-: Pancha Vastra :- ( By Shailu )

[shailu4ever]

PANCHA VASTRA

 
 

The First Book

 
 
 
Prologue
 
Mumbai – Three Months Before
 
It began as a faint and confusing dream, the kind that usually dissolves the moment morning light touches the eyes. But this one did not fade. Instead, it returned… again and again… each night clearer than before.
 
In the dream, Arjun stood alone in a dense forest unlike any he had ever seen. The air was thick with mist, and towering ancient trees surrounded him like silent guardians of forgotten secrets. Somewhere in the distance, he could hear the faint sound of flowing water, rhythmic and calm, almost like a sacred chant carried by the wind.
 
And then he saw them.
 
Nine lamps.
 
Nine beautiful girls holding Nine Lamps
 
They were placed carefully in a circle on the forest floor, the flames of the lamps burning steadily despite the wind moving through the trees. The light from the lamps was soft yet strangely powerful, illuminating symbols carved deep into the earth around them.
 
Arjun did not recognize the symbols, yet something deep inside him stirred with a strange and unsettling familiarity. It felt as though he should know them, as though some forgotten part of his mind had seen them long ago.
 
Then a voice echoed through the forest.
 
It was neither loud nor threatening. In fact, it was calm, almost gentle. But it carried a weight that made his heart beat faster.
 
“Pancha Ratri…”
 
The words drifted through the mist like a forgotten prayer.
 
As Arjun tried to move closer, the flames suddenly grew brighter, and the forest around him seemed to breathe, as if the land itself had awakened.
 
And then the dream ended.

 

 
The first time it happened, Arjun dismissed it as nothing more than the mind’s strange nighttime storytelling. But the dream returned the next night.
 
And the night after that.
 
Each time, the details grew sharper. The trees became clearer. The symbols deeper. The flames brighter.
 
And the voice… closer.
 
By the fourth night, Arjun woke suddenly before dawn, his heart pounding in the silence of his apartment. The words Pancha Ratri lingered in his mind like a melody he could not forget.
 
The next morning, he searched for it online with mild curiosity.
 
Nothing meaningful appeared.
 
No articles.
 
No mythology.
 
No references.
 
Just scattered fragments that made little sense.
 
Arjun leaned back in his chair, staring at the screen.
 
Strange.
 
Yet despite the mystery, what he felt most was not fear.
 
It was curiosity.
 
A strange and quiet pull, like an invisible thread gently tugging somewhere deep inside his chest, guiding him toward something waiting far away.