Fire Dreams
The smell of smoke was everywhere.
Thick.
Suffocating.
It clawed at Tara’s throat with every breath she took.
Around her, wood crackled and groaned as flames devoured everything in their path. Heat pressed against her skin so fiercely it felt alive.
And beneath the smoke—
gardenias.
Sweet.
Fragile.
Burning.
The scent twisted something deep inside her chest.
“Tara.”
The voice cut through the roar of the fire.
Her breath caught.
Every part of her stilled.
She turned.
Smoke.
Only smoke.
“Tara, get out while you can.”
The words shattered something inside her.
A sob rose in her throat before she understood why.
“No!”
Her voice sounded small against the flames.
“Tara.”
Desperation now.
Closer.
Further away.
Everywhere.
She stumbled forward, blinking through tears and smoke, trying to find him.
Trying to reach him.
Then she saw it.
A hand.
Emerging from the swirling grey.
Reaching for her.
Relief hit so hard it hurt.
She lunged forward and grabbed it.
Warm.
Real.
For one impossible second, she thought she had him.
“Tara—”
His voice broke.
The flames surged.
She tightened her grip and pulled with everything she had.
Every muscle strained.
Every breath burned.
“No,” she whispered.
Then louder.
“No!”
She pulled again.
She pulled harder.
Tears blurred her vision.
Every instinct screamed at her to run.
She ignored it.
The hand in hers tightened briefly.
Then began to slip.
Panic exploded through her chest.
“No!”
She clung to him with everything she had.
The flames surged between them.
For one horrible second she felt his fingers slide against hers.
Then—
Tara woke with a scream caught in her throat.
For a few seconds, she could not move.
Her body was still trapped in the dream. Her fingers were curled into the bedsheet, gripping it so tightly her knuckles ached. Her heart slammed against her ribs as if it was trying to escape first.
No fire.
No smoke.
No hand slipping from hers.
Only her bedroom.
Tara dragged in one breath.
Then another.
Her throat burned.
Sweat trickled down the side of her face, cold now against her skin. Her T-shirt clung to her back. Her hair was damp at her temples.
Another night.
The same nightmare.
She sat up slowly, pressing one hand against her chest until her breathing began to settle. Outside her window, Bengaluru was unusually silent.
The scent came next.
Soft.
Sweet.
Impossible.
Gardenias.
Her gaze moved toward the window.
Near the compound wall below, half-hidden in the wash of streetlight, a gardenia shrub stood heavy with white blooms.
Tara stared at it.
She had passed that wall almost every day.
Had the plant always been there?
It must have been.
Gardenias had a strange habit of finding their way into her life.
Drawn absentmindedly in school notebooks.
Pressed between pages of old books.
Appearing in dreams long before she knew their name.
She rubbed her forehead.
“This is what lack of sleep does,” she whispered.
The dreams had not always been like this.
When she was little, they had been fragments.
Smoke.
White flowers.
A voice she could never quite hear.
Nothing more.
Her parents had taken her to doctors more than once, but nobody had ever found an explanation.
Then she turned eighteen.
The fragments became a nightmare.
And for the last seven years, it had followed her almost every night.
And every time she woke, she carried the same ache inside her chest.
As if she had failed someone.
As if somewhere, somehow, someone was still waiting for her to save him.
Tara closed her eyes.
No.
She was not doing this again.
She had tried everything already. Journaling. Meditation. Breathing exercises.
She drank half a bottle of water, switched off the bedside lamp she did not remember turning on, and lay down again.
Morning arrived too soon.
By seven-thirty, Tara was standing in her kitchen.
The kettle sat on the counter.
The gas stove sat beside it.
She reached for the knob out of habit.
Her fingers paused.
For one second, she imagined the click of ignition. The blue flare. The sudden leap of flame.
Her chest tightened.
Ridiculous.
It was a stove.
A perfectly normal stove in a perfectly normal kitchen.
Still, her hand moved away.
She picked up the electric kettle instead.
This happened often now. Matchsticks. Candles. Temple lamps.
This had become another mystery she had stopped trying to explain.
As a child she had loved Diwali.
Now she found herself stepping away from sparklers, bonfires and temple lamps before she even realized she was doing it.
Any sudden flare of fire could pull the air from her lungs before she had time to reason with herself.
So she breathed.
By the time the kettle clicked off, her hands had steadied.
Tara made her tea and told herself the same thing she told herself every morning.
It was only a dream.
A stubborn, exhausting, emotionally manipulative dream.
Nothing more.
By nine-thirty, she was at work.
Her office on MG Road buzzed with the usual weekday chaos — ringing phones, hurried footsteps, the smell of coffee, printers coughing out reports no one had time to read properly.
She worked as a heritage conservation specialist at a respected conservation and restoration firm in Bengaluru. After studying architecture and specializing in heritage conservation, she had spent the last few years helping preserve old buildings, temple structures, murals, stonework, and forgotten spaces that most people walked past without seeing.
Most people saw old buildings.
Tara saw stories.
“Tara?”
She looked up from her report.
Nikhil stood beside her desk holding a folder and looking unusually cautious.
She raised an eyebrow. “That face means you’ve done something foolish.”
“Possibly.”
He opened the folder and showed her photographs of a damaged stone pavilion.
“I was thinking we replace these sections.”
Tara glanced at the images.
“No.”
Nikhil sighed. “I thought you’d say that.”
“If we replace them, we erase part of the structure’s history.”
“But the client wants it to look finished.”
“The client wants it to look pretty.” She handed the photographs back. “Our job is to keep it true.”
Nikhil waited.
“You stabilize what’s weak,” Tara said. “You preserve what remains. But you don’t pretend damage never happened.”
The words caught her off guard.
You don’t pretend damage never happened.
For a moment she saw smoke.
A hand reaching for hers.
Then the image vanished.
“Tara?”
She blinked.
“Revise the recommendation,” she said. “Minimal intervention. Full documentation.”
Nikhil grinned. “That should be on your business card.”
“It is. Invisible ink.”
For a while, work helped.
Reports helped.
Drawings helped.
Measurements, deadlines, emails, material notes — all of it gave her mind somewhere practical to stand.
By late afternoon, the nightmare had dulled into a faint ache behind her eyes.
She was packing her laptop when her phone buzzed.
A message from her boss.
Come to my cabin before you leave. Need to discuss something important.
Tara stared at the screen for a second.
A client crisis.
A funding issue.
Or a conservation disaster someone expected her to solve by Monday.
She picked up her notebook and walked to his cabin.
“Come in, Tara,” Mr. Rao said, looking up from a stack of files.
He was in his late fifties, with silver hair, sharp eyes, and the permanently tired expression of a man who had spent thirty years arguing against bad restoration decisions.
“You wanted to see me?”
“Yes.” He gestured to the chair opposite him. “Sit.”
There was a file on his desk.
Thick.
Marked confidential.
Tara sat.
Mr. Rao tapped the file once. “We’ve been approached regarding a possible international conservation project.”
That got her attention.
“International?”
“Sri Lanka.”
Something shifted quietly inside her.
Not fear exactly.
Not recognition either.
Just a small, strange pull.
Tara ignored it.
“What kind of project?”
“Heritage conservation and documentation. Early stage. Sensitive site. Possible excavation findings. They need someone who can manage the work without turning it into a circus.”
Despite herself, Tara smiled. “That sounds oddly specific.”
“It is.” His mouth twitched. “Which is why I thought of you.”
He pushed the file toward her.
“Go through this.”
Tara opened it.
The first few pages were formal — project background, institutional notes, timelines, preliminary scope. She scanned them quickly, her professional mind taking over.
Then she reached the photographs.
Ancient stone.
Weathered surfaces.
Fragments of carved walls.
A section of what looked like an old mural.
Her fingers slowed.
In the corner of one image, half-hidden beneath damage and shadow, was a flower motif.
Five delicate petals.
Familiar.
Her breath caught.
Gardenias.
For a second, the office disappeared.
Smoke pressed against her throat.
Heat crawled over her skin.
A voice whispered her name.
Tara.
Her head snapped up.
Mr. Rao was reading something on his laptop.
The office outside his glass wall continued as usual — people walking past, someone laughing near the printer, the world irritatingly normal.
No one had spoken.
“Tara?”
She looked back at him too quickly. “Sorry?”
“You okay?”
“Yes.” She forced her fingers to loosen around the edge of the file. “Just tired.”
His eyes narrowed slightly. “You work too much.”
“So do you.”
“That is different. I am old. I have earned my bad habits.”
She managed a faint smile and looked down again.
The flower waited on the page.
Still.
Silent.
Innocent.
She turned to the next photograph before she could think too much about it.
Mr. Rao leaned back in his chair. “The site is an ancient rock fortress. Restoration work has been going on in phases, but this new stage may involve deeper conservation planning, especially around damaged sections, murals, water structures, and some recently identified architectural remains.”
Tara made herself take notes.
Ancient rock fortress.
Murals.
Water structures.
Architectural remains.
All ordinary words.
Then Mr. Rao said, “The site is Sigiriya.”
The room tilted.
Only slightly.
Enough that Tara had to grip the edge of the file.
Sigiriya.
The name sat between them like something alive.
For one impossible second, she smelled smoke again.
Then gardenias.
Not from the file.
Not from memory.
From somewhere close enough to touch.
A pulse of heat flashed across her skin.
In her mind, the voice returned.
Tara.
Soft.
Desperate.
Heartbroken.
“Tara?”
Mr. Rao’s voice pulled her back.
She looked up.
He was watching her now, concern replacing professional focus.
She released the file at once.
“Sorry,” she said. “I think I stood up too quickly this morning. Didn’t sleep well.”
It was a terrible explanation.
Thankfully, Mr. Rao accepted it.
Or pretended to.
“You should rest,” he said. “But first, listen.”
She nodded.
He turned a page in the file and pointed to the project summary. “They’re forming a small specialist team. Applications and internal nominations will be reviewed next week. I want to nominate you as Conservation Documentation Lead.”
Tara stilled.
“Me?”
“Yes, you.”
“There are people here with more years of experience.”
“There are people here with more years of repeating the same mistakes.” He gave her a dry look. “You’re careful. You observe before you speak. You don’t rush to make old things look convenient. And you have the temperament for complex sites.”
Tara looked at the file again.
Conservation Documentation Lead.
Sri Lanka.
Sigiriya.
The practical part of her understood exactly what this meant.
A project like this could change her career.
International heritage work. Serious recognition. Doors she had spent years working toward.
She should have felt excited.
Part of her did.
Somewhere beneath everything else, she did.
But there was something else too.
A pull.
A warning.
A strange, impossible certainty that this was not merely an opportunity being placed before her.
It felt like a door had opened somewhere.
And on the other side, someone was waiting.
“Tara,” Mr. Rao said gently, “think about it tonight. If you’re interested, I’ll send in your name.”
Interested.
Such a small word for the way her pulse had begun to race.
She closed the file.
Or tried to.
Her gaze caught again on the printed project title.
Sigiriya Conservation Initiative.
The letters blurred for a second.
Then sharpened.
Sigiriya.
Outside the cabin, the office lights flickered once.
Tara’s breath caught.
Somewhere deep inside her mind, the voice returned.
Closer this time.
Softer.
“Tara…”
Her fingers tightened around the file.
“When the gardenias bloom…”
The rest dissolved into silence.
But for the first time in seven years, Tara found herself wanting to hear what came next.
