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I woke up, all sweaty. I had the same dream, yet again. I was in the middle of an argument with a man whose face I couldn’t see. He raised his hand, I tried to defend myself by taking a step back, ducking my head. There was a gun shot and the man died. I texted him. Hey, sorry for waking you up so late. I had the same dream. It’s 3 AM, can’t we discuss your bizarre dreams tomorrow? I am disturbed, can’t sleep. Please talk to me for at least 5 minutes. He didn’t reply. The next morning, while reading the newspaper, I was shell shocked to find a headline FAMOUS BUSINESSMAN ROHAN SHARMA MURDERED Rohan Sharma, the famous startup king, the youngest in the FORBES UNDER 30 LIST murdered?! I went through the news. Rohan had been shot by an unknown assailant in the presence of his girlfriend. His girlfriend was being interrogated but she only spoke about her argument with him, and how he was going to hit her. In the meanwhile, he was shot dead from behind. This was strange because of its similarity with my recurring dreams. For the next couple of nights, I slept peacefully. I had forgotten about the bizarre dream. A few nights ago, I had the same dream again. Just that this time, I was the man and I could see the woman in front of me, Rohan’s girlfriend, I assumed. We were arguing. She said that she wanted to leave me. She had fallen in love with somebody else. I asked her to give me a chance, but she started abusing me and called me a fool. I lost my temper and raised my hand to hit her. She ducked and a man shot me from behind her. As I collapsed on the floor, I heard her say, “You fool! Transferred 80% of your shares in my name, you love sick moron. It was all a plan.” She had a smirk on her face while she saw me breathe my last. Just then I saw the assailant hug her. I woke up all sweaty. I was crying. Why was I dreaming about Rohan Sharma’s murder? I had met him only once at a conference. We had no other connection as such. The next morning, I saw a newspaper headline SAMAY SHARMA, BROTHER OF ROHAN SHARMA TIES THE KNOT WITH ROHAN’S EX-GIRLFRIEND, SAMAIRA KAPOOR, 80% OWNER OF DREAM MACHINE INC.

I woke up in my pod. That’s where the “chosen ones” dwell. It is year 2030. We live in a dystopian society now, where people are not discriminated on the basis of caste, creed, colour, sex, language or ethnicity. Wait, then why did I say “dystopian”? Well… the world has been taken over by colonizers who divide humans on the basis their views on Dream Tube. So… Dream Tube, what’s that? That’s new age YouTube where humans need to get the maximum views on their videos. Anyone with less than 10 million views is sent to Social Banners, a new age prison. Don’t you want to know why I live in a pod? So… anyone with more than 10 million views lives in the fancy pods. What do we upload on our Dream Tube channel? Our dreams every alternate day. The more interesting your dream, the more views on your video. Simple! But, how do we ensure our dreams are entertaining or viral worthy? Not in our hands, folks! So, every alternate night, I sleep after reading fascinating stories or watching intriguing videos. That’s the only way we can control our subconscious mind, isn’t it? But being a fancy pod dweller comes with the pressure of living up to the expectations of fans and viewers every alternate night, lest we are sent off to Social Banners forever. As I plug in my Dream Catcher chip to my device, I am shocked and my heart is thumping. My dream starts. In my dream, I am in an argument with Joyce, my neighbour. He is a pod dweller too. During the argument, he tries to hit me with a vase. In self defence, I stab him with a knife and he dies. Immediately after I upload my dream, my video receives 12 Million views, in a matter of 5 seconds. I have apparently broken all records. I am about to get ready for a party with the government officials to celebrate my record when the bell rings. I am up for the biggest shock, it’s the Social Banner officers at the entrance of my pod. You are under arrest, come with us to Social Banners. You are held for the brutal murder of Joyce. “What? It was just a dream!” “We have found camera footages in Joyce’s pod. They show that you stabbed him with a knife and fled from the scene.”

They collided at Holborn tube station. Their eyes met, they smiled at each other and then walked in opposite directions. He reached home and kept thinking about her. He wondered if he would see her again. She was like a breath of fresh air, like a beautiful and dainty iris flower, he thought to himself. The next evening, he waited at the Holborn station, hoping to see her again. He waited for a while, but couldn’t see her. He decided to try again the next day. He finally found her in the crowd the next day. He heaved a sigh of relief. He approached her. “Hey, I am not stalking you but I couldn’t stop thinking about you ever since I saw you the other day. I am Percy.” “Oh, hi. I am Iris. I am so relieved, I was wondering if I would see you again. You may say I was stalking you, too!” Who says there is nothing like love at first sight? They exchanged numbers and stayed in touch. It took them just about 5 days to finally admit being in love with each other. They decided to meet at Granger & Co. restaurant at Kings Cross around 9 PM. He spotted her outside the exit of Kings Cross station. She was looking breathtakingly beautiful in a lime yellow dress. Once she spotted him, she waved at him and excitedly started walking towards him. They hugged and felt as if the world had stopped for a moment. They entered the restaurant and waited for the waiter to take their order. It seemed as though the staff was ignoring them for some strange reason. After waiting for a while, he went up to the reception counter, but it was too crowded so he stepped back and took his date outside. They found it quite strange to be ignored rudely by the staff. They held hands and kissed each other under the full moon. They had yearned for this special magical moment for a long time. He walked with her to the Kings Cross station. There was a crowd and some police officers. They wondered what was going on. Both of them were flabbergasted. Her head started to spin and he felt breathless too. Lying outside the station were their bodies, a bouquet of Iris flowers scattered all around. They overheard one of the officers. “It was an absolutely unpleasant sight. The young man was running towards this young lady just after they must have exited the station. Both of them collided with Bus No. 25 and died on spot. Wish they unite in heaven now.”

He fell in love with her at first glance. Her hazel eyes twinkling, she swept back her thin wisp of wavy hair. His heart skipped a beat. He was the owner of TrueLove, an AI based dating app. She was his muse and employee. He looked at her again, she was busy typing some codes. Having known her for almost 2 years, he finally mustered the courage to ask her out. She said yes. They were going to meet at Cafe Peach around 7PM. He got ready for his date with his muse. Just when he was leaving home, he received a notification on TrueLove for a software update. He remembered seeing her working on the codes at work. He updated the software on his way to the Cafe. He waited at the Cafe for nearly an hour and then got jittery. He called her number but nobody picked up. He sent a message but it was undelivered. The next day, he went to office and saw that she hadn’t turned up at work yet. There was a chaos outside his office. His secretary informed that after last evening’s software update, people had lost contact with their respective “dates”. He realized that his AI based dating app provided AI partners for virtual relationships, and the software update may have erased some data. But why had she disappeared? He went to her cabin and rummaged through her documents and files in her drawers. He was shocked to find a chip based ID card. SITARA Created by StarDating App He realized she was an AI mole sent by his rival app to destroy TrueLove forever.