She sat in the elegant chair facing the ornate mirror in the room. She was dressed in the finest silk and net trousseau with the most intricate embroidery. Her neck, arms, ears all laden with royal jewels. Her hair tied up and adorned with aromatic jasmine flowers.  Despite being aware of this and sitting in front of the mirror, her eyes did not take in her own reflection. 

Her focus, instead, was on the knots forming in her stomach. Her hands cold with dread. This was what she had always wanted. Ever since they met. Ever since she fell in love with him. There had been a time when she wasn't even sure this day would come. That his family would agree. But it was here. Finally. And yet, she could not shake the feeling in her stomach nor the shiver than was running down her spine too frequently for her comfort. 

She tried to calm her mind. Everything was going to be okay. This was just her mind worrying herself to death. This was going to be a happy moment. She tried to focus on her future. Her future with the kunwar.

A pooja platter lay in front of her. She picked up the marigolds that had been carried back from the temple and touched them gently to her eyelids, inhaling its smell as she did, drawing in the blessing from the divine on her special day. She took a bite of the sweet prasad on the platter and then another, swallowing it quickly as she heard he sounds of the anklets outside. They were here to take her to the wedding mandap. 

She took a deep breath and finally looked at her own reflection in the mirror. They had turned her into a bride fit for the kunwar. She couldn't wait for him to see her. She blushed at the thought of the kunwar. 

An uneasiness drifted over her again and her palm splayed over her stomach. She felt a mild pain shooting through. Maybe she should have had something to eat. Maybe that was what was causing the cramps. She winced as the pain became sharp. She began to sweat, except it wasn't out of nervousness this time. Her breath came in gasps, each one more strained than the next. Her chest burned. Her head felt heavy. Her vision started to blur. 

Panic filled her quickly as she grasped the arms of the chair tightly, trying to get up and scream for help. But she stumbled down on the floor. She could hear the sound of movement close-by making her re-new her efforts. She tried to raise her hand to call for help, but it didn't seem to want to listen to her mind.

The prasad! her mind screamed. It was the prasad! It  was poisoned!

Blurry words reached her ears. Someone was talking. A distant part of her brain recognised who it was. It was the same person who had poisoned her. She knew it in the depth of her heart. She tried to reach for the person, but ended up curled in sharp pain that wrecked her body making her cough. Pungent metallic taste filled her mouth. 

She was dying. She squeezed her eyes tightly.

Her eyes snapped open. She sprang up in her bed, drenched in cold sweat. Her breath came in shallow gasps. Her pulsed galloped too fast for her control. Her head buzzed with noise. She sat still and let it pass.

Slowly her heartbeat started to slow down and her bedroom came into view. She was home. In her bed. Safe. 

She took large gulps of the water from the bottle by her bed; slowly testing her weight with her feet. When she was calm enough, she walked out into the balcony, craving the feel of the cold breeze against her face. 

She grabbed the railings of her first floor balcony, which looked over the pool and the well maintained lawn in the backyard of her house. The lawn was lite up, despite the late hour, with thousands of string lights. Her brother, Suraj, was getting married the next day. But her mind wasn't on the wedding.

It was stuck on the dream. The dream that didn't seem to leave her alone. No one had been able to help her make sense of it. Not her family. Not even friends. And certainly not the psychiatrist her mother had forced her to see as a child. Nothing.

Her psychiatrist had decoded it to mean that she was scared of being sick again after a really bad bout of food poisoning she had suffered as a child. For a long time, she had been scared of what she ate. She was finally over it. Mostly. As much as she could get over it thanks to that damned dream.

She didn't know the place from the dream. And yet, she seemed trapped in that dying girl's body. Convinced that it was her dying. And the dream seemed to make an appearance every single time something really good or really bad was happening in her life. Every single time.

Why couldn't it just stop? What was it all about?

Why her?

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