Chapter 1
There are moments in life that look completely ordinary when they happen.
A morning sunrise.
A crowded college corridor.
A cup of tea becoming cold on a desk.
A friend laughing at something stupid.
A stranger looking at you for a second longer than they should.
At that moment, none of these things seem important.
But sometimes, years later, when you look back, you realize that one ordinary moment was the beginning of everything.
For Yeshva, it began with a dream.
Not the kind of dream that disappears when you open your eyes.
This one stayed.
It stayed in his mind like a song he couldn’t stop hearing.
It stayed in the silence between his thoughts.
It stayed in the strange feeling that someone, somewhere, was waiting for him.
The dream always began the same way.
Darkness.
Not the darkness of a room with the lights switched off.
This darkness was different.
It was endless.
There was no floor beneath Yeshva’s feet, yet he never fell. There was no wind, yet something always moved around him. There was no sound, yet the silence itself seemed to whisper.
Above him stretched an impossible sky.
Stars covered it from one end to the other.
They were not tiny dots like the stars he saw from his bedroom window.
They were enormous.
Some looked close enough to touch.
Others were so far away that their light seemed to have travelled through eternity just to reach him.
And they moved.
Slowly.
Beautifully.
As if the universe itself were breathing.
Yeshva would always stand there and look up.
He never knew how long he remained in that place.
Minutes could feel like years.
Years could feel like seconds.
Time had no meaning there.
Then he would see her.
At first, she would appear as a small figure standing beneath the stars.
A silhouette.
A girl.
Always alone.
Always waiting.
She never seemed afraid of the darkness.
Instead, the darkness seemed to belong to her.
Her hair moved gently around her face, although there was no wind. Her clothes looked ordinary, yet somehow they appeared brighter beneath the strange light of the stars.
Yeshva never knew why he noticed these things.
He simply did.
He would take one step towards her.
She would remain still.
He would take another.
She would become farther away.
It was impossible.
No matter how much he walked, the distance between them never disappeared.
Sometimes he ran.
Sometimes he shouted.
Sometimes he simply stood there and watched her.
But she never came closer.
Until one night, she did.
She stood beneath a cluster of blue-white stars.
Yeshva could finally see her face.
She looked around his age.
There was something peaceful about her.
Something sad.
Her eyes looked like they had seen places that Yeshva could not even imagine.
He wanted to ask her who she was.
But before he could speak, she looked directly at him.
And for the first time, he heard her voice.
“You shouldn’t be here.”
Then the universe disappeared.
Yeshva woke up.
He opened his eyes slowly.
For a few seconds, he couldn’t remember where he was.
His room was dark.
His ceiling fan turned slowly above him.
A thin line of moonlight entered through the curtains and rested across his desk.
He sat up.
His breathing was faster than usual.
He looked at the clock.
4:37 AM.
Yeshva rubbed his face.
It had been the same dream again.
He reached for the notebook beside his bed.
The notebook was old and slightly damaged at the edges. He had started using it three weeks ago because he wanted to write down his dreams before he forgot them.
He switched on his table lamp.
The warm yellow light filled the room.
He opened the notebook.
There were pages filled with descriptions.
Stars.
Darkness.
The girl.
The sentence.
He turned to a fresh page.
For a moment, he didn’t know what to write.
Then he wrote:
Dream 21.
He paused.
Then added:
She was closer this time.
He stared at the sentence.
Something bothered him.
It wasn’t the dream itself.
It was the feeling after waking up.
The feeling that the girl had been real.
Yeshva closed the notebook.
“Just a dream,” he whispered.
He lay back down.
But he couldn’t sleep.
He looked through the window.
The night sky was unusually clear.
Thousands of stars were visible above the rooftops.
Yeshva had always loved looking at the sky.
When he was younger, he used to believe every star was another world.
Maybe someone was standing there.
Maybe someone was looking at Earth.
Maybe somewhere beyond the darkness, another version of him was looking back.
It was childish.
At least, that’s what everyone told him.
But Yeshva never completely stopped believing it.
He had always felt that the universe was too large for human beings to understand.
There were billions of galaxies.
Millions of possibilities.
Things that science had discovered.
Things science had not discovered.
And things science had not even imagined yet.
He wondered if there were places where the sky looked different.
Places where there were two moons.
Places where the stars moved differently.
Places where someone was waiting beneath a sky that did not belong to Earth.
His thoughts slowly became quieter.
Eventually, he fell asleep.
And this time, there was no dream.
The next morning arrived with the sound of an alarm.
Yeshva reached out without opening his eyes and hit the phone.
The alarm stopped.
Silence.
Five seconds later, another alarm began.
He hit that one too.
Another started.
He opened his eyes.
“You’ve got to be kidding me.”
He sat up.
The clock showed 7:48.
His college bus left at 8:10.
He jumped out of bed.
Within minutes, his room looked like a storm had passed through it.
His shirt was half-buttoned.
His books were scattered across the floor.
One sock was on the chair.
The other had somehow disappeared.
He stood in the middle of the room, staring at everything.
Then he sighed.
“Where is my other sock?”
His mother shouted from downstairs.
“Yeshva! You’re going to be late!”
“I’m coming!”
“You’re saying that every day!”
“Today I’m actually coming!”
“That’s what you said yesterday!”
Yeshva grabbed the first pair of socks he found.
They were different colours.
He didn’t care.
He ran downstairs.
His mother looked at him.
Then at his socks.
Then back at him.
She shook her head.
“You look like you lost a fight with your cupboard.”
Yeshva grabbed a piece of toast.
“I’m experimenting with fashion.”
“You’re experimenting with being late.”
He smiled.
“That too.”
He ran out.
The morning air was cool.
The sun was just beginning to rise above the buildings.
The streets were already alive.
Buses moved through traffic.
Shops opened their shutters.
People stood near tea stalls.
Dogs slept beside parked vehicles, completely uninterested in the chaos around them.
Yeshva walked quickly towards the bus stop.
He didn’t notice the sky.
He didn’t notice the sunlight.
He didn’t notice anything.
Until someone shouted from behind him.
“Bro!”
Yeshva stopped.
Joseph came running towards him.
His backpack was hanging from one shoulder.
His hair was even messier than Yeshva’s.
He stopped beside him, breathing heavily.
Yeshva looked at him.
“Why are you running?”
Joseph looked offended.
“Because I was looking for you.”
“You could have called.”
“I did.”
Yeshva checked his phone.
Seven missed calls.
He looked at Joseph.
“You called seven times?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Joseph stared at him.
“Physics assignment.”
Yeshva’s face changed.
“What physics assignment?”
Joseph smiled.
“Exactly.”
Yeshva sighed.
“I forgot.”
“You didn’t forget. You have a special talent for avoiding responsibilities.”
“Thank you.”
“That wasn’t a compliment.”
“I’ll take it anyway.”
They started walking.
Joseph was the kind of person who could talk about anything.
He could turn a five-minute walk into a forty-minute conversation.
He could make a serious situation funny.
He could make a funny situation worse.
And somehow, despite all of this, he was the person Yeshva trusted most.
They had known each other long enough that silence between them never felt uncomfortable.
Joseph suddenly looked at him.
“You look tired.”
“I didn’t sleep properly.”
“Why?”
Yeshva hesitated.
“Dream.”
Joseph raised an eyebrow.
“The space dream again?”
Yeshva nodded.
Joseph knew about it.
Not everything.
But enough.
Yeshva had told him about the strange place.
The stars.
The girl.
The sentence.
Joseph had laughed the first time.
The second time, he had joked about it.
By the tenth time, he had stopped joking.
Now he simply asked, “Did she say anything new?”
Yeshva looked at him.
“She was closer.”
Joseph became quiet.
“And?”
“I saw her face.”
Joseph waited.
“What did she look like?”
Yeshva thought about it.
He didn’t know how to describe her.
Beautiful wasn’t enough.
There was something more than that.
Something he couldn’t put into words.
“She looked...” Yeshva stopped.
Joseph smiled.
“You don’t know how to describe her?”
“No.”
“Beautiful?”
“Maybe.”
“Mysterious?”
“Definitely.”
“Your future wife?”
Yeshva pushed him.
“Shut up.”
Joseph laughed.
“Okay, okay.”
They reached the college gate.
The campus was already crowded.
Students moved through the entrance in groups.
Some were laughing.
Some were rushing.
Some looked half-dead.
Yeshva smiled.
This was his world.
Ordinary.
Predictable.
Safe.
He didn’t know how much he would miss it later.
St. Jude’s Institute was one of the oldest colleges in the city.
Its newer buildings were modern, filled with glass windows and bright corridors.
But the older section looked completely different.
Stone walls.
Tall windows.
Long corridors.
Old trees that had grown so large that their branches covered entire sections of the campus.
There was something beautiful about the place.
Especially in the morning.
Sunlight passed through the leaves and fell across the pathways in broken pieces.
The campus looked like it had been painted by someone who loved both nature and architecture.
Yeshva often walked through the old section even though his classroom was in the newer building.
He liked the silence.
He liked the old trees.
He liked the feeling that thousands of students had walked those same paths before him.
Joseph hated it.
“It’s creepy.”
Yeshva looked at him.
“It’s just a building.”
“It’s an old building.”
“That’s what makes it interesting.”
“No. That’s what makes it haunted.”
Yeshva laughed.
“You’re scared of everything.”
“I’m not scared.”
“You were scared of a cat yesterday.”
“It came at me aggressively.”
“It was sleeping.”
“It had evil eyes.”
Yeshva laughed.
They entered their classroom.
Their professor hadn’t arrived yet.
Joseph immediately dropped into his chair.
Yeshva sat beside him.
He took out his notebook.
Joseph leaned over.
“Give me your assignment.”
Yeshva looked at him.
“Why?”
“Because you finished it, right?”
“I haven’t.”
Joseph stared.
“You said you would.”
“I forgot.”
Joseph closed his eyes.
“One day, you’re going to destroy my life.”
Yeshva smiled.
“You still have time to leave.”
“Too late.”
The professor entered.
Everyone became silent.
The morning passed normally.
Physics.
Mathematics.
Computer science.
Lunch.
A boring lecture.
Another boring lecture.
A surprisingly good lunch.
And Joseph nearly getting thrown out of class for talking.
Nothing strange happened.
Until the final hour.
Yeshva was looking through his textbook when he saw a diagram.
It showed spacetime.
A curved grid surrounding a black hole.
He stared at it.
Something about the shape felt familiar.
Not from class.
From the dream.
He turned the page.
The same feeling.
He looked at the diagram again.
The lines seemed to form a pattern.
A circle.
Three intersecting lines.
A shape he couldn’t explain.
He suddenly remembered the wall behind the girl.
He had seen that symbol there.
His pen fell from his hand.
Joseph looked at him.
“What happened?”
Yeshva pointed at the textbook.
“That.”
Joseph looked.
“What?”
“The shape.”
“It’s a diagram.”
“No.”
“What?”
“I’ve seen it before.”
Joseph laughed.
“Where?”
Yeshva looked towards the window.
The old science building was visible from their classroom.
Its highest windows were covered in dust.
At the very bottom was a section of the building most students never visited.
Sub-Basement 4.
Yeshva felt a strange chill.
Joseph followed his gaze.
“Why are you looking there?”
Yeshva didn’t answer.
Then he asked quietly, “Do you know what’s inside Sub-Basement 4?”
Joseph’s smile disappeared.
“Why?”
“Just asking.”
Joseph looked at the building.
“I’ve heard stories.”
“What stories?”
“Old laboratories. Experiments. Some accident happened there years ago.”
“What kind of accident?”
“No idea.”
Yeshva looked back at the textbook.
“Who told you?”
“My senior.”
“Name?”
Joseph shrugged.
“I don’t remember.”
Yeshva closed the book.
Something inside him told him to remember that place.
He didn’t know why.
But he would.
That evening, Yeshva stayed late at the library.
The campus was quieter now.
Sunset had painted the western sky orange and pink.
The clouds looked like slow-moving islands floating over the city.
Yeshva stood near a window and watched the sun disappear.
For a moment, he forgot about the dream.
He forgot about the symbol.
He simply watched the sky.
The last sunlight touched the tops of the trees.
The campus became golden.
Birds flew across the sky.
Students slowly left.
The world seemed peaceful.
Then Yeshva noticed someone standing beneath the old banyan tree.
A girl.
He couldn’t see her face.
She was standing alone.
Yeshva blinked.
The girl disappeared.
He looked again.
Nothing.
His heart began beating faster.
He stepped away from the window.
Maybe he was tired.
Maybe his mind was playing tricks on him.
He returned to his table.
A few minutes later, he opened a physics book.
A piece of paper fell from between the pages.
Yeshva picked it up.
It wasn’t his.
There was only one sentence written on it.
Some dreams are memories from places we have never visited.
Yeshva stared at the paper.
His hands became cold.
He looked around the library.
Nobody was nearby.
He turned the paper over.
Nothing.
He folded it and placed it in his notebook.
Then he heard footsteps.
Slow.
Soft.
Coming from behind him.
Yeshva turned.
Nobody.
The library door was slightly open.
Beyond it was the long corridor.
Empty.
He stood.
“Hello?”
No answer.
He walked towards the door.
The corridor lights flickered.
One.
Two.
Three.
Then they became normal.
Yeshva laughed quietly at himself.
“You’re imagining things.”
He turned back.
The paper was gone.
That night, Yeshva couldn’t stop thinking about it.
He searched the sentence online.
Nothing useful.
He searched variations.
Nothing.
He opened his notebook.
The page with the sentence from the paper was still there.
Except the words had changed.
He stared.
The original sentence was gone.
Now it said:
You have already seen me.
Yeshva stopped breathing.
He closed the notebook.
Then opened it again.
The sentence was still there.
He grabbed his phone and took a photograph.
The camera showed a blank page.
Yeshva looked at the physical notebook.
The words were there.
He took another photograph.
Blank.
He didn’t sleep that night.
The next day, Yeshva told Joseph.
They sat beneath the old banyan tree during lunch.
Joseph listened carefully.
When Yeshva finished, Joseph looked at him.
“Okay.”
“Okay?”
“Yes.”
“That’s all?”
“What do you want me to say?”
“I don’t know.”
Joseph thought for a moment.
“Maybe your dreams are connected to that building.”
“That’s what I think.”
“Then we should investigate.”
Yeshva looked at him.
“You’ll come?”
Joseph sighed.
“Unfortunately, yes.”
“Why unfortunately?”
“Because if we die, I’m blaming you.”
“We’re not going to die.”
“That’s what people say before horror movies.”
Yeshva laughed.
For the first time in days, he felt normal.
He didn’t realize that Joseph’s decision to stay with him would become one of the most important things in his life.
They went to the library again.
This time they searched old campus records.
Most of them were boring.
Construction plans.
Old student lists.
Faculty records.
Laboratory equipment inventories.
Then Joseph found something.
“Yeshva.”
Yeshva looked up.
“What?”
Joseph placed an old folder on the table.
The cover was faded.
Dust covered the edges.
There was no official title.
Only a small handwritten symbol.
The same symbol.
Yeshva’s heart skipped.
“Where did you find that?”
“Behind the old records.”
They opened it.
Inside were documents from twenty-four years ago.
The first page read:
SUB-BASEMENT 4 RESEARCH FACILITY
Below that:
PROJECT DREAM GATE
Yeshva stared.
Joseph whispered, “This sounds important.”
They continued reading.
The project involved experimental research into consciousness, quantum systems and dream states.
Yeshva read faster.
One sentence stopped him.
The human brain may not merely generate dreams. It may receive information from alternate states of reality.
Joseph looked at him.
“That’s impossible.”
Yeshva didn’t answer.
Another page contained a photograph.
Seven researchers stood outside the old science building.
One of them was a man identified as Dr. Arvind Rao.
Another person stood beside him.
A young woman.
Yeshva’s fingers became cold.
He knew her.
He had never met her.
But he knew her.
It was the girl from his dreams.
Joseph noticed his expression.
“Yeshva?”
He didn’t answer.
At the bottom of the photograph was a name.
Sathvika Rao.
Yeshva whispered it.
“Sathvika.”
The name felt strangely familiar.
Like something he had forgotten.
Like a word he had known before he was born.
That night, the dream changed.
Yeshva opened his eyes.
He was beneath the stars again.
But this time, the girl wasn’t far away.
She was standing only a few steps from him.
Yeshva stared.
She smiled.
“You found my name.”
Yeshva’s heart stopped for a moment.
“You’re Sathvika.”
She nodded.
“How do you know me?”
“I’ve known you for a long time.”
“But I’ve never met you.”
“You have.”
“When?”
She looked up at the stars.
“Not yet.”
Yeshva didn’t understand.
“What does that mean?”
Sathvika smiled.
“You’ll understand when you wake up.”
“I don’t want to wake up.”
She looked at him.
For the first time, her expression became warm.
“Why?”
Yeshva didn’t know what to say.
Because this place felt peaceful.
Because she felt familiar.
Because he had spent three weeks searching for her without knowing why.
Because standing beneath those impossible stars with her felt more real than standing in his own bedroom.
He finally said, “Because you’re here.”
Sathvika looked away.
The stars above them became brighter.
“Yeshva...”
“Yes?”
“You should be careful.”
“Of what?”
“Of yourself.”
He frowned.
“What does that mean?”
She didn’t answer.
Instead, she stepped closer.
For a moment, they stood silently beneath the stars.
Yeshva noticed that her eyes reflected the entire sky.
It was almost as if the universe had hidden itself inside them.
He wanted to ask a hundred questions.
But none of them seemed important.
He simply wanted to remember the moment.
Sathvika whispered, “When you see me in the real world, you won’t remember this conversation.”
“Why?”
“Because your mind isn’t ready.”
“Then how will I know you?”
She smiled.
“You’ll feel it.”
Yeshva looked at her.
“What will I feel?”
Sathvika’s smile became softer.
“Like you’ve finally found something you didn’t know you were searching for.”
The stars above them moved.
Slowly.
Beautifully.
And for the first time, Yeshva understood why he had always felt that the universe was looking back at him.
It wasn’t the universe.
It was her.
Yeshva woke up at 6:11 AM.
He immediately remembered everything.
Her face.
Her voice.
Her words.
He ran to his notebook.
He wrote:
Sathvika.
Then:
She said I will recognize her.
He stopped.
Something else was different.
There was a small mark on his wrist.
A circular symbol.
The same symbol from the dream.
Yeshva stared at it.
He touched it.
It didn’t disappear.
He tried washing it.
Nothing.
He became frightened.
He called Joseph.
Joseph answered half asleep.
“What?”
“Come to my house.”
“Why?”
“I need to show you something.”
“Can it wait?”
“No.”
“Is it about the girl?”
Yeshva looked at the symbol.
“Yes.”
Joseph became silent.
“I’ll be there.”
Twenty minutes later, Joseph arrived.
Yeshva showed him the mark.
Joseph stared.
“Where did that come from?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did you draw it?”
“No.”
“Did you get hurt?”
“No.”
Joseph touched it.
Yeshva pulled his hand away.
“Don’t.”
“Why?”
“It feels warm.”
Joseph looked at him.
“Okay. That’s officially weird.”
Yeshva sat down.
“I saw her again.”
“Sathvika?”
“Yes.”
“What did she say?”
Yeshva told him.
Joseph listened.
Then he asked, “What does she look like?”
Yeshva smiled.
“You’ve asked me that before.”
“I’m asking again.”
Yeshva looked at the floor.
“She looks like...”
He stopped.
He didn’t want to compare her to anything human.
Because she didn’t feel ordinary.
She felt like moonlight.
Like the quiet after rain.
Like the first star appearing in the evening sky.
Like a memory from a life he had never lived.
Finally, he said, “She looks like someone the universe would create if it wanted to make a person out of light.”
Joseph stared at him.
“Bro.”
“What?”
“You’re in trouble.”
Yeshva laughed.
“Why?”
“Because you’re already describing a girl like poetry.”
Yeshva shook his head.
“She’s not just a girl.”
Joseph looked at him seriously.
“Then what is she?”
Yeshva looked out the window.
“I don’t know.”
That evening, Yeshva returned to the old science building.
Alone.
The sunset had turned the sky deep orange.
The old trees moved gently in the evening breeze.
He stood outside the building for a long time.
The windows were dark.
The walls were covered with years of dust.
But somehow, the building didn’t feel abandoned.
It felt like it was waiting.
Yeshva entered.
The corridors were empty.
He walked slowly.
Every step echoed.
He reached the basement.
The door was locked.
He touched it.
The circular mark on his wrist became warm.
The lock clicked.
Yeshva stepped back.
The door opened by itself.
He stared into the darkness.
Then he entered.
The staircase seemed longer than before.
B1.
B2.
B3.
And finally—
B4.
The door was waiting.
Yeshva opened it.
The old laboratory was exactly like the one in his dreams.
Machines covered the walls.
Broken screens.
Metal rings.
A circular platform.
In the center stood an old machine.
It looked dead.
Then Yeshva heard a sound.
A low hum.
The machine turned on.
One monitor flickered.
Words appeared.
DREAM GATE
Yeshva stepped closer.
Another line appeared.
SUBJECT DETECTED.
Then:
YESHVA.
He stopped.
A third line appeared.
ALTERNATE SUBJECT DETECTED.
Yeshva’s heart began racing.
Then the final message appeared.
CONNECTION READY.
The entire laboratory filled with white light.
And for one impossible second, Yeshva saw another world.
A city beneath two moons.
A sky filled with unfamiliar stars.
And standing beneath them—
Sathvika.
She looked directly at him.
Even through the light.
Even across whatever distance existed between their worlds.
She smiled.
Yeshva smiled back.
Then the machine shut down.
Darkness returned.
Yeshva stood alone.
But he no longer felt alone.
Because somewhere beyond the universe he understood, someone was waiting.
Someone whose name he had once never known.
Someone who now felt strangely familiar.
Someone who had appeared in his dreams before appearing in his life.
And somewhere beyond the stars, Sathvika was looking at the same sky.
Neither of them knew what would happen next.
Neither knew how far apart their worlds really were.
Neither knew that their meeting had already begun to disturb something much larger than either of them.
For now, there was only the distance between two universes.
And the strange feeling that distance was slowly disappearing.
Yeshva looked at the dead machine one last time.
Then he whispered the words that would change everything.
“I’ll find you.”
Far away, beneath a sky that did not belong to Earth, Sathvika looked up at the stars.
And somewhere in the silence between the universes, something answered.
It’s time.
