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THE DREAM
CHAPTER 1
I woke up in the middle of the night; panting and sweating. It felt like I had run a full marathon. I looked at the floor where my pillow and sheet now lay. The crumpled fabric made it impossible to identify the abstract print I knew so well. The stains on the memory foam showed just how much I’d tossed and turned. My heart throbbed, and my chest ached. All I could do was reach for the bottle of water on my nightstand.
I had few sips of water to calm my nerves. I tried to look at the clock; my eyes still heavy, trying to look clearly. It was 3:15 AM and my eyes were wide open now.“I had the exact same dream at the exact same time for a week in a row! that can’t just be a coincidence” What the heck was going on with me! I had to find out.
The next morning, I had my usual breakfast, A bowl full of cereals and a banana smoothie. I packed my box of salted nuts and left for my office. I couldn’t get a good night sleep and I felt so drowsy, but I couldn’t even rest my eyes for a minute .I paced through the corridor and finally reached my cabin.
I organised my stuff and got ready to work on the ongoing case report. Just then something suspicious caught the corner of my eyes. There was a box on my corner table, lousily wrapped in a gifting paper as if the person never intended to wrap it in one. I tore open the wrapper, and opened the box in which I found an envelope addressed to me.
In it was a note in a shabby handwriting – “Wanna know the truth? Just follow the orders”.
All the mist of drowsiness fogged up in my eyes, cleared up in that instant. I turned the paper over to see if anything else was written, but to no avail. By my instinct and all the experience in forensics told me that there is more to the story than just what’s visibly written in the note. But the bigger question I had in my mind now was who was this person? What was truth he was talking about? Was it about my recurring dreams and if so, then how did that person know about them?
In the midst of this tsunami of thoughts, I was searching for any fingerprints or any other clues which might lead me to the person behind that box, but I couldn’t find any trails and now I had, but one choice to find out the mysterious person. I placed the letter under Ultraviolet light and Voila! I got my cryptic note. But that was the easy part as decrypting was not limited to invisible note but it had a lot more work to do.
Whoever the person was, he wanted to work me to the bone. The note had a set of three instructions about different locations from where I had to piece together more clues. Even though I was annoyed by this, I was intrigued to know the mind behind all this and knowing the truth was an absolute deal breaker for me. So, I decided to follow those instructions and try to understand all of this.
The first set of instructions was a fairly easier set, but here was the catch, I...
I woke up in the middle of the night; panting and sweating. It felt like I had run a full marathon. I looked at the floor where my pillow and sheet now lay. The crumpled fabric made it impossible to identify the abstract print I knew so well. The stains on the memory foam showed just how much I’d tossed and turned. My heart throbbed, and my chest ached. All I could do was reach for the bottle of water on my nightstand.
I had few sips of water to calm my nerves. I tried to look at the clock; my eyes still heavy, trying to look clearly. It was 3:15 AM and my eyes were wide open now.“I had the exact same dream at the exact same time for a week in a row! that can’t just be a coincidence” What the heck was going on with me! I had to find out.
The next morning, I had my usual breakfast, A bowl full of cereals and a banana smoothie. I packed my box of salted nuts and left for my office. I couldn’t get a good night sleep and I felt so drowsy, but I couldn’t even rest my eyes for a minute .I paced through the corridor and finally reached my cabin.
I organised my stuff and got ready to work on the ongoing case report. Just then something suspicious caught the corner of my eyes. There was a box on my corner table, lousily wrapped in a gifting paper as if the person never intended to wrap it in one. I tore open the wrapper, and opened the box in which I found an envelope addressed to me.
In it was a note in a shabby handwriting – “Wanna know the truth? Just follow the orders”.
All the mist of drowsiness fogged up in my eyes, cleared up in that instant. I turned the paper over to see if anything else was written, but to no avail. By my instinct and all the experience in forensics told me that there is more to the story than just what’s visibly written in the note. But the bigger question I had in my mind now was who was this person? What was truth he was talking about? Was it about my recurring dreams and if so, then how did that person know about them?
In the midst of this tsunami of thoughts, I was searching for any fingerprints or any other clues which might lead me to the person behind that box, but I couldn’t find any trails and now I had, but one choice to find out the mysterious person. I placed the letter under Ultraviolet light and Voila! I got my cryptic note. But that was the easy part as decrypting was not limited to invisible note but it had a lot more work to do.
Whoever the person was, he wanted to work me to the bone. The note had a set of three instructions about different locations from where I had to piece together more clues. Even though I was annoyed by this, I was intrigued to know the mind behind all this and knowing the truth was an absolute deal breaker for me. So, I decided to follow those instructions and try to understand all of this.
The first set of instructions was a fairly easier set, but here was the catch, I...
