooth and reflective, disturbed only by the faint ripples spreading from his feet.
There was no land.
No shore.
No mountain.
Nothing.
Anand turned around.
The sight before him made him forget his confusion for a moment.
The entire world appeared to be covered in white.
A pale, featureless expanse surrounded him, extending endlessly toward the horizon. There was no visible sky, no sun, no clouds, and no discernible boundary between above and below. It was as though he had been placed inside an enormous white chamber with no walls or ceiling.
Yet the water continued uninterrupted in every direction.
He looked down again.
The surface reflected the whiteness around him so perfectly that it was difficult to tell where the water ended and the distance began.
"Okay."
His voice sounded strangely small in the emptiness.
"Either I'm dreaming, or I've finally lost my mind."
He took a cautious step.
The water rippled beneath his foot but continued to support his weight.
Another step.
Then another.
There was no resistance beyond the slight movement of the water, no sense of sinking or floating. He could walk across it as though it were a vast sheet of polished glass.
Anand crouched and touched the surface with his fingertips.
It felt like water.
Cold, smooth, and unmistakably real.
He withdrew his hand and stared at it.
"What kind of dream is this?"
He straightened and began turning slowly, trying to find something that might explain his surroundings.
Nothing.
Only the endless white expanse.
Despite the strangeness of the place, his initial fear began to give way to curiosity.
Was this some kind of hallucination?
A dream brought on by exhaustion?
Or had he somehow found himself in another impossible situation?
He was still contemplating these possibilities when a voice spoke behind him.
"Anand."
He spun around.
"Who's there?"
A man stood several paces away.
Anand was certain that the stranger had not been there a moment earlier.
The man appeared to be around his thirties, perhaps a little older. He wore a simple T-shirt and plain black trousers, the sort of clothing Anand might have seen on an ordinary person walking through a modern city.
There was nothing particularly remarkable about his appearance.
His hair was neatly arranged. His face was calm. His posture was relaxed.
If Anand had encountered him on a street, he might not have spared him a second glance.
And yet—
Something about him was profoundly wrong.
Or perhaps wrong was not the right word.
There was simply something about the man that refused to fit within Anand's understanding of the world.
The stranger stood in the middle of an endless expanse of water without appearing concerned about the impossible circumstances. He did not seem surprised by Anand's presence. He did not even glance at the strange surroundings.
His attention rested entirely on Anand.
And when their eyes met, Anand felt it.
A pressure descended upon him.
It was immediate and overwhelming.
His knees weakened, and his breath caught in his throat. An instinct older than reason stirred within him, urging him to bow his head, lower himself to the ground, and kneel before the figure.
Anand fought against the sensation, bewildered by his own reaction.
What is this?
He had never felt anything like it.
It was not ordinary fear.
Fear came with an understanding of danger, an awareness that something could hurt him.
This was different.
It felt as though every part of his being had suddenly recognized something his conscious mind could not comprehend.
Something immeasurably greater than himself.
His knees began to bend.
Then, just as suddenly, the pressure vanished.
Anand staggered slightly, catching himself before he fell.
The stranger's expression changed.
"Oh."
For the first time, he looked genuinely embarrassed.
"I'm sorry about that."
Anand stared at him.
The man rubbed the back of his neck, looking rather awkward.
"I didn't mean for that to happen. Sometimes, people react that way when they encounter me. I should have been more careful."
Anand opened his mouth.
Nothing came out.
The stranger gave him a reassuring smile.
"Please, relax. You don't need to kneel or anything of that sort. We're here to talk, and I'd prefer that you feel comfortable."
Relax?
Anand looked at the man.
Then he looked at the endless white expanse.
Then back at the man.
Right. Of course. Why wouldn't I be relaxed? I'm standing on water in a place that doesn't exist, and some ordinary-looking guy just made my entire body want to bow to him.
He swallowed.
"Who... who are you?"
The man seemed to consider the question.
"That's a reasonable place to start."
He took a step closer, and Anand instinctively tensed.
The stranger noticed.
"Ah. Before you ask anything else, let me assure you of one thing. You are not in danger here."
He paused.
"At least, not from me."
That final qualification did little to reassure Anand.
The man sighed.
"All right. Perhaps I should have phrased that better."
He folded his arms loosely.
"You have questions about how you came to this world, don't you?"
Anand went completely still.
The stranger continued.
"About your fall from the mountain. About how you survived. About how you came to find yourself in a place that is so very different from the one you remember."
Anand felt a chill run down his spine.
The mountain.
His fall.
His arrival in this world.
Those were things he had been struggling to understand ever since waking up in a place that should have existed only in stories.
And this stranger knew about all of them.
"I can answer those questions," the man said. "In fact, that is why you have been brought here."
Anand stared at him.
"Wait."
His voice came out hoarse.
"You're saying you know what happened to me?"
The man nodded.
"Yes."
"How I fell?"
"Yes."
"And how I ended up in this world?"
"Yes."
Anand's thoughts began to race.
He had considered many possibilities during the past few days. Perhaps he had somehow traveled through time. Perhaps he had entered a parallel universe. Perhaps the entire experience was some elaborate hallucination.
He had even wondered whether he had died on the mountain and was now experiencing something he could not explain.
But none of those possibilities accounted for this.
He took a shaky breath.
"Did you... did you bring me here?"
The stranger looked directly into his eyes.
Then he gave a silent nod.
Anand stopped breathing for a moment.
"You did?"
Another nod.
"You actually brought me from my world into this one?"
The man nodded once more.
Anand stared at him in utter disbelief.
For several seconds, he could do nothing but stand there.
Then he dragged both hands over his face.
"Okay."
He lowered them.
"Okay. I need a moment."
The stranger waited patiently.
Anand paced a few steps across the water, stopped, and turned around again.
Someone brought me here.
The thought felt absurd.
Someone deliberately took me from my world and put me into the Ramayana.
He had imagined countless explanations for his situation, but never this.
Finally, he faced the man again.
"All right," he said, forcing himself to speak more steadily. "I have two very important questions."
"Go ahead."
"First, who are you?"
The stranger smiled faintly.
"That is a rather complicated question."
Anand's expression fell.
"Of course it is."
"And second?"
"Why?"
The man tilted his head.
"Why what?"
"Why did you bring me here? Why me? What exactly do you want from me?"
For the first time, the stranger's expression grew more thoughtful.
Anand continued before he could lose his nerve.
"I mean, I wasn't doing anything particularly special in my old world. I wasn't some great scientist or a military genius. I wasn't saving people every day or doing anything that would make me worth bringing into another world."
His voice grew quieter.
"And I certainly wasn't some exceptionally good person."
The words had escaped before he could stop them.
The stranger watched him silently.
Anand looked away.
A memory surfaced in his mind, vivid and unwelcome.