The Reverter

A Dream, A Nurse and A Strange Diagnosis

I was at the same place I had dreamt about yesterday. It was the most chilling dream of my life and something that I didn't want to experience again. But here I was, standing next to the upturned bus on fire.

There was fire all around me. This place was a vast open field that stretched up to the horizon. Random buildings seemed to have risen from the ground, half-broken and burning. A few burning trees and bushes were also sprayed around. but I didn't feel hot. I felt very cold. There were no giant metallic creatures like last time.

But why was I here? I had just fainted, right? It gave me extreme discomfort.

Did I die and go to hell?

That thought gave me goosebumps. My heart started beating rapidly. My hands started shaking; from the cold or fear? I didn't know.

"Wake up!", I screamed repeatedly at myself. My voice seemed to echo in the surroundings. The sight of all this destruction...this desolate landscape was sickening me.

After a few minutes of shouting, I heard a voice. A very deep voice. I started walking in the direction it seemed to be coming from. It seemed to be repeating something. Although It started getting louder as I was presumably getting closer to it, the voice was relatively quiet against the thunderous fire all around me.

I had walked for hours now, or so I thought. The voice was the only thing keeping me from falling to the ground. The only goal and the only hope was the dark and deep voice. I wanted to get out of here. And I felt that if I could understand the voice, I could go back.

The voice was now loud enough for me to understand a few words.

"You...how..."

I started running, and the voice started becoming clearer.

"You...be...how are..."

And clearer.

"You shouldn't be...how are you..."

And then I stopped running, as it said in a crystal clear voice,
"You shouldn't be here. How are you here?"

Then my body felt as if it was weightless having been dropped from a great height. And I woke up sitting on what seemed to be a bed, with my lungs gasping for air. I was sweating from head to toe. I tried to breathe normally and tried to calm myself down.

"It was just...a dream?", I said to myself, still confused and scared. I never wanted to go there again. That dreadful place, why did I dream of it?

You shouldn't be here. How are you here?

The words of the deep voice echoed in my ears.

What did that mean? I shouldn't have been at the place I was in my dream? Or in 2019?

Something felt very wrong about all of this. Why am I in 2019 in the first place. I should have been dead.

But where was I now?

I was wearing some blue coloured clothes, and one of my fingers had a clip on it. The clip had a wire attached to it, which went to a machine to my right. The machine had graphs on it. A number in the corner and a label above it read, "heart rate." The room I was in had white marble walls with a squeaky ceiling fan above me.

I had to be in a hospital, but for how long was I out?

The door in front of me opened and a nurse entered the room. But I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw her face.

"Akriti?" I said in disbelief.

"Hey! So you're awake Anirudh!"

"You're a nurse? Wha...what's today's date?"