𝙂𝙖𝙞𝙨𝙖𝙡

The Blossoming

1:30 AM, 30th July, 1999

I had no idea how much time had passed by since then, maybe it was almost dawn, maybe I haven't even slept for an hour. I wanted to be at rest but my mind wasn't at peace. I was in a weird state of equilibrium between the states of sleep and awakeness. Fortunately, I did not receive an usual episode of sleep paralysis this time and managed to open my eyes a bit. I've been a frequent victim of sleep paralysis all my life, which is probably due to an unhealthy amount of stress, at least that's what it said in the studies. Back when I received my first couple of episodes in childhood, I was scared to death to say the least, too afraid to open my eyes and see what ghastly thing was staring down on me. That mysterious thing steadily emerged from the dark, taking inspiration from the worst of my mind's unwanted creations. At first, it used to stare me down from afar, then slowly it began to creep on top of my body, trying its best to strangle me to death. This same occurrence kept on happening for years and years, to the point that I believed it was completely natural and bound to happen. I remember that when it was a particularly stressful day for me, I tried my best to fall asleep while thinking of the few happy and cheerful things I could imagine, hoping that this would convince the imaginary monster in the closet to be a little more merciful, so that it might care to spare me for one night. Nowadays I have made peace with my sleep paralysis demon as a terrible coping mechanism. It doesn't work that efficiently but as you can see I have no other choice. One benefit of using this strategy however is that I don't feel as surprised and frightened as I used to do back then, hence it all gets over pretty soon. As the window was tightly closed, barely any light penetrated through from the outside world and the coach was fully dark. Other windows in the coach were closed as well. I felt the need to get up, wash my face, and go back to sleep. This is what I usually do in scenarios like these, as I have had a nice share of them previously.

I tried to get out of my seat, but to my surprise I accidentally hit an unknown person in the dark. I was frightened. As there was no light, it was impossible to see anything or anyone. The force of my legs were apparently so powerful that the person I hit fell out of their seat! There definitely are cases of petty thieves stealing valuable possessions from passengers in the middle of the night, so I had to check out who this unidentified person really was. If it turns out to be a thief, I'd have to feel sorry for him, he definitely had a terrible choice of targets.

"I'm sorry, are you hurt?"

"No, no...I'm fine", whispered a voice of a child.

"What are you doing at this hour? You should have gone to sleep by now. Staying up late at this hour is not good for your health."

"How do I explain this? Ehh...I was just trying to open your window and see the view outside. I'm sorry. This won't happen again."

"In the middle of the night? Oh God. You could have just asked me, I wouldn't have denied your request. Here, you can come sit beside me."

"Really? Thanks a lot didi! Aren't you feeling sleepy at all?"

"No, it's fine, don't worry about it. Where do you sit by the way?"

"That one.", she pointed towards an upper berth on the opposite side. The middle berth was occupied by an old lady, while the lower berth was occupied by a rather grumpy looking old man, so I get why she would find me an easier prey instead.

"What's your name didi?", she asked me.

"Saanvi, what about you?"

"That's such a beautiful name, my name is Zaara."

I slowly opened the window for her, as she settled down beside me and immediately began to gaze outside. Pressing her face against the rails, she didn't care to look at anything else. What's so interesting present in the dark night outside that someone can be so enthusiastic about?