The steady beep… beep… beep of the heart monitor echoed softly through the hospital room.
Aryan's eyelids fluttered open, the white ceiling above him swimming into focus. For a moment, he didn't move — afraid that if he did, everything around him would dissolve again.
"Easy," a gentle voice said. A nurse leaned over him, eyes wide with relief. "You're safe now, sweetheart. You've been asleep… a long time."
Her words felt heavy.
Aryan turned his head slowly — his body weak, pale — and saw the sunlight streaming through the window.
Real sunlight.
Outside, the world was alive — cars passing, trees swaying, people laughing.
It was all so normal.
He whispered, "How long…?"
The nurse hesitated. "Five years."
Aryan's throat tightened. He tried to speak, but only tears came.
He wasn't seventeen anymore. Time had passed.
The doctor entered, flipping through a chart. "You're incredibly lucky, Aryan. The accident on Windale Hill — your bus, remember? You were the only survivor who never woke up."
The words struck him like thunder.
He remembered it now — the rain, the laughter on the bus, Aryan teasing Kabir, Rhea humming her favorite song. Then the flash of headlights. The cliff. The screams.
He closed his eyes, the piano melody echoing faintly in his memory.
"Where are they?" he asked quietly.
The doctor's face softened. "They didn't make it."
Aryan nodded slowly.
"I know," he whispered. "They said goodbye."
The doctor frowned. "Who?"
But Aryan just smiled — a sad, knowing smile — and stared out the window.
Days passed. He relearned how to walk, how to talk.
But the nights… the nights were still strange.
He'd dream of Windale — the fog, the mansion, the laughter. Sometimes he'd see Aryan waving from the other side of a mirror, Rhea whispering "Keep going," and Kabir making jokes about ghosts.
One evening, as he sat near his hospital window sketching the view outside, a faint reflection appeared on the glass — his friends, smiling behind him.
And for the first time since waking up, he didn't feel alone.
Weeks later, Aryan was discharged.
He stood outside the hospital gates, breathing the city air, feeling the ground beneath his feet — real, solid, alive.
He reached into his pocket.
The nurse had given him a small, cracked photograph they found with his belongings — The Lost Ones — Summer 2008.
All of them together.
Alive.
He smiled and whispered to the wind,
"Thank you… for waiting."
The breeze carried the sound of distant laughter — Aryan's laugh, faint but real — before fading away.
Aryan began walking down the road, the sun setting behind him.
Every step felt lighter.
Every shadow felt familiar.
And though the world thought he had finally woken up, deep inside… he sometimes wondered —
What if this was still part of the dream?
Epilogue: The Mirror's Whisper
Later that night, as the moon shone through his bedroom window, Aryan looked into his mirror one last time.
For a second, he thought he saw something — a reflection that smiled a little too late.
And from somewhere deep inside the glass, a faint voice whispered:
"Dreams never end, Aryan… they just change."
The lights flickered.
Then everything went quiet.
And with that — the Unrevealed Mystery finally rested.