Deepak flings the door open to her tiny flat and pushes himself out into the bright corridor. He looks from left to right; up to his flat or out onto the street? His mind won't make the choice for him so he lets his legs take him instead. His hands grip the wooden grip as hard as possible but somehow it's still not enough and he nearly falls several times. His feet feel like they are being pulled from underneath him with every step; as if his heart is clogged with dust; as if his brain is trying to strip itself from his head and his blood pushing out against every pore in his body, trying to escape.
Flashes overcome his vision and quickly vanish. This happens in three waves, each passing a minute later and Deepak slumps over into the steps.
"No, oh God, not again!"
He munsters all of his remaining strength and pushes himself up the last flight of stairs to his apartment door. His shaking hands try several times to find the keys in his crumpled dinner jacket and when he does eventually get his key into the door and steps through into the quiet of his own space, he falls to the floor with a boneless impact. He wails, urges and crushes his fingers into the plush cream mat as a last ditch attempt to prevent whatever was there - It - from taking over. He could feel it, as if he were in one of his dreams; present, hovering just beyond his comprehension.
Deepak knew he was a wake so whatever was happening was really happening. His stomach and his nerves hit the floor and he instantly panics. A cold wave of terror washes over the entirety of his body, leaving him panting. He pushes himself slowly up from the floor; his arms violently shaking and threatening to buckle underneath him, but still his pushes on until his body is off of the wooden floor and he can see out into his living room over the arm of his sofa. Only, he sees no cream sofa; no television; coffee table; magazine rack and beyond that; there is nothing he recognizes either.
Deepak manages to stand and looks out into water; a vast stretch of shimmering blue, the same shade of the Pacific Ocean and just as enormous. At first it seems he's alone but then he catches a glimmer of movement in the centre of the blue, blue water. He moves forward, in a dazed state and it doesn't register for quite some time that he's walking on water and this realisation only comes when he happens to look down at his feet. Then it's like a veil lifts from his mind and he see things clearly again, yet Deepak still doesn't panic.
The water underneath his feet begins to move, before he was walking on the water, now it moves with him, in the same direction as him and Deepak almost smiles to himself until he catches it. Water is not his friend, ever. Deepak sees several people milling around the huge plane of water; the elderly, teenagers, adults and children but whatever the gender, they all walk towards the shimmering centerpiece of the blueness.
Deepak continues to walk on until he reaches what had caught his eyes all of those yards ago. If you can imagine the ocean but utterly still with tranquillity, absolutely no current what-so-ever, just a silky, smoothness of water with a hole in the centre of it; that is what Deepak looks at. The water slowly falls into this hole but there is no urgency, rushing or noise as Deepak seemed to think there should be. The water just gently lifts itself up a couple of inches as it reaches the edge of the hole, as if it has to climb over a ledge to enter it, and then falls.
The meandering people collect around him, pushing themselves in closely around the hole until they form a tight circle; some turned away from Deepak, others facing him but all have their faces tilted down, peering. Deepak takes a moment to look at the faces he can see, to gauge their level of curiosity, suspicion or alarm and then he too leans in and looks with his heart crashing against his chest in rhythm with the rushing in his ears.
At first his mind doesn't register what it's seeing; to him all he recognises is water. Then the dark water within the well seems to shift speed and direction. Deepak only has a fraction of a second to realise what's just about to happen and he instantly turns and begins quickly ushering the two children next to him, away from the water.
"Come, come. We have to leave!" Deepak shouts out to the people.
No one seems to share Deepak's urgency or fear and for a moment this too stuns him. Why aren't they scared? Deepak's mind asks him and then he decides it's up to him to save everyone - in a fraction of a second, Deepak somehow decides that very reason must be why he is here and he starts pulling more people away from the well of water.
The moving water beneath his feet begins to pick up speed, moving backwards towards the well, rushing down into it and away. Deepak can hear the sound of the water as it meets its kin moving in the opposite direction and he hears the collision as the water deep within the well forces the separate current back up again as it begins to rise up the hole. More people are alarmed now but not nearly enough for Deepak's liking; if anything, the children actually stop and bend down to the water underneath them and start to play; splashing, giggling and stomping in the water.
"What are you doing?" Deepak shouts at the two children, "Move! Run!"
