Chapter 4: When Memories Wake Before Sleep
803 Words
Sleep broke suddenly.
Aarav sat up in bed, gasping—his heart pounding violently against his ribs, his breaths uneven, his forehead drenched in sweat.
The room was dark, but his mind was somewhere else entirely.
A dream.
Or perhaps—
a broken memory.
Nothing was clear.
Only haze.
A corridor…
the color red…
hurried footsteps…
and then—
a voice.
Soft. Distant.
As if coming from underwater.
Aarav…
He jolted to his feet.
His head felt heavy, as if pressure was building from the inside. His heartbeat was so loud it felt like it might tear through his chest.
“Just a dream,” he whispered to himself.
But his hands were trembling.
He sat on the edge of the bed, staring at the wall. The ticking clock echoed through the room—each second reminding him that time was moving forward, while he remained stuck.
These dreams always came like this.
Incomplete.
Fragmented.
Without a beginning or an end.
He never saw faces.
But the emotions were always real.
Fear.
Suffocation.
And a crushing guilt—one he could never explain.
The city woke slowly.
While getting ready, Aarav looked at himself in the mirror. Dark circles beneath his eyes, exhaustion etched into his face.
From the outside, he looked perfectly normal.
Inside, something was quietly breaking apart.
He picked up his camera bag and stepped out of his apartment.
Aarav was a crime scene photographer.
His job was to capture moments the world wanted to forget.
Blood.
Broken bodies.
Unfinished lives.
He spoke little, but his photographs carried weight.
The moment he entered the office, his boss called out—
“Aarav, we’ve got a new case. Just came in.”
Aarav nodded.
As he sat in the car, he looked out the window. The city rushed past—indifferent, alive.
No one knew that somewhere in a narrow lane, a life had just ended.
Yellow tape.
A crowd.
Police voices.
Aarav raised his camera and began working.
First shot.
Second.
Third.
Then his eyes fell on the blood pooled across the floor.
Time froze.
The color…
The smell…
A sharp pain exploded inside his head.
As if a hammer struck from within.
He shut his eyes.
And suddenly—
a flash.
His hands.
Covered in blood.
Someone breathing—
fast, panicked.
“Aarav?”
Someone called his name.
He snapped back to reality. His camera nearly slipped from his fingers.
His head was splitting.
“You okay?” his boss asked.
“Yeah… just a headache,” Aarav lied.
But the pain kept growing. Each click of the camera triggered something else—something his mind was trying desperately to bury.
When the work was done, he walked straight to his boss.
“Sir… I need to take half a day off. My head really hurts.”
His boss studied him for a moment, then said,
“Alright. Go home. Get some rest.”
Elsewhere in the city—
Meera closed her diary.
She was a trauma therapist.
People came to her carrying their deepest wounds.
She listened.
She understood.
She helped them learn how to live again.
She had a session scheduled near a café that day.
The same old café where sitting by the window always brought her a strange sense of calm.
She picked up her bag and left.
Aarav was heading home.
The traffic signal turned red.
He stopped.
Inside, everything felt scattered.
The headache.
The blood.
The dream.
Voices echoed inside his head.
Do you remember?
No…
But you should.
The signal turned green.
People began crossing the road.
Aarav took two steps forward—
and suddenly stopped.
His heart slammed against his chest.
Something was wrong.
Or maybe… something was finally right.
Without thinking, without understanding—he turned around.
And ran.
He didn’t know why.
He only knew where he had to go.
The café.
His steps grew faster. His breaths ragged. Sweat soaked through his shirt.
He kept running.
Until—
he reached the café.
Aarav stood outside, gasping for breath.
He pushed the door open.
Inside, the familiar scent greeted him—coffee, silence, and something unspoken.
His eyes moved instinctively to the table by the window.
There—
she was.
Meera.
A coffee mug in her hand, her gaze fixed outside, as if lost in another world.
Aarav’s breath caught.
The headache faded.
The noise inside his mind went quiet.
Meera lifted her eyes.
And their gazes met.
For a moment—everything stopped.
The noise.
Time.
The world.
Only them.
Two strangers.
Or perhaps… something more.
Meera looked at him as if searching for an answer to a question she hadn’t asked.
And Aarav—
stood on the edge of a memory.
Something was about to change.
But for now—
no one spoke.
(End of Chapter 4)
- Writer
