Viriya felt a burning sensation on her back. The burning sensation sometimes reduced, sometimes increased. It was like burning from extreme heat and cold at the same time. The cold wasn't staying just outside — it was like crawling under the skin.
Viriya tried to move away, but she couldn't. It was the same, it was the similar nightmare she'd had a few days ago. But a different situation — this time, the burning sensation was much, much less intense, but painful in a different way.
Viriya couldn't move at all at that moment, couldn't move, couldn't speak, couldn't even move her eyes at all.
She couldn't really think through the burn, but she decided that she would see and observe as much as she could from that position.
The dream persona was holding something massive. The persona was dragging the thing behind. It was hard and really slippery.
There were some other people in front of the persona, all with similar-looking silhouettes, but Viriya couldn't figure out how they looked.
The burning sensation was still there, but it was as though the burning source had stopped for a moment.
When the persona looked over the thing it was holding, it looked like huge scales. Before Viriya could try to observe something more, the burning started again, from which the persona closed its eyes.
As soon as its eyes closed, someone fell on the persona's back. The persona said, gritting its teeth, "Don't—
Don't fall behind, keep—
Arhh. Keep dragging and dragging."
From the sound of the person's rough and shaky but stable voice, it could be guessed that the persona was male.
Not sure how long it had been, the persona started walking forward, holding the massive thing. Because it wasn't dragging it now, some movement of the thing could be felt, like it was alive.
Suddenly, the burning sensation almost disappeared — it didn't actually, but it felt like it. Everyone stopped walking. The persona looked down; it was standing on a water-like surface. Waves sometimes went over, sometimes went under its feet. Sometimes splashing, sometimes not.
From the water-like surface, some leaves started to float up and drifted toward the direction the persona was facing.
As the persona followed the flowing leaves, Viriya observed them with greed. The leaves were layered inside, like two mirrors facing each other.
Viriya noticed that in a layer of a leaf she—. Not Viriya. He— Anish was at a hospital, surrounded by Ma, Papa, and Ambi.
In another leaf, they were just eating together. In one, Ambi was getting married. He was marrying his childhood crush, apologizing to Makriva, apologizing to his dad, and many, many more of his wishes.
All of those were drifting toward the persona's ahead. At the centre, over a giant spiral mountain, a tree was growing. It was growing at a fast pace. All the leaves were getting stuck on the newly grown branches of the tree.
The persona was looking at that tree, mouth open. Anish was looking at it, trying to pick up—move leaves from there in awe, but in that state he could not move at all. The persona let go of the massive thing it had been holding and started walking forward.
The burning sensation was still there, but it was not re-igniting. As the persona walked towards the mountain seemed like grew larger and the the tree, it was still there all the wishes.
A lightning-like sharp male voice echoed with multiple deafening cracks of lightning, "We deserve this tree. This kind of tree only deserves a garden..."
With that lightning, he found himself in a complete blank space. He could move freely in every direction. He looked at his hand — it was Anish's, his old hands, not Viriya's, not the persona's from earlier. And again, he had the bangle on him, two spiraled parts of it tangled together.
He moved in no particular direction. Slowly, the dense fog from the previous night's dream covered him until he couldn't even see his own hand. As the fog covered him, he found himself standing on something solid — ground.
Remembering that sitting on the throne reduced the fog, he blindly started to search for it.
After searching for a while, going in random directions, he bumped into the long table in front of his throne. He started to follow along the table's edge, knowing the throne would be at the end of it. After following the table for a while, he found a very grand seat — not his. It was Viriya's. Viriya was sitting there, half asleep. Upon very close inspection through the fog, her upper body had fallen onto the long table in the middle.
Anish wondered whether he should correct Viriya's position, but didn't dare to touch her, not knowing what might happen.
He started to walk back along the table again until he reached his throne. After sitting down, all the fog around him came inside him. And Anish felt somehow less dizzy, even though he hadn't felt dizzy before.
After everything was clear, he was at the old, historical, but fantastical side; Viriya was on the ancient, advanced side.
But the table — it wasn't straight anymore. It was shaped like a triangle, Anish sitting at one corner, Viriya at another. The third wasn't really there; it was fading into a void, similar to the void Anish had previously been in.
Not just the table was fading into the void — the entire place had been divided into two parts, and now it was three. In the third part, there was nothing. Just an empty space where the table was fading away. The void was slowly reducing, as was the shape of the table. It looked like, over time, the table would turn back into the straight table it had been before.
Anish, not really knowing what it was, just guessed, and he was kind of terrified by the assumption as well. He thought the table had two corners, he and Viriya were at both ends, but the table now had three ends. At the third corner no one was visible, but was there someone? Anish wasn't sure.
He hadn't even received any memory from there, the way he had from Viriya's yesterday. Maybe because no one was actually there? Was that someone dead?
Anish had questions but no answers. He replayed the whole nightmare where he hadn't been able to move — he could only observe. The first nightmare and this one. In both, there were similar silhouettes.
He didn't want to remember the first nightmare, where he had thought he was dead. Today it was painful too, but much milder than the first day.
Remembering the tree leaves — specifically the one where he was in a hospital, his close people circling around him — he extended his hand toward nowhere, trying to grab the leaf. But of course there was nothing.
After revisiting everything, an assumption struck him. What if both nightmares were actually memories?
Should he try to get more memories like this somehow, for more information? Or try to avoid them somehow because of the pain — though without knowing how.
One trigger he could think of was that on the first day he'd had that nightmare, he had been disoriented. And today he had been disoriented as well. After his — or her — or his hand went through Professor Shokre's chest, he didn't know what had happened around him. He didn't even know if he had thought anything then.
After being dazed for a while, when Nrit came along and said that Shokre had been dead before, it did give him clarity — but not too much. He got back most of his clarity when Makriva played his harmonica.
Anish had been scared of it like the first day, but the fear wasn't raw like before. At least the previous day, before sleeping, it had helped him calm down too — just like today.
And in this dream, where he was lucid, he was completely clear-minded. He still had the guilt of having killed someone, even if the person had been dead before — but somehow it wasn't affecting him too much.
After picturing those moments at the University, he came to the moment he had been trying to avoid. But at last he just caved in and started to go deep into it. When he had used his right hand, knowing he had a good amount of strength because he was in the body of a half-Daitya, he hadn't pushed as hard as he would have normally.
But when he pushed with both hands, bracing the right with the left, his instinct kicked in and he pushed very hard on the chest, which caved in.
At first he thought it might be because Viriya was Daitya, but when he tried the same thing on concrete with more clarity, he did notice some discrepancy — the left hand seemed stronger.
When clenching concrete bits in both hands gave the same results — the same type of breaking down of the bits — he was confused and not really sure what was what.
So later, to check again, when Professor Shokre's body was gone, he tried it again — same results. Not wanting to keep testing in that situation, he just threw the rock bits across the road.
This time, the rock from the left hand went much further than the right. Watching that, he felt something close to happiness, whatever happiness was possible at that moment.
So he picked up some rock again to try, but looking at the road Professor Shokre had been taken down, he didn't have the mental strength to throw again. The same strength that actually could have killed the Professor if he had been alive.
He decided to check the left hand in the morning.
And he was thankful to Bhavakari — his mother now as well — because she had stopped the Parira from questioning more about the situation. But he knew he would have to answer her later anyway.
Anish knew very well now, with all the things happening in the dream, that yes — he was Anish, and Viriya was maybe dead or just sleeping. With the fragmented information about Viriya he had, he decided to act like Viriya that day in the morning. But knowing his acting that day might have been a bit too extreme, he thought to restrain himself.
He decided to think of himself as Viriya as much as he could, so there would be no real slip in acting later. At least he could be himself in the dream, if it continued.
But for the rest of that day in the dream, he decided he would act like Viriya, so he would make fewer mistakes after waking up. For the rest of the time, he—she tried to go toward the void, holding the edge of the table. When she found it was just an empty place, after putting her feet into the void she came back slowly. She tried to go in different ways, counting her steps. But in fear of getting lost in the fog, she always came back.
___
For the rest of the time she stayed seated, until everything faded and she woke up. It was still somewhat dark outside. It was the start of dawn.
She looked over her sides — yesterday morning there had been dead plants grown, which she had broken off and kept in the drawer. There weren't any that day.
Ownad was sleeping near the door. Hearing the sound of the bed creaking, he snapped his head towards Viriya. Was he even sleeping? Who knows.
The floor was somewhat dirty where Ownad slept. Viriya sat beside him. Going closer to Ownad, she slowly started to pet him. It was like Ownad was staring into oblivion with his eyes half-closed.
Viriya asked herself, or Ownad, in a muffled voice, "Am I ok? Am I Viriya? What do you think?"
She continued with a sigh, "I am sorry, now I am not her". She is sleeping, maybe somewhat awake. Do you believe me?"
Ownad just kept slowly wagging his tail as Viriya kept rubbing his back. At last she was lying down on the floor with Ownad beside her, the fragment-covered sun was up completely.