The Life She Needed to Escape
There was nothing wrong with Pia Sachdev’s life.
That was the problem.
Nothing was wrong enough to justify how desperately she wanted to run from it.
Her job was stable. Her apartment was comfortable. Her parents called often enough to prove they cared and frequently enough to make her occasionally consider changing her phone number. She had friends who remembered her birthday, coworkers who invited her to dinner, and a refrigerator containing enough food to survive a minor apocalypse.
By every reasonable measure, Pia was doing fine.
And yet every morning she woke with the strange sensation that she had somehow missed something.
Not an appointment.
Not a deadline.
Her life.
She stood in her kitchen on a wet Tuesday evening, staring at the microwave as it counted down the remaining forty-three seconds on her dinner.
Frozen pasta.
Again.
Outside, rain streaked the windows of her apartment. Cars crawled through traffic below. Somewhere upstairs, someone’s child was apparently attempting to learn the recorder.
Pia closed her eyes.
Thirty-eight seconds.
This cannot be it.
The thought had been appearing more frequently lately.
Sometimes while answering emails.
Sometimes while grocery shopping.
Once, rather inconveniently, while a dentist cleaned her teeth.
This cannot be it.
The microwave beeped.
Pia opened her eyes.
Apparently, this was it.
She carried the bowl to the sofa and opened her laptop.
A message from her mother appeared almost immediately.
Mum: Did you call Auntie?
Pia stared at it.
Another followed.
Mum: She asked me if you are seeing anyone.
Of course she had.
Pia typed:
Pia: Why is my romantic life Auntie’s business?
Three dots appeared.
Mum: She cares about you.
Pia laughed.
Auntie had spent Christmas dinner asking whether Pia had considered freezing her eggs.
Concern came in strange forms.
She placed the phone face down.
Her laptop remained open on a travel site she’d been browsing for almost two weeks.
Himalayan trekking routes.
She had no explanation for the obsession.
Pia enjoyed travelling, but she had never considered herself particularly adventurous. She preferred hotel rooms with functioning plumbing. She liked knowing exactly where dinner was coming from.
Yet something about the photographs had pulled at her.
Snow-covered mountains.
Narrow trails.
Prayer flags fluttering against impossibly blue skies.
Villages clinging to hillsides.
Silence.
Real silence.
Not traffic.
Not notifications.
Not someone asking her when she planned to settle down.
Just mountains.
She clicked through the photographs again.
A twelve-day trekking package had availability next month.
She had enough vacation time.
Enough savings.
Enough excuses not to go.
Pia rested her chin against her hand.
A second message arrived from her mother.
Mum: Also there is a nice boy Auntie knows.
Pia closed the conversation.
That did it.
She returned to the booking page.
Her cursor hovered over the button.
RESERVE TREK.
“This is ridiculous,” she whispered.
Her heart was beating faster.
She wasn’t afraid of heights.
Probably.
She exercised.
Sometimes.
She owned hiking boots.
They had never actually been hiking, but technically that wasn’t relevant.
Pia laughed under her breath.
Then clicked.
The confirmation appeared.
Congratulations. Your Himalayan Adventure Begins Here.
For several seconds, she stared at the screen.
“Oh God.”
She had actually done it.
The feeling that followed wasn’t regret.
It was relief.
Pure, unreasonable relief.
Pia stood and walked toward the window.
Beyond the rain-dark glass, Toronto stretched around her in lights and concrete.
She loved this city.
She loved her family.
She loved parts of the life she’d built.
But somewhere beneath all of it was a version of herself she couldn’t quite remember anymore.
Maybe she wasn’t escaping.
Maybe she was searching.
For what, she didn’t know.
The following week became a blur of preparation.
Thermal clothing.
Water purification tablets.
First-aid supplies.
A ridiculous number of socks.
Her mother reacted exactly as expected.
“Alone?”
“I’m joining a group.”
“In the Himalayas?”
“That’s usually where Himalayan treks happen.”
“Pia.”
“Mum.”
“What if something happens?”
Pia smiled despite herself.
“Then I’ll call you.”
“From the mountain?”
“If the mountain has Wi-Fi.”
Her father, more quietly supportive, gave her a compact flashlight and made her promise to carry it at all times.
“You don’t know when you’ll need it.”
“I have my phone.”
“Phones die.”
He pressed the flashlight into her palm.
“Take it.”
So she did.
On the night before her flight, Pia sat surrounded by luggage and checked the trekking company’s website one last time.
A section titled THE ROUTE contained photographs uploaded by previous trekkers.
She clicked through them.
Mountain ridge.
Suspension bridge.
Village.
Waterfall.
Snowfield.
Then she stopped.
The photograph was ordinary at first glance.
Three trekkers stood on a narrow trail, smiling at the camera. Behind them rose a dark mountainside covered in mist.
Pia leaned closer.
There was something behind them.
An opening.
A cave entrance, perhaps.
Almost completely hidden by rock.
She enlarged the image.
The photograph pixelated slightly.
Still, the opening remained visible.
Dark.
Perfectly black.
Something about it unsettled her.
Pia couldn’t say why.
It was only a cave.
Probably one of hundreds.
She was about to close the image when she noticed something carved into the rock beside the entrance.
Two circles.
Side by side.
Touching.
Pia stared.
A strange chill passed over her skin.
She zoomed in farther.
The image blurred.
But the symbol remained unmistakable.
Two circles.
Touching at one point.
Simple.
Ancient-looking.
Intentional.
She glanced at the photograph’s caption.
Day 6 — Northern Ridge Trail.
No mention of the cave.
No explanation of the symbol.
Pia searched the website.
Nothing.
She tried reverse-searching the image.
No useful result.
Eventually, annoyed with herself for being unsettled by something so trivial, she closed the laptop.
“You’re going on holiday,” she told herself.
Not into a horror movie.
She switched off the bedroom light.
For a long time she lay awake, listening to the city.
But when sleep finally came, Pia dreamed of a mountain she’d never seen.
And somewhere inside it, behind a wall of stone, something was waiting.
