MUMBAI: Most of our mornings, we wake up forgetting our dreams but there are some mornings when we wake up remembering our dreams crystal clear. Such days bewilder us and keep us lost amid the occurrences in our subconscious self. Kahanikaar Sudhanshu Rai’s latest short horror mystery story ‘The Dreamer’ touches upon this happening that we all encounter at some point or the other. It is the story of Ritwik, a young lad living in a small Uttarakhand village who has found his solace in books. 

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Though Ritwik liked reading all genres of books, he had special affinity for thriller and mystery stories. It is sort of an irony that a bookworm like Ritwik was considered a nincompoop. Fate too was not on his side, for he hardly got any job and even when he got one, he was soon fired. Besides being physically weak, he also stammered while speaking. Perturbed by his mother’s sulking, one morning he left for the nearby library, which was a sort of Mecca for Ritwik. But it was unusual as he was not being able to zero in on the next book he would read. 

Frantically searching for a book that could appeal to him throughout the day, he reached an abandoned corner of the library which was covered in darkness. He discovered cobwebs, dust all around and a rack of books that had remained untouched for long. Amid the heap of books, his attention was caught by a thick book titled ‘The Mystery of Your Life’, whose protagonist was Ritwik himself. 

Each page of the book took Ritwik through different phases of his own life, until the point of him discovering the book in the library. What exactly happened with Ritwik after he read the book? Where did he find himself after going to sleep? Was it really a dream that he was experiencing? Or was it reality staring at his face, waking him up from a long dream? The answers to these questions can be discovered with ‘The Dreamer’. Listen to the story: 

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