(Not) Just a dream (OR, the ICT steals a groom)

Checklist: Part 2

'Chat deni maar deli khinch ke tamacha

Hi hi hi hi has dele

Rinkiya ke papa

Hi hi hi hi has dele...'

Ishan jerked awake at a bloodcurdling scream.

Running footsteps approached and a door was thrown open.

"What?" Virat bhaiya's anxious voice shouted. "What's wrong, Ishan?"

Ishan grabbed his head and shook it violently. He'd been staring up at the sky, screaming.

There was no sky, just a ceiling. It wasn't noon, it seemed barely past sunrise.

What the devil was wrong with the world?

"Ishan! Ishan!" Virat bhaiya came up to shake him, though very gently. "Are you all right?"

Ishan nodded, though he doubted that being seeped in disorientation, nausea and identity crisis counted as being all right.

'Rinkiya ke papa

Hi hi hi hi has dele...'

"How do you even sleep with that song on?" said Virat bhaiya. "Shubman's saying he'll die of sleep deprivation."

Somehow, Ishan didn't dare ask where Shubman was. As he reached to switch of the speaker, his phone glowed with a message and his gazed spiraled to the date.

February 19, 2023.

Glorious relief flooded through Ishan, replaced almost immediately by a horrible anxiety.

"Ishan," said Virat bhaiya patiently. "I'm waiting, you know."

"It was a nightmare," said Ishan tentatively. "I think."

"You think it was a nightmare?"

"Yeah."

"Okay," asked Virat bhaiya. "Do you want me to stay?"

"No, it's all right, Virat bhaiya..."

Almost before the door had swung shut behind Virat bhaiya, Ishan called Shubman, hands shaking with a dreadful anxiety.

"Ishan?"

"Shubi!" Ishan's voice was shaking, too. "Where are you?"

"At the airport--I came to drop off Shresta di--"

OH NO OH NO OH NO OH NO--

Ishan brought the phone up to his eyes, feeling dizzy again.

2023.

It definitely said 2023.

"--since she suddenly got an urgent meeting tonight and Shreyas bhaiya wouldn't wake up and I was the sensible choice, being already awake because your song didn't let me sleep!"

"Huh?"

"Shesta di's flight got delayed, so we're still--"

Shresta di.

He definitely said Shresta di.

Surely he meant Shreyas bhaiya's sister. He wouldn't call his own fiancée 'di.'

Ishan's anxiety went down a couple of notches.

Next minute, an ugly ring flashed in front of his mind's eye, so clear, so real, he was breathing hoarsely again.