Dreamward Bound...

Chapter 1
Scroll on the Gate

As the end of a sweaty summer approached, the capital got ready to embrace the welcome showers of monsoon. At five in the evening, grey clouds hung over the city’s landscape, announcing the arrival of the much anticipated season.
In a cool and airy dorm of the St. Margaret’s Boarding School, Rubin was playing chess against his best friend, little aware of his destiny. Little aware of what was about to befall him in a few days. His dark blue eyes sparkled with the glow of victory as he gazed down at the queen.
‘Checkmate!’ Rubin exclaimed triumphantly. Letting out a sigh, he passed his hands over his dark brown hair. ‘You almost got me there.’
‘Yeah, well. What chance did I have anyway? I was lucky to have gotten this far.’ said Samir. He had unkempt black hair, stark black eyes and preferred being called as Samir, not Sam. Taking a big yawn, he continued. ‘Do you remember anyone beating you here?’
‘Rohit did once.’ said Rubin and looked towards Rohit, a bespectacled boy, with coal black hair, standing by his side.
‘C’mon, you gave me a nice head-start by not playing your Queen and two Bishops.’
‘Was it like that?’ asked Rubin, arching his eyebrows.
‘Yes, and it was my birthday.’
‘And you still managed to defeat him?’ asked Samir, getting up from the bed.
‘Barely.’ said Rohit. The crowd of students was now dispersing, with every student suddenly remembering that they had got a nice amount of homework that day. A murmur started to build up, with occasional sounds of ‘How to’ and ‘what is’ filling the air.
‘C’mon Samir, there is a decent pile of homework for us to complete. Let’s get going straight away.’ said Rubin.
‘You go on, I need to catch up with some sleep.’ said Samir, yawning a fourth time since their game got finished.
‘Nice, screw it,’ said Rubin with a smirk. ‘Don’t expect Rohit to help you every time.’
‘But he will, anyway.’ said Samir coolly. Thus Samir went to his bed and dozed off as soon as his head hit the pillow. A few minutes later the dorm went quiet, only occasionally disturbed by Samir’s snoring.

*

Rubin opened his eyes and saw nothing. He felt himself soaring through pitch black space. He could not feel any wings near his arms. He looked over his shoulders to make sure he didn’t have any, but the only sight meeting his eyes was the infinite blackness draping everything around him. Was it sky, he wondered. The darkness brought a sense of dread about him, making him feel like he would be lost here forever. He rolled his eyeballs up and down, slid them sideways, trying to get accustomed to it. He hoped that the darkness would go eventually, revealing his dormitory walls and the beds. But he knew that he wasn’t in his dormitory anymore. It seemed to him like he was flying or wandering in the space since eternity, approaching nothing. Then, surprisingly about a moment later, he began to descend of his own accord. Nobody seemed to force him downwards, neither was he making an effort for the same, but still he was gliding down. As he approached nothing, he saw a blue streak of light in front of him. Relieved to see something different, he tried to make something out of it. It was moving in random coordinates, and it looked like it was outlining something. The sudden appearance of the blue light made Rubin uneasy, but he couldn’t do anything about it. It was moving ever so slowly.
But then suddenly, out of nowhere, came a dense fog which covered whatever the blue streak was trying to define. The fog became larger, and began expanding in all directions. Soon it engulfed him.
When it finally cleared, Rubin found himself standing in front of a gate. Curious, he looked around to see where he had landed. He was standing on hard ground. He bent down to feel it. The ground was quiet smooth, and gave Rubin the impression that it was marble. To his left he saw a silver statue of a man, holding a long sword in his hand. On his right there was the statue of a lady, who was holding a diamond in her right hand. Rubin got up, and started walking towards the gate. It was imposing, made of pure gold, and shone brightly against the dark chasms that extended beyond it.
Rubin saw a scroll hanging on one of the horizontal bars of the gate. The fabric of the scroll looked brand new. There was something written on it. Rubin moved closer and took the scroll in his hands. Throughout the length of the 14 inch long scroll, ran a poem. The writing was neat and cursive. The poem was like this;

‘As he who was chosen lies in shackles,
Another fills his shoes.
Hailing from the World of three…’



Before he could read any further, a deafening bang shook him from head to toe. The next second the gate was gone, and he was standing on what looked like a battleground. He saw mutilated bodies lying on the grass, which had turned mud coloured thanks to all the dried blood. The next second a gigantic black bird flew down from the sky and perched a few feet away from him. Somebody was sitting on it. The being was hooded, and was also wearing shining armour. The person took out a gem from inside of his cloak and held it in his hand. Just then, a voice sounded inside Rubin’s head, the gem emitted a dazzling glow of light and everything became void.

Rubin woke up from the dream, terrified by what he had just seen. He had never had the dream. The events which had occurred in the dream had never happened to him. He wiped the sweat off his forehead and looked around his dorm. It was dark, except a faint glint of moonlight seeping through a gap in the curtains on his bedside window. Rubbing his eyes, he got up from his bed and went to the bathroom.
Rubin was quite mature for his age of kids. He did have all the fun, and wasn’t odd in any sort of way. But few kids had gone through what he had in the past. Rubin’s mother died after giving him birth. For six years, he lived with his father in Palam. His father was a rich business man, and used to run a firm called Choudhary & Co. But when Rubin was seven years old, his father died in a plane crash. Since then Rubin was living with his aunt, Rahul Choudhary’s younger sister. For two years, Rubin studied in a primary school. He had few friends there. Of the time he spent at home, all he would do was dutifully complete his schoolwork and otherwise read books. His friends from school used to visit him sometimes, but that happened only sometimes. When Rubin turned nine, his aunt decided to send him to a boarding school, as she thought it would be the best for him and he wouldn’t feel lonely and cut off from the rest. It was a welcome change. He made a huge load of friends in the school. Samir was his best friend. Although he had a fight with him the first day, but over three years, the bond between them became unbreakable.
Rubin washed his face and went to bed, hoping that the dream won’t bother him anymore. Before finally going to sleep, he gave a look at the ring he wore in his right hand. It was a diamond ring, but with a hollow crevice where the diamond had been before. His father had gifted the ring on his sixth birthday, with the diamond intact. He had woken up one morning after the death of his father to find that the diamond had disappeared mysteriously. He didn’t make an attempt to find out the diamond. Since then he wore the ring like that, as a reminder of his father.
The next day in the assembly, the School Headmistress Mrs. Sharma announced that an educational trip to an art museum was to be conducted in the weekend for all seventh year students. Mrs Sharma was a woman in her fifties. She wore her long black hair in a neat bun and always had a caring smile on her face.
‘Another museum,’ said Samir in disgust over breakfast. ‘Man, looks like all the word ‘leisure’ means for them is a trip to a boring museum.’
‘And they take us for leisure two times a year.’ said Rohit. ‘Remember last time when we went to that science museum, students started to faint, just to get out of that place. The places which are meant to be interesting are also humdrum in this country.’
‘But I kind of liked that place.’ said Rubin.
‘What, with all those fake dinosaurs showing that T-Rex is the fiercest, and moving planets just to show that Jupiter comes before Saturn, you actually liked that place.’ said Samir. ‘You find that stuff on a click of a button on Wikipedia.’
‘You are right but...’
‘C’mon, now don’t get started on we-get-to-know-the-real-thing-there lecture.’ pat said Samir. Rubin shut his mouth, hiding a grin. The kids munched on their cereal, while looking over their notebooks, to do a final crosscheck on their maths assignment.
‘Let’s see what this museum’s got.’ Rubin said coolly after some time.
‘We’ll see.’ said Samir.