The boy woke up in the middle of the night, drenched in sweat, heart pounding like it was about to burst out of his chest. His nerves were a wreck.
Reaching for the glass of water on his bedside table, he gulped it down, forcing himself to breathe steadily. With his sweaty hands he lifts the clock it says,
*3:00 AM.*
With a sigh, he put on his glasses. On Earth at this time, he might have been the only person still wearing them. Everyone else had long since adopted to *genetic nanotech*. Their vision was a perfect 6/6.
But not him. His body was frail. Fevers visited him every year; illnesses clung to him like shadows. He might be the only person in this world who still got yearly fevers and colds.
Because of this, he had to study in old archives that said, 'it was common back in the 2000s,' when nature hardened immune systems the rough way. In this age, no one needed "nature" anymore.
Most people think that human have risen up from nature and can now have a safe future rather than in a constant fear for asteroids hits or some deadly virus leak from Himavān-dvīpa (1)
But now, as research had advanced, humans wanted to challenge nature directly by terraforming Mars and controlling Earth to its core. It seemed like a farfetched dream, but as old philosophers say,
"The only creation that could surpass its creator is none other than humans. It's terrifying that we want to fight something we could never defeat but hope and ambition are forces that motivate a man to fight for eternity—even against gods."
But being an exception, he had yet to endure.
He put on his tracksuit and stepped outside into the cold air. His body might be weak, but that was more reason to train. If he wanted to survive, if he wanted to matter, then he had to carve strength into himself.
So, he ran. *Twenty kilometres every morning. *
His only quite to motivate himself is,
"I will rest when I die"
With this motivation he went out, the streets were silent except for his rhythmic steps.
Later, after 3 hours of grinding when he planned to end his session, somewhere along the run, a dog trotted beside him, matching his pace. He slowed, curious, until a girl in casual clothes came running up, waving.
"Sorry! Did my dog disturb you?"
"Not at all," he said with a faint smile.
They exchanged a few casual words. She seemed amused by his relentless routine.
"I saw you yesterday too. Running like crazy... are you planning to be a space explorer? They need that kind of stamina, you know."
He chuckled and deflected. "No... I'm a doctor. Just cardio to stay fit."
She tilted her head, not fully catching his phrasing. "You're a good person then. Take care!" She left with her dog, quite blushing, her words light as air.
His smile faded the moment she turned away.
"She will never understand me."
He resumed running.
By 8 AM, completing his daily chores, he begin dressed up and went for his job.
In his doctor's lounge, the room was spacious, befitting the head surgeon. Shaurya wasn't burdened with endless shifts like ordinary physicians. His work was different. He catered to the wealthy—patients who demanded precision, comfort, and control. Unless an emergency called him to the operating table, his daily duty was mostly to check on progress, adjust treatment plans, and keep their fragile bodies from collapsing under the weight of their broken dreams.
For most people, the serum-fuelled dreams brought growth—strength, intelligence, longevity. But when those dreams stopped, so did the growth. They remained superior to him in aspect of physique, but their bodies were still vulnerable. Bones cracked. Muscles tore. Organs faltered. Their healing capabilities were unable to handle such damage to body, only skilled hands could put them back together.
Their healing was extraordinary—most recovered from fractures in less than two weeks—but the surgery itself demanded mastery.
That was his domain.
And yet, unlike them, his strength lay not in muscle but in mind. Genius had bloomed in him since the age of three. Even those with synchronization rates above seventy-five percent had failed to match the sharpness of his intellect.
After a day of bone-breaking operations and suffocating consultations, Shaurya retreated to the lab. He slipped into his coat, tied his hair back, and fixed the mask across his face. The familiar sterility wrapped around him like armor.
Then, a voice broke into his ears.
"You look good with your hair back like this."
She was his colleague; her name was Elsa.
She had a seductive tone and a very frank way of talking with people. Shaurya was her superior, but she treated him more like a little brother she could tease.
He replied, "I'm tired. Can you not do this today, Ela?"
"It's Elsa."
He replied, "Okay, got that. Sorry, Ila."
She chuckled, and Shaurya asked her for yesterday's report.
After brain-draining work, he returned home, exhausted.
Waiting for him at the house was his friend Suyash, surrounded by food.
Lying all around him.
He chuckled, "Late as always,".
The tired Shaurya sighed and told him, "Please tell me you did not bring sweet yogurt this time."
"Nope" he said with a teasingly smile, "this time it is extra sweet"
They ate, laughed, and later, after eating as they were casually sitting down.
Suyash got an idea and proposed a short trip to the mountains with his girlfriend.
Shaurya asked, "Why me? Isn't it better if it's just the two of you?"
"No, no, it's just a trip. I heard there were some new rabbit holes discovered. I think some might be there. Let's go—if we can find some and have a glimpse... I heard that in old times, people used to track and hunt them. Even if hunting is illegal now, looking for them isn't a problem, right?"
Shaurya agreed. Maybe it would help clear his mind.
As a long-awaited night ends, with a cold dew on the leaf all three have reached.
They were standing at the foothill of a large hilly mountain; it was enormous green trees and birds chirping as the sun begin to rise and shine the top of the MT. Everveil.
"Mt. Everveil as the name suggests the top is totally covered with the clouds and it was like a veil covering him from the cold like a hat.
As they start marching the noises from the city begin to disappear, a calm and silent environment surrounds them with fresh air and cold breezes.
With laughter and jokes, they reached the campsite and began unpacking. Suyash and Parul pressed a button, and their sleek, automatic tent unfolded neatly in seconds.
But the sound of hammering caught their attention. Turning, they saw Shaurya crouched on the ground, driving stakes into the earth with his bare hands as he set up an old-fashioned manual tent.
Suyash raised an eyebrow. "Seriously? In this age?"
Shaurya didn't look up. "I know what you're thinking. But sometimes it's better to rely on yourself. Machines make life easy, sure, but having alternatives isn't a weakness—it's survival."
Suyash chuckled and moved closer. "Alright, alright, let me help then."
"Thanks, but no," Shaurya said quickly, tightening a knot. "These tents were fragile enough as it was. Your goodwill might be too strong, but my rods aren't built to handle that kind of force."
Parul laughed, covering her mouth. Suyash sighed, shaking his head. "Still as stubborn as ever."
They set up a small cooking pot, gathering bits of firewood and stacking them inside a metal hut-shaped stove. The flames caught, flickering to life, and soon the aroma of boiling stew filled the campsite. Laughter and conversation carried on under the fading sky as the three of them shared food, stories, and warmth.
As night descended, the songs of birds faded into silence, and the chorus of crickets rose to claim the dark, their ringing voices weaving a silver thread through the stillness. One by one, exhaustion claimed them. Suyash drifted into sleep beside Parul.
Shaurya could not handle the day and went to sleep in his tent.
As he laid down and fell asleep,
His nightmare starts, in his dream, Shaurya stood alone.
Surrounded by eternity of darkness that had swallowed him whole—absolute, suffocating. His heart thundered in his chest, and a chill ran down his spine as if invisible eyes were pressing against his skin. The silence was unbearable, and yet the weight of being watched made his bones tremble.
Then, from above, a single thin beam of light pierced the black. It looked fragile, almost divine. His throat tightened. If I could just reach it…*his thoughts*
His fingers clenched, nails biting into his palms. Slowly, painfully, he forced his limbs to move. Step by step, he dragged himself forward, every motion carving into him like stone grinding against bone. The closer he got, the stronger the ache in his chest became.
Just as he reached out, fingertips trembling toward the light, a voice—low, echoing, inhuman—brushed against his ear.
"Still looking for light?"
Shaurya gasped awake.
The dream clung to him like a second skin, so vivid it felt carved into reality. He could still feel the pressure of unseen eyes, the weight in his muscles, the chill of the void. His chest heaved, sweat dripping down his forehead.
His watch vibrated, its interface flickering a warning: Please calm down. Breathe slowly. Help is on the way.
But he couldn't. Panic squeezed his lungs. His trembling hand reached for his water bottle, but it slipped and clattered to the ground with a sharp clang.
The sound jolted Suyash awake. He rushed over, eyes wide. "Shaurya!"
Seeing his friend gasping for air, body convulsing as if drowning on dry land, Suyash's throat locked. He fumbled for his communicator with shaking fingers. "Emergency! Send an ambulance—now!"
Minutes later, red lights cut through the night. Medics hurried in, kneeling at Shaurya's side. One checked his vitals; another injected a stabilizer. Slowly, Shaurya's body slackened, his breath evening out as he slipped into unconsciousness.
"We'll need to take him for a full examination," one of the doctors said firmly.
They placed him onto a stretcher and carried him into the ambulance.
Suyash stood rooted to the ground, his fists trembling. Watching his friend's limp body disappear behind metal doors hollowed something out of him. The cheerful laughter from earlier felt like it belonged to another lifetime.
The ambulance pulled away, its siren fading into the distance.
Parul sat silently on a bench, her hands clasped together, her face pale. Suyash lowered himself beside her, his chest heavy with unspoken words. For the first time in years, he felt helpless. He had always known Shaurya was different—fragile yet brilliant—but seeing him carried away like this carved fear into his bones.
And in the silence left behind, the echo of Shaurya's dream still lingered: Still looking for light…
To be continued......….
(1)"Himavān-dvīpa is derived from Sanskrit: 'Him' meaning ice, 'van' meaning forest, and 'dvīp' meaning island. Together, it evokes the image of a frozen forested island.
( Antarctica)"