Haze and Clarity

The chauffeur who had come to pick me up decided to take a
different route. I was the second pick up. Vineet was
already there. As the driver had taken the other route,
I was convinced that we had to pick up two of our other
friends too. 

The driver parked at some distance from Avik's place and
went out. I without a second thought walked up to his
house. We had an argument which started
with "Why aren't you ready yet?" and ended with "I have
a cab coming for Niharika and me anyway! We are not coming
in yours." That's when I realized that I had just assumed
that the cab taking this route meant we had to pick the two
up. I slammed the door shut. Somehow that seemed to conclude
the argument. I walked back to the car.

All of this had taken about 40 minutes. I apologized to both
Vineet and the chauffeur, who had returned long back. None
of them seemed agitated. 

We drove along and then reached the edge of a water-fall. I was
wondering what the driver was doing! He went a little back
and forth the edge each time, trying to get something perfectly
rigth. That's when I experienced the free fall. For a second I
thought we were going to die. Vineet didn't say anything.
I was wondering whether he was panicking at all. He looked so
chilled.The only way I could reassure myself was by hoping that
the chauffeur knew what he was doing.
Somehow the car got sucked into a cave. We were helped out and
we were led into a first aid room. I was only wounded on the
elbow. Vineet was hurt on the head.There were two chinese male
nurses in black leather jackets giving first aid to us. Just a
while later Avik and Niharika came. Followed by Rocher. The
first thing that he asked was if I was feeling okay. And
Nidhi who came out of nowhere remarked-'nothing could happen
to her!' I smiled. But then I found people staring at me. And
Rocher asked again if I was feeling okay. And this time I
said I was feeling cold. They fetched a thermometer. And made
me hold it under my tongue for a minute. None of them really
knew how to read the thermometer and I had to do it! I was
almost rolling my eyes. It showed 83 degrees Fahreheit. Just
then Mohan came in and he read it as 76. People around started
to look anxious. I could feel that my body was just not
producing heat. Whatever heat was there was just getting
dissapitated. I was slowly passing out. 

And just as I lost the final threads of consciousness in the
dream, I woke up with a start in the real world. I
wasn't one bit sleepy. It was actually like teleportation!
It was still dark. I did not want to look at the time. For
some reason I wanted it to be beyond 4:00 AM. I _was_ cold.
Of the two blankets I use, one was lying in the corner.
I pulled it onto myself. I tried to remember what home was
like. I couldn't hear my father's snores. I could not feel
my mother anywhere close. I was scared.
I actually died in the dream.    

PS: The character names have been fictionalized.

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