"I am so sorry I came late, doctor. I hope I did not delay you too much. I sincerely wish you get home before it gets dark."

  Aacek offered the patient tissues and said, "Don't worry. I will walk faster today.

  "I do not have any eye drops to give you; just keep your eyes clean. Don't touch them with your hands. If there is any watering or discharge, wipe it with a tissue and throw the tissue away immediately."

  The patient said thank you again and headed out, but Aacek noticed the patient’s shadow did not follow him.

  What am I seeing?

  He got up from his weathered, brown chair to see if it was just a damp spot on the ground or a trick the golden-brown light was playing on his mind. It was neither of those things. The shadow persisted where it was. The light was fading fast now, but the shadow persisted, not lightening or darkening. Aacek decided to let the shadow be and head home. It would get dark soon, and that always meant trouble.

  He picked up a transparent plastic bottle from the splintering wooden table before him and held it up against the fading light.

  The solution is yellowing, he thought.

  He sprayed the little disinfectant remaining in the bottle on the table and chairs and wiped them with a tissue. He sprayed it on the shadow too. He sniffed the air around him and nodded.

  Aacek decided the floor was wet where the shadow persisted and left, pulling down the yellow-painted rolling metal shutters and locking the room. Not a soul was on the street. Even the dogs seemed to have settled in for the day. The wind threw around some bits of paper and fallen leaves. Aacek tugged at the manual lock once and began his long walk home.

  I have to do some research about our traditional medicines. This can't go on—me not being able to treat simple infections and just asking them to keep their eyes clean.

  Aacek walked in silence, with only the wind to keep him company; it whispered occasionally. The grass grew in the middle of the roads now, he noted, with the cracks becoming wider every day. After having walked around two hundred metres, the nape of his neck prickled. Aacek turned around and thought he saw a shadow behind a paint-peeling, blue, abandoned, once-self-driving SUV. He waited a few seconds, and noticing nothing more unusual, he resumed his walk home, a little faster this time.

  Must’ve been a deer.

  The sun set quickly, and Aacek was glad the starlight and moonshine more than sufficed for his walk. If it wasn't for the fear of being mobbed or worse, killed, he thought the walk was quite peaceful.

  Nature taking over everything is not such a bad thing, after all. He missed the deers which came to gaze at the evening walkers.

  As he continued his walk, his thoughts wandered to the glitch he had encountered the previous year, in 2031, with one of the driverless cabs. He vividly remembered them—his wife, Amuna, and him—booking the cab to drive to the Neon Sands, the beach closest to them. The man-made beach where the sand glowed green when the Sun went down!

  The cab had stopped in the middle of their commute without any apparent reason. Their best friend, Dr Brum, was stuck in another cab behind them then. They eventually made it to the beach after the delay but it had been one of the first in a series of glitches they had encountered that eventually led to them living like they were in the medieval age.

  Aacek breathed in deeply when he was under the champak trees that grew in their neighbourhood. He looked up at the tall, thin trees and smiled at the yellowish-white flowers, taking in more of their creamy scent. He passed the unkempt grass in front of their house and the divine scent of the jasmine flowers(that grew on either side of the door) greeted him. He knocked twice on the orange-painted door, maintaining the same interval between the knocks as he always did, and smiled again, happy to be home, grateful for having made it without incident.

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  “How can you be so irresponsible?” Amuna stood fuming over him, as he sat removing his shoes.

  “I did not come late on purpose, dear.”

  He walked to their worn white sofa and flopped down. He looked at the single burning candle on the dining table, lips pursed.

  Amuna locked the door and sat next to him in the dim light. She put her arms around him and kissed him on the cheeks. “I was so worried. You know how it is, how scared I feel, alone at home.”

  Aacek hugged her back and said, “I understand, Amuna. This is exactly why I asked you to be at the Smirt’s. I can come pick you up when I come back from work.”

  She shook her head. “You already know my answer, dear. I don’t like troubling them everyday.”

  “Alright, I will try to be home before dusk. I always try but you know how it is with our profession.”

  “I have a better proposition. I will accompany you to work everyday and assist you.”

  “We could do that but I suspect you would quickly get bored.”

  “We’ll see!” she said and winked. “Let’s have dinner.”

  Aacek woke up with a start. The first thing he noticed was it was still dark. He was drenched in sweat and felt an eerie sense of deja vu.

  It has been well over a year since this last happened. The only thing missing is the hum of the fan overhead.

  He looked at the stationary, dusty, cream-white blades of the fan and sat up.

  Is it really happening again?

  He saw Amuna sleeping peacefully next to him, snoring lightly, just like the last time.

  Well, I went to the kitchen and drank water the last time.

  He tiptoed to the kitchen and sure enough, Amuna was there at the door before he had had his first sip.

  “You really don’t fail to wake me up, Aacek,” she said, smiling. “You are drenched in sweat again.” Her expression turned a little more serious. She walked past him and poured herself a glass of water from the glass jug.

  They were able to see well enough in the moonlight streaming through the kitchen windows.

  She looked at him and arched her eyebrows, questioningly. He nodded.

  “Again? Was it LITSS again?”

  He nodded again. “The dream started the same. Only, this time it didn't feel like a dream. I mean, I know most dreams feel like we are really there but in this one, I really was there. How do I explain…

  “It was like what we used to experience when we donned our haptic suits in the Holo room. It didn't even feel like a simulation, Amuna. It was reality.

  “The details are not slipping away, like how it does when we try to recollect a dream.

  “I saw the ocean of green glowing 0s and 1s again. Then I saw you smiling again and then I was transported to a grim-looking village or town I suppose.

  “I stood on a gravel path leading into a close-knit section of the society I assume. There were stone walls on either side of the path. The path itself was guarded by a large double-swinging metal gate, which was painted black. It was night and a moon shone overhead but I think the gate was black. There were long spikes in the gate which ended in weird goat-like heads, gargoyles maybe? One of the halves of the gate stood open, and there was no one guarding the gate itself.

  “I stepped closer to the gate, taking my time, looking around. I heard a stream behind me but didn't see much. It looked like an open, unkept grassland. Through the open half of the gate, I saw the gravel path winding slowly up to a small hill. A mansion stood on the hill and it had its own set of gargoyle heads on metal spikes.

  “On either side of the path, I saw rows of one-storeyed stone buildings, with sloping thatched roofs. They had arched wooden doors. Dark vines climbed up the stone walls. Oil lanterns hung outside many of the buildings, at the door.

  “In the middle of the path, I guess at the intersection of the next perpendicular path; it might have been the town square, I saw a tree, or whatever was left of the tree. The trunk looked dark brown and wide and branches branched out at odd angles and in on themselves. They were devoid of any leaves or flowers. It looked grotesque, the tree, standing there in the middle of the square there.

  “I was about to turn around, hoping for a way away from the place, when a message flashed before my eyes.”

  Amuna, who was leaning on the kitchen counter, listening with rapt attention, straightened on hearing this, her mouth open. “What message?”

  Aacek smiled. “Now that I am telling you this, it does seem unbelievable, but I saw it, Amuna.

  “You remember the role-playing games I used to play on the computer and the Holo-machine later on? They display information important to the player from time to time.

  I saw a similar pop-up window, in that medieval-looking town, right in front of my eyes, around three feet in front of me, I would say.”

  “Like a HUD, you mean? Do tell what the message said.”

  “It said, ‘Welcome, Aacek, to The Realm.’”