Fragment 1: Author's note

When I look back at Before Your Feet Touch the Earth, I still find it strange that the whole thing started as a dream.

It was almost a year ago.

I'd been up too late with work, tired enough that sleep stopped feeling like a choice.

Somewhere around midnight I went under, with no idea I was walking into the start of a story. Nobody ever does, I think.

The first things I remember are small. Rain. Drops on leaves. Moss over old cobblestones. A house sitting somewhere quiet, on its own.

Then I saw her.

A girl in a pink saree, named Aashi. I never chose that name, it was just already hers, the way the rain was already falling before I noticed it.

The clearest part plays out like a scene pulled from the middle of a bigger story.

Aashi coming down some stairs, quiet, a little shy. Then Kartik, walking over, putting his hand under her feet to keep them off the rough ground.

They talked, but by morning the words were gone. What stayed was smaller. The hesitation. The blushing. A feeling that something had happened without needing an explanation~

Then it ended, the way dreams do, without asking.

I wrote down what I could before it slipped away.

After that, I just sat with it, trying to work out what it meant.

I still don't know who Aashi was waiting for. I don't know who Kartik really was either. I think that's part of why I never answered it on the page.

Instead I kept the shape of the dream and felt out what was underneath it.

The rain became a constant, gentle one moment, too much the next. The isolated house became that quiet corner every person needs somewhere. The rough stone became every small hurt the world leaves lying around.

She keeps walking over it anyway. Keeps watching the horizon for someone who never shows up.

Then there's Kartik.

A stranger at first, someone who slips in quietly, without asking permission.

He never demands anything, never tells her to stop waiting. He just stays, noticing what she's stopped noticing in herself.

And when she realizes the person protecting her from the stones is carrying his own weight too, something in her hesitates.

That hesitation stays with me the most.

We hold old hopes so tightly sometimes that we go blind to whoever's standing beside us, waiting years for someone who might not come back while missing the quiet effort of someone who already stayed~

I don't think this story means only one thing. Dreams rarely do.

Maybe Aashi is waiting for a person. Maybe an older version of herself.

Maybe Kartik isn't a person at all, maybe he's just what we call care once it finally reaches us~

Simply put, this is a small story about love built from quiet, repeated effort. Not big promises, not dramatic gestures. Just someone noticing the ground is hurting you, and putting their hand there first.

It started as a dream I almost forgot by morning. Everything since has just been me figuring out why it never left~

That's all, and the next fragment is on its way~