35 Dreamwatch

Aman tried to catch up to Ananya but his efforts were futile. While the crowd parted for her, it refused to do the same for him. After getting jolted and jostled as he tried to push against the current and getting peppered with some choice curses by irate pedestrians, he gave up.

Dodging and weaving his way out of the stream of people, he could finally breathe properly. He tugged at the collar of his hoodie, loosening it. After the heat within the press of the crowd, he was feeling a bit too warm in his current garments.

Sighing, he looked down at the paper packet of food in his grasp. It had been slightly squished in the jostling of the crowd and some of the oil had seeped through the paper, making it translucent. He felt guilty for his lack of manners. Sighing again, he began walking towards the park.

Before he went home, he had a few more things to verify. He had no idea how he would explain his knowledge of the underground bunker to Sushil, but he knew that more information wouldn't hurt him.

As the proverb went: Hindsight is always 20/20. Finding out all the details of Raunak Bose's operations would help him tailor a convincing lie to explain his knowledge. After all, back-calculation was one of the oldest tricks in the book.

Reaching the entrance to the park where the puja was being held, he found a huge line snaking its way down the road like a python. If the area hadn't been cordoned off by the police ahead of time and the traffic redirected, there would surely be several accidents involving getting run over by cars. That was exactly the reason why the cordons were there in the first place. After all, the police had experience regulating traffic during the Durga Puja every year. They were old hands at this.

But, in the absence of a VIP pass like the one Ananya had, neither was he a senior citizen, he would have to honestly stand in line to enter and that could take hours. He didn't have that kind of time. He was expected back before ten in the night. If he was late, his mother and Preeti would worry.

Thankfully, he didn't need to actually enter the park for what he had in mind.

There were a lot of plastic and foldable metallic chairs set everywhere. It was so anyone who felt ill while lining up could seat themselves and recuperate. There were several people sitting there already so he wasn't too conspicuous when he took a seat.

Pulling his phone, he unlocked it and navigated to the contacts app, then to Ananya's number. His finger hovered over the call button for some time before he locked the screen instead and put the phone away. Instead, he gingerly unwrapped the soggy paper covering of the pakoras, careful to not tear it.

He bit into one. The spicy flavour of the outer coating burst in his mouth followed by the juicy texture of the minced meat within. It was delicious. Soon, the packet was empty.

Balling the paper up, he tried to toss it into a trash can nearby, only for it to miss and bounce off. Sighing, he walked over, bent down, picked it up and dropped it off properly. Wiping his hands on the paper napkins that had come with the snack, he dumped them too.

Taking his seat again. He brought up Ananya's contact again, this time he pressed the message button and typed out: 'sorry'. That would have to do for now. He pressed 'send' and stuck the phone back into his pocket.

Taking out his handkerchief, he leaned back on his chair and bent his head back till he was facing up. Covering his face with his handkerchief like some people were wont to do to stave off nausea, he activated Divine Vision. The ability didn't care about obstacles, or the direction he was actually looking at and the handkerchief would hide his bulging veins.

His view changed. But, instead of the oddly distorted picture of the present world he expected to see, his vision penetrated into the dreamland. The reason he was sure that it was the dreamland was firstly, because his vision was still undistorted, showing a normal perspective while he was sure that he had his ability activated, secondly, he was sure that he hadn't been sitting on a vast battlefield the last time he checked and if all this wasn't enough, the ten metre tall goddess riding a huge lion and battling a demonic bull was enough to tip him off.

Since Divine Vision used the Dreamland as a medium to expand his sight, it was logical that sometimes instead of the real world, his sight would penetrate to the Dreamland instead. He had speculated as such but in practice, it hadn't happened till now so he hadn't been able to confirm his theories.

This was a huge boost for him. Now he could scope out the Dreamland before he entered, eschewing the dangers. Right now, he was only observing the Dreamland, not in it, so he wasn't affected by the shockwaves generated by the battle between the Devi and the Asura. Although, their current forms were a far cry from the mountain sized demon he had met the first time.

He had developed Divine Vision after Nama had sunk into dormancy so the AI didn't know of it. He was anticipating the reaction when it realized that whatever measure it had worked out to make Dreamland exploration safer had been made obsolete by his development of Divine Vision.

Aman watched the goddess and the demon duke it out on the scarred battlefield, each of their clashes generating shockwaves. The Asura roared and charged, horns lowered, each step cracking the earth. The Devi urged her mount on with her heels, drew her bow with two arms, nocked and fired. As the arrow left her bow, it multiplied into two, two into four, four into sixteen…

Soon, the sky was dark with shafts curving down onto the charging bull. Forced to stop, the demon looked up and roared, the soundwaves deflecting most of the arrows, even shattering some of the shafts outright. Yet, imbued with divine power, some made their way through, peppering its back.

It roared in rage and pain and charged again.