Ayaan hadn't said a word all morning.
Not to his friends.
Not even to himself.
The ride back had been quiet, unnaturally so. The car that once pulsed with music and jokes now felt like a moving coffin. Rehan sat beside him, eyes flicking to the rearview mirror more than the road ahead.
"Bro, you okay?" Rehan finally asked.
Ayaan nodded, but it was automatic. Meaningless. His mind wasn't in the car anymore. It was back there—at the border, at the line, at the exact second his foot crossed over.
That pull… it hadn't left him. It was still there, deep in his chest. A thread, invisible, yet tight—like something had hooked itself to his soul.
"Guys," said Sameer from the back seat, trying to break the weight in the air, "that whole thing yesterday—crazy, right? Maybe it was some local superstition or something."
"No," Ayaan said.
Just one word, but it silenced everyone.
They dropped him at his place without arguing. No jokes. No plans to meet later.
Just tension and unease.
---
That night, Ayaan's dreams were worse.
Or maybe they weren't dreams at all.
He saw a house—not his—but familiar in a way dreams sometimes are. Inside, a figure stood in the hallway. Its back turned. Everything about it was wrong—too still, too quiet, like it was waiting… but pretending not to.
When Ayaan tried to speak, the lights flickered. The figure tilted its head, slow and unnatural.
Then it turned.
He woke up gasping.
But the real terror hit seconds later—when he realized the exact same hallway from his dream was in a photo hanging on his bedroom wall. A travel picture. A place he had never visited… yet knew now.
---
The next morning, his mother knocked.
"Beta, Rehan's here. Says it's urgent."
Ayaan opened the door.
Rehan looked like he hadn't slept either.
Without greeting, he pulled something out of his pocket.
A feather.
But not just any feather—it shimmered slightly in the light. Pale gray, tipped in black, with a texture that seemed almost… breathing.
"Tell me," Rehan said, "did you see this too?"
Ayaan stared.
He had.
In the dream.
On the floor beside that figure's feet.
--