“Have you ever wondered how it feels to be dead?”

  Vihan never thought he would find out. But now, he knew.

  He didn’t remember how it happened. One moment, he was buried in books, formulas, and endless pressure. The next, he was here—floating in silence, weightless, separated from the world he once knew. There was no pain, no sound, just emptiness.

  Then, a strange pull—like slipping through a crack in reality.

  When Vihan opened his eyes, he was in a city that was not complete. The buildings were half-built, and the roads led nowhere. It looked like an abandoned story, left unfinished by its writer.

  Life stood beside him—not as a voice in his head, not as an invisible force, but as a real presence. Watching. Waiting.

  “This is your world,” Life said. “Half-written, just like your dreams.”

  Vihan walked through the city, the emptiness weighing on him. A tear rolled down his cheek. Was this all that remained of him? An unfinished story?

  “I tried,” he whispered. “I really tried.”

  “I know,” Life said softly. “But you were never meant to do it alone.”

  Before he could speak, the world changed.

  Rows of desks appeared. The scratching of pens filled the air, but the pages were blank. Faces blurred together, hunched over notes, their eyes tired and empty. Vihan felt a familiar pain in his chest. He had lived this moment too many times.

  He walked past the seats, his footsteps making no sound. Then he saw himself—a boy from just weeks ago. The same slouched shoulders, the same tired eyes staring at a question he didn’t understand. His past self bit his lip, gripping his pen so tightly his fingers turned white.

  He saw his parents too. His mother, exhausted but still putting an extra roti on his plate. His father, hiding his worries behind small smiles. They had believed in him, even when he had stopped believing in himself.

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  His chest ached. “I never told them I loved them.”

  Life placed a hand on his shoulder. “But you still can.”

  A soft breeze carried the scent of wet earth. Laughter, distant but warm, wrapped around him like an embrace. His feet sank into soft grass, glowing golden in the setting sun. A river shimmered before him, whispering stories through its ripples.

  Vihan knelt by the water and saw himself—not as a student, not as a number, but as a person. A son, a friend, a dreamer who had once loved to write.

  He saw his childhood—scribbling stories in his notebooks, laughing until his stomach hurt, running home with scraped knees and big dreams. He had been so full of life once.

  Tears welled in his eyes. “I never saw it.”

  “No,” Life said gently. “You were too busy chasing something else.”

  Vihan turned to Life. “Then what is the meaning of all this? What is life supposed to be?”

  Life’s voice was soft but carried the weight of the universe.

  “Life is not a race, Vihan. It is not a test. It is not a number or a rank.”

  “It is the joy of writing under the glow of a lamp, the laughter shared over dinner, the feeling of the first rain on your skin.”

  “It is the stories you create, the love you share, the dreams you follow—not for others, but for yourself.”

  “You were never meant to be just a number. You were meant to live.”

  Vihan closed his eyes. For the first time, he felt free.

  The river sparkled. The meadow glowed.

  And then—

  Darkness.

  The sound of an alarm clock ringing.

  Vihan’s eyes fluttered open.

  He was back in his room. The same books, the same desk, the same life waiting for him. But something had changed.

  Tears ran down his face. He had another chance. He was alive.

  His gaze landed on his notebook. The one he hadn’t touched for weeks, left forgotten under the weight of expectations. He picked it up, flipped through the pages—and stopped.

  Scrawled in his own handwriting, words he didn’t remember writing:

  "Sometimes, we must lose everything to understand what truly matters. But if we’re lucky, life gives us a second chance."

  His breath caught. Had it all been a dream? A hallucination? Or had Life truly reached out to him in his moment of despair?

  He would never know for sure.

  But as he picked up his pen, he realized it didn’t matter.

  He had been asking the wrong question all along.

  It was never about how it feels to be dead. It was about how it feels to be alive.