A Nightmare

I woke up to the sound of a cry. But the ceiling wasn't the first thing I saw when I was awake. I wasn't even on a bed. I was just there. Even before I could start wondering about what was happening or where I was, I was at unease. 

I could hear someone crying, and the sound of their cry was slowly fading away. I wanted to know what it was. Then suddenly I realized... I was floating. I tried to reach out and at that very moment, I was dragged away in a direction. And the sound of crying was getting louder and more intense, as I flew past walls and buildings. It felt like something was pulling me somewhere.

I somehow ended up in a strange place. I could see a house in ruins. I could still hear the cry clearly and It was coming from the ruins. I looked around and I could see a kid. She was bawling. I approached her. And all of a sudden she stopped crying and looked at me. I was frightened. I could see her eyes as red as blood. 

Even before I could ask her who she was and why she was crying, she searched for something and asked me to take a loose bunch of papers. The moment I have taken them, she just vanished into thin air!. My heart was pounding with fear. I hoped this was all a dream.

I looked into the papers, each paper was an elaborate painting of a house. I realized all the sketches were of the same house. But every sketch was slightly different. In one the house was painted in gold, and in the other, it looked like no one had lived in that house for a very long time. And in some others, It was being reconstructed. It did not take much time for me to realize that I was standing in the ruins of the house which was in the paintings.

All of a sudden, Like magic I could see the time going backward... and I somehow could see the distant past.

I could see an Indian king donating the land to a pandit. And the pandit and his wife building the house together. Their happy moments, their tragedies... everything right in front of my eyes. People leaving the house, selling it, buying it, living in it, making memories...

But that was not all, I could see a woman being tortured by a soldier, and killing her. I wanted to stop that, But unable to move I experienced all of it in dismay. Also, I could see a lot of atrocities happening around the house and how the house was finally destroyed in a storm.

I was back into my senses and found myself at the ruins again. I looked around, there was nothing but grim silence. And from experiencing all of that... Something inside me broke. I began to feel slightly misanthropic. 

I wondered about how many would have been tormented, tortured, killed in this world till now by other fellow humans. Maybe humans are seriously lacking empathy and have a great disregard for life. Their sensibility is buried deep down under the tallest tower made of desires and materialistic aspirations. I was no longer wondering about how I got there or who was that kid.

Then I actually woke up from that horrid nightmare. And I realized I was in my room, and then I remembered how I fell asleep reading.