After everything Amma told me—about the tree, the war, the powers, the loss—I returned to the room she had given me.
It was small and simple, with a woven mat on the floor and a low window that opened out to the garden. Sunlight trickled in through the shutters, and the scent of herbs drifted in with the breeze. It should have been comforting.
But it wasn't.
The truth Amma had shared left my mind heavy, teetering between awe and disbelief. I lay on the mat, staring at the ceiling.
The whole day passed like a haze. I barely spoke. Adii kept shooting irritated glances my way, his scowl as familiar as ever. He didn't speak to me, but I could feel his presence like a weight in the room.
Amma, on the other hand, was her usual gentle self—drifting in and out, offering food, brushing her hand over my forehead when she thought I wasn't paying attention. Her warmth should've been soothing.
But no one here had the answers I truly needed.
My thoughts kept circling the same question.
How do I go back?
Back to where my world made sense.
Back to Earth.
Back to everything .
As night fell, silence deepened. Amma hummed an old tune while preparing for bed, the melody soft and slow, like something from a time no one remembered. The sound of it faded as I lay back and pulled the thin blanket over me.
I was tired. More than tired. Not just in body—but in soul.
I closed my eyes, praying sleep would bring some escape, some peace.
But
Instead came black.
Not the ordinary kind that waits behind your eyelids.
This was different.
A black so absolute it felt alive. It swallowed everything—sound, space, air.
I was standing in it.
Or perhaps floating.
There was no floor beneath me, no horizon ahead, no light from above. Just endless, endless black. I could feel my body—barely—but it was as if I was suspended in the void, weightless and invisible.
I took a step. Or what felt like a step.
Nothing changed.
Another step. Still nothing.
I turned, hoping to find a crack of light, a shape, a landmark—anything.
But the dark only thickened.
And then… something moved.
Mist.
A purple mist.
A pale, ghostly mist began rising from below, curling around my legs, coiling up my arms, cold and damp like breath against my skin. It crept upward, slow and serpentine, wrapping around my chest like a living thing.
I tried to run. To break free. To move in any direction.But the mist followed. Tightened. Grew thicker.My limbs felt heavy. My lungs strained.
I couldn't find the way out.
Then
Something shifted.
A coldness pierced the air.
The temperature dropped in an instant, the warmth of my body vanishing as if stolen by unseen hands.
And then I heard it.
A voice.
Not loud. Not quiet. Just… present.
It didn't echo.
It didn't come from a direction. It was simply there, inside the dark. A slow, thick sound, like oil sliding over stone.
Each word dragged with weight, as though carved from something ancient and cruel.
It wasn't male. It wasn't female. It was something else. It spoke, and every syllable wrapped around my bones.
["You came."]
I froze.
The voice had no tone, no emotion. But it felt like it had been waiting for me.
Before I saw
I felt, the gaze.
I turned around, and that's when I saw them.
Eyes.
Two silver-white orbs, glowing faintly in the blackness. Not bright. But undeniable.
They shimmered like moonlight on still water— watching, unblinking. They didn't blink. Didn't waver. Just stared.
Right into me.
Their gaze was so heavy it anchored me in place.
I couldn't move. I didn't want to.
I wanted to scream.
I wanted to run and disappear into the dark before they reached me—but I couldn't.
My body wouldn't listen.
Then, in an instant, they vanished—only to reappear behind me.
I felt it.
A cold breath, so close it raised goosebumps along my neck.
Sweat trickled down my spine and vanished into the nothing below.
Then the voice returned.
["I was waiting for you... Tarika."]
My name.
It knew my name.
How?
The fear that had been building suddenly peaked. My thoughts raced, a thousand questions crashing into each other.
Who are they?
What do they want?
Why me?
But I couldn't ask. My lips refused to move.
Still, the voice responded, calm and composed, as if it had heard every question I hadn't spoken.
["I will not harm you."]
A strange kind of cold reassurance.
But I didn't believe it.
Something in my gut still screamed danger. The kind that didn't come with claws or blood—but with truth too large to bear.
The voice continued.
["You want to know about me?"]
There was a pause.
["First… you need to see."]
Then—
I fell.
I drifted downward like a feather caught in wind.
The blackness opened into images—visions flickering like film projected onto fog.
I saw myself.
Lying on a bed.
A hospital bed.
The white sheets were stark against the wires and blinking machines surrounding me. The beeping of monitors filled the space—familiar, distant, terrifying.
It was Earth.
My world.
I reached out, desperate to touch the version of myself lying so still, but my hand passed through the scene like smoke.
I was behind a screen, separated by more than glass. By fog.
Why am I there?
What happened to me?
The voice returned, softer this time.
["this is not something you should see"]
The image shifted.
Like it was mistake.
Something i am not allowed to see.
Now I was sitting on ground —this time soaked in blood.
It spread beneath me like ink, deep red and unstoppable. My skin was slashed, torn. The wounds looked fresh, fatal.
I gasped.
Tried again to reach for my broken body. But once more,
I was just an audience to my own end.
Then I heard them.
Different Voices.
A strange girl—young, panicked, sobbing, try to heal me:
"Please… please… Tarika… please don't…"
Then another—sharp, furious, and heartbroken, fighting with unknown beast:
"Hey, you! Wake up! You said we'd take revenge! You can't abandon me and the others —not like this! Not after everything!
Adii.
My heart cracked open. I wanted to shout. I wanted to tell them I was right here.
I'm not dead.
I'm not gone.
I'm here.
But they couldn't hear me. They were grieving me. And I was still standing. Many thoughts past through my mind.
What revenge?
Who are "the others"?
Who is this girl?
Before I could think more, the fog returned.
It swallowed the images, the voices, the blood, the pain.
I was standing again.
Alone in the void.
Shivering.
Breathless.
The silver eyes returned, distant now, watching silently the same thing, my death.
Then the voice spoke once more.
["This is…"]
It didn't finish.
I opened my mouth to ask. No sound came out.
But the voice heard me anyway.
"This is something you cannot change."
After a pause
"Afterall This is the nightmare, everyone should avoid. And everyone not allowed to see it.
Nightmare of fate."
What?
Why?
Then why me?
Why are you let me see it?
Am I allowed?
And who gives permission?
This is my fate?
I can't change this.Why show it to me if it's already sealed?
The eyes drifted closer.
["But you must survive."]
["You must defeat the fate."]
["Don't forget, what you saw, what you felt. The fear. The death."]
They came close to me, closer-- closer-- and closer. As they want to enter in. My body. My soul. And they said again.
[" Find a way, to live, to survive, to defeat the nightmare of fate."]
-------
"Tara! Tara! Wake up, child!"
Amma's voice pierced the haze like a bell in fog. It was strained, trembling.
"Please, Amma," another voice said—Adii. "Stay back."
"No!" she snapped. "She must wake up!"
Her voice cracked.
"Who knows what's happening to her…"
I heard it all from underwater.
Then—
A gasp.
My eyes fluttered open.
Light. Real light.
The ceiling above me.
I was back.
Back in the room.
Back in my body.
Amma rushed forward the moment she saw my eyes open.
"Tara!" she whispered, relieved.
Adii blocked her with a hand on her shoulder.
"Let her breathe."
I tried to sit up, but the world swayed. Amma steadied me.
"Are you alright?" she asked, brushing the hair from my face.
I couldn't answer. My throat was dry. My mind was a battlefield.
I nodded.
A lie.
Amma exhaled. "You were whispering all morning. You sounded like you were in pain."
Morning…?
How long had I been trapped in that void?
Adii looked at me sharply.
"You kept saying: 'I just want to go back.' You said it over and over. "
I met his gaze. Just for a moment.
Then I looked away.
What could I even say?
After a long pause, I forced a weak smile toward Amma. I don't want to make her worry.
"You don't need to worry. I'm fine," I said, though every part of me knew I wasn't. "You can get back to your work."
She hesitated, but nodded.
------
Later that day, I stepped outside, needing air. Needing silence.
But my mind wasn't silent.
The dream—or vision—played on repeat. The eyes. The voice. The blood. My death.
My feet moved on their own. Through the yard. Past the garden. Toward the woods.
I walked without thinking.
Eventually, I found myself alone in a small forest. Not far. Not dangerous. Just trees, standing tall in quiet company.
Suddenly,
A sharp pain bloomed in my chest.
Thud. Thud.
Like something inside me was waking up.
My heartbeat grew louder. Faster. Not with fear—but with something else.
A strange energy pulled at my arms, my skin, my breath.
The air changed.
And just like that—everything blurred.
The forest around me lost its shape.
The trees turned to shadows.
The ground tilted.
And then, like a whisper against my skin—
It was the mist.
Purple mist.