The dawn broke heavy over Varanasi, humid and thick with the smell of wet earth and burnt sandalwood. Arjun jolted awake, breath ragged, shirt clinging to his skin. His heart pounded like it was trying to outrun him.
He blinked. This wasn’t Delhi.
This wasn’t the white hospital room where Meera had slipped away.
He pressed his palm to his chest, trying to anchor himself.
Arjun (softly):
“What… Where am I?”
He stumbled to a narrow window. What he saw made him stop breathing.
Varanasi, but dreamlike—washed in silver, rippling with strange stars overhead. People moved through the streets like memories, eyes glowing with something unspoken. The Ganga flowed below, luminous and eternal.
Arjun (to himself):
“This isn’t real. Or maybe… this is more real than anything I’ve known.”
Meera’s voice rose in his memory—faint, like a fading tune.
“Find me… another life… another world.”
Her favorite poem lingered in his mind. He had written it into her last notebook, shaking fingers tracing her fading breath:
“When my soul forgets its shape, find me by the river, where stars drink the earth.”
On the bed beside him was a worn leather journal. His. Filled with poems, half-finished thoughts, letters he never sent.
He held it to his chest like a lifeline, then stepped outside, barefoot, into a world stitched from grief and wonder.
The streets of this strange Varanasi—this Antarlok—were quiet and radiant. The ghats shimmered under starlight. Priests chanted mantras that vibrated in his bones. Lamps floated on the river, carrying prayers toward something beyond understanding.
He searched every face. Every fleeting shadow.
But none were Meera.
Still, he felt her in everything—the rustle of a woman’s anklets, the scent of jasmine in passing, the way the river seemed to hum a lullaby only they had shared.
At one ghat, under the knotted limbs of an ancient banyan, an old woman sat weaving golden threads into the water.
Her gaze found him, steady and calm.
Old Woman:
“You’ve come a long way for a goodbye.”
Arjun (hoarse):
“I don’t know if it’s goodbye. I don’t even know where I am.”
Old Woman:
“You’re in between. Antarlok. The place between holding on and letting go.”
She plucked a single thread from her weaving and handed it to him. It glowed faintly in his palm.
Old Woman (gently):
“This is a piece of your longing. If you follow it, it will take you to the Shrine of Reflections. But be warned—it shows what is, not what you hope for.”
Arjun:
“I have to try. I can’t live like this—half here, half buried with her.”
Old Woman:
“Then walk with the river. She remembers everything.”
Time blurred. The path stretched and folded. The glowing thread pulsed like a heartbeat in his hand.
Visions flickered in the water—Meera dancing in the rain, laughing in bookstores, sleeping in sunlight.
He stumbled. Fell once, sobbing by a bend in the path.
Arjun (broken):
“I’m tired, Meera. I don’t even know if you’re here.”
The wind shifted. He saw a woman ahead in a red saree, hair braided just like Meera’s. He ran.
But she vanished.
The thread burned hot in his palm, urging him onward.
The Shrine of Reflections rose before him like a forgotten ruin carved from starlight and sorrow. Its black stone walls reached for a sky that swirled and shimmered.
Inside, silence wrapped around him. No chants. No echoes. Just a silver pool at the center, still and deep. Around it, broken mirrors lined the walls.
He approached the pool. The thread in his hand dimmed and disappeared.
He looked into the water—and saw not one, but many versions of himself. Laughing. Mourning. One who had never met Meera. One who had died with her.
His breath caught.
Then, her voice—soft, almost unsure.
Meera’s Voice:
“You’re still searching?”
He turned. A figure stepped from the pool. Her face was hers. But something in her eyes told him the truth.
She wasn’t his Meera. Not completely.
Arjun (barely breathing):
“Is it really you?”
Meera (kindly):
“I’m the part of her that lived inside you. The part you’ve carried.”
He fell to his knees.
Arjun:
“I didn’t know how to go on. I thought… if I came far enough, if I held on tight enough…”
Meera:
“You weren’t holding on to me. You were holding on to the pain. You made a home in your silence.”
She knelt before him. Her hand hovered just above his cheek.
Meera:
“It’s okay to break, Arjun. It’s okay to miss me. But don’t build your life from absence.”
He closed his eyes.
Arjun:
“I just wanted one more poem. One more rainy day. One more minute.”
The pool shimmered. Images burst—her slipping a poem into his jacket, the first time she kissed his ink-stained fingers.
“When my soul forgets its shape…”
The shrine trembled. Cracks spidered across the mirrors.
Arjun (desperate):
“Please. Stay. Even if you’re just a dream.”
She smiled, eyes glassy but warm.
Meera:
“This place isn’t for staying. It’s for seeing. And now, you’ve seen what you needed to.”
She faded into the light, leaving only warmth in his chest.
Meera (faintly):
“Go home. Write beginnings, not endings.”
He woke gasping, sunlight pouring into his Delhi room. The notebook lay open beside him, pages fluttering.
But his hand still tingled—like the thread had never left.
He picked up the pen. And this time, he wrote not of the day she died, but of how she lived. Of her laugh. Her stubbornness. The way the Ganga looked that day they stood on the ghat.
Outside, the world kept moving. So did he.
Somewhere, in the quiet fold between memory and myth, Antarlok shimmered on.
End
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