The Unending Dream Three-Shot [Completed] - Page 3

Chapter 3 (The Eighth Dawn)

Where the Curse Finally Breaks

The first light of dawn broke over Mathura, gilding the ghats with gold. The Yamuna shimmered like liquid glass, and the air was thick with the fragrance of marigolds and sandalwood. Radhika stood barefoot on the riverbank, her white dupatta fluttering like a whisper between two worlds.

But her heart was calmer today.

Because last night… something had changed.
Something impossible.
Something ancient.

The storm had carried voices — the voices of lifetimes. She had seen flashes: a temple burning, a promise broken, a lover’s hand slipping away beneath a crimson moon. And then, something new — something she had never seen in any dream before.

She remembered everything.

“Krish,” she whispered, her voice trembling, “it was always you.”

The river stirred.

Mist curled upward from the surface, soft as silk. And from it emerged a figure — luminous, serene, his eyes carrying galaxies. Krish stepped toward her, no longer bound by time or flesh. His presence was pure light.

But Radhika didn’t tremble.
She didn’t cry.
Because she had already held him last night — not in this world, but in another.

A dream… yet not a dream.

He reached her now, his fingers brushing her cheek with the softness of a blessing.

“Radhika,” he murmured, “you remembered. And because you remembered, you found me.”

She leaned into his touch. “Last night… was it real?”

His eyes warmed. “As real as every birth we shared.”

Her breath hitched as the memory washed over her — the dreamscape where they had met, the place that existed outside death, outside form, outside the curse.

The Dream That Broke the Curse

She had been standing in a vast, glowing meadow. The sky pulsed violet and gold, shifting like a living tapestry. The air hummed with a music she felt in her bones.

Then he appeared.

Not the Krish of this life — but the soul of him. Ageless. Eternal. Wearing no face and yet every face she had ever loved.

“Radhika,” he whispered, and his voice alone unraveled centuries of pain.
She ran to him, and when he caught her, the world dissolved into light.

His arms wrapped around her like destiny coming home.
Her body melted into his, not with hunger but with recognition.

For the first time in a thousand years, there was no fear.
No dying.
No storm.
No curse pulling them apart.

The meadow brightened as their foreheads touched, breath mingling.
His hands traced the memories written on her skin across lifetimes — the scar she once bore from saving him, the birthmark that matched the constellation they loved, the invisible thread that had always tied them together.

She whispered his name.
He whispered hers.

Their lips met — slow, reverent, aching — the kiss of two souls that had crossed oceans of time to find each other again.

The world pulsed with their heartbeat.

And when they sank into the grass, bodies and spirits entwined, it was not desire that guided them but fate.
A love-making of souls — not flesh — where every touch healed a wound centuries old.

Their light mingled, weaving into one radiant flame.

Something ancient cracked.

A sound like breaking chains rippled through the dream.
The priest’s curse — born of wrath, fed by lifetimes — shattered like glass struck by sunlight.

And for the first time since their first birth…

They were free.

Radhika woke with tears, sunlight painting her skin.
But they were not tears of sorrow.
They were tears of release.

Back to the River

Now, standing by the Yamuna, she knew why Krish had appeared at dawn.
The dream had not been illusion.

It had been liberation.

Krish knelt beside her, the radiance around him softening.

“The curse ended when our souls united,” he said. “When nothing — not fear, not destiny, not time — remained between us.”

She touched his cheek. “Will you stay?”

A gentle smile curved his lips.

“I am no longer trapped between births. I can stay… if you wish it.”

The mark on her wrist glowed — his mark, her mark, the sign of eight births.

Light threaded between their hands, weaving their souls not in suffering, but in joy.

The Yamuna glittered.
The sky blushed.
Temple bells rang though no priest had struck them.

For the first time since the first age…

They embraced as equals, not as fugitives of fate.

This time no storm followed.
No god interfered.

Only the river flowed, carrying petals, prayers, and the soft echo of a flute.

What The Villagers Saw

Later that day, villagers claimed they saw a pair walking hand in hand toward the temple ruins at dusk. Some swore the air shimmered around them. Others said the sound of a flute followed them, though neither was holding one.

Some said they vanished into the evening light — not gone, but returned home.
Others claimed they lived quietly by the river for years, running a small school where children learned music, mythology, and the art of kindness.

But those who truly believed knew the truth:

When love survives eight births, it does not end. It becomes the dawn itself.

The Legend Beneath the Peepal Tree

Many years later, on a quiet evening in Mathura, the setting sun painted the Yamuna in molten gold. Near the old temple ruins, an aged storyteller sat beneath the sacred peepal tree. Children gathered around him, eyes wide with wonder as his voice floated through the still air like an old bhajan.

He pointed toward the horizon, where the river curved like a silver thread.
“Do you see that place, where the light always seems a little warmer?” he asked.

The children nodded.

“That’s where Radhika and Krish once met,” he began, his eyes glimmering with memory. “Not once — but across a thousand lives. They were bound by a curse older than time itself, a punishment for a love too pure for the world to understand.”

The youngest girl asked softly, “Did they win, Baba?”

The old man smiled — the kind of smile that knows both sorrow and peace.
“They did, child. One morning, when the Yamuna turned to gold and the wind carried the scent of marigolds, Radhika remembered everything. Her love called to him across lifetimes… and Krish came.”

A hush fell. The breeze stirred the tree’s leaves like an unseen blessing.

“They say the curse broke that day,” the old man continued. “That when they touched, the heavens sang, and love itself was set free. Some say they vanished into the light. Others say they still walk among us — teaching, smiling, living quietly by the river.”

He looked toward the temple, now half-swallowed by vines, and whispered as if to someone unseen,
“True love, children, doesn’t die. It learns to wait — and when the world is ready, it returns.”

The children looked up at the twilight sky, where the first stars shimmered like promises reborn.

And as the storyteller rose, leaning on his staff, he heard a faint melody in the distance — the sound of a flute, weaving through the dusk.

He smiled.
“They’re here,” he murmured.
“Still.”

And So Came the Legend Beneath the Peepal Tree

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The End.

The dream led her to the long lost memory of the past births?

It was their unending love that refused to die. When their souls met, the curse broke.

Wherever they went, they went together. This time their souls are together, so no birth or death will come between them.