Just as Arjun was beginning to grasp the full, terrifying potential of his digital omnipresence, a new and far more unsettling phenomenon began to manifest.
It started subtly, in the quiet hours of the night, while his body sought temporary respite from the relentless digital battle.
At first, these insights were mundane — almost dismissible. He would "dream" of a minor fender bender on a specific street corner in his neighborhood or "know" that his favorite chai stall would be closed the next morning. He brushed them off as vivid imagination, strange coincidences. Yet a deep unease began to settle in his mind. Why was his brain predicting such trivial details?
Then, the visions began to sharpen. They became undeniably real.
He saw the exact collision he'd dreamt of — the screech of tires, the crumpling of metal — unfolding precisely as envisioned. The chill of validation ran down his spine, turning to icy fear. His heart pounded. He pressed his hands to his temples, as if trying to force the visions away, to regain control of his own mind.
Days later, another image struck during sleep — a vast, heaving sea, a towering wave swallowing a distant coastline. He woke with a jolt, the roar of water still echoing in his ears. Another stress-induced nightmare, he told himself.
But the next vision came during waking hours. Sitting at his laptop, eyes scanning global network feeds, a sudden flicker seized his mind: a city skyline bathed in a sickly green light. The ground trembled; buildings toppled like toys. He recognized some of the architecture — drawn from his countless deep dives into global city networks — but couldn't place the exact location.
The "dreams" grew more frequent, more vivid. They weren't dreams anymore; they were flashes — sometimes hitting him mid-task. A sudden flicker of a snow-choked Antarctic landscape, a vast ancient form half-buried in ice. Or a blurred vision of masked figures coughing in a crowded market, followed by a chilling data stream flashing across his mind:
Death Count: 1.5 million.
He would double over, clutching his head, as if an invisible force had yanked him into a terrifying future.
Patterns began to emerge. These weren't random nightmares. They were visions — unbidden, terrifying, accompanied by a growing sense of inevitability. His digital omnipresence allowed him to perceive the present; this new gift — or curse — ripped away the veil of time.
Natural disasters were the easiest to confirm. After a particularly vivid dream of a vortex consuming a coastline, he later saw news reports of a devastating cyclone in Southeast Asia. The devastation was exactly as he had "seen" it, though too late to act.
He saw earthquakes — not as data streams, but as visceral, bone-shaking experiences. He saw tsunamis — not as distant waves, but as monstrous walls of water crashing down on terrified crowds.
But the visions soon transcended natural calamity, pulling him into something far more primal.
He saw a fissure in the Earth, not born of tectonic movement, but of something ancient and unnatural — something forcing its way through the crust. From within, a vast shadow began to emerge. Not a beast of flesh and blood, but something that defied physics and logic. The terror these visions evoked was unlike anything he'd faced in his battles with cybercriminals — a deep, ancient dread.
Then came a vision of a new influenza strain — swift, merciless, far deadlier than anything previously known. He saw it sweep across continents, shutting down cities, overwhelming hospitals, leaving millions dead in its wake. The numbers in his mind were chillingly precise — casualty figures, infection rates, the eventual failure of hastily produced vaccines.
And then, one vision stood apart — unsettling yet strangely hopeful:
A frozen Antarctic expanse. Amid the ice, a team of scientists, faces lit with awe and fear, uncovering something immense. A species frozen for millennia, now stirring back to life. Whether this awakening would bring salvation or doom, Arjun couldn't tell — but it would undoubtedly change humanity's place in the universe.
Increasingly desperate, Arjun tried to test his gift. After one clear vision of a minor tremor about to strike Jaipur, he posted an anonymous warning to a seismology forum and local emergency boards. No one responded. When the small quake hit hours later — just as seen — his blood ran cold. His warnings were too small, too anonymous. The world wasn't ready to listen — and perhaps never would be.
Arjun, who had once found fragile purpose in fighting the hidden darkness of the present, now carried the burden of knowing the terrifying possibilities of the future.
His nights became a torment of precognitive nightmares. His days, a frantic search for patterns — some way to alter the catastrophic futures he was now forced to witness. The world was no longer just a screen of data and threats.
It was a fragile, ticking clock. And only he could see the seconds running out.