There’s something peculiar about long train rides. A peculiar stillness, where time seems to slow down as the world outside races past. For Aarav, this journey was unlike any he had ever taken. He had boarded the train not knowing where exactly he was going, and perhaps more significantly, why.
It all started with an unremarkable message that popped up on his phone a week ago. “Join me on a journey to find what you’ve been missing.” It was unsigned. Aarav’s curiosity got the better of him. He had been feeling a strange emptiness for months now—trapped in a cycle of monotonous workdays, nights spent scrolling endlessly through social media, and weekends that bled into each other with nothing memorable happening.
The message came as a jolt. It was as though someone had seen through the facade of his life and knew that beneath the surface, he was searching for something. He didn’t know who sent the message, but a few more cryptic texts later, he found himself at the train station.
The journey started predictably, with Aarav clutching his coffee, staring out of the window at the blur of trees and occasional towns that the train passed through. He had no idea what he was supposed to find on this trip, nor why he felt compelled to follow the instructions of a faceless stranger. But something inside him urged him to continue.
Several hours into the ride, something strange happened. The train entered a long tunnel, and when it emerged, everything outside the window was different. The green fields had been replaced with rolling hills of golden sand. There were no towns or cities, just vast stretches of desert that shimmered under a bright, almost surreal sun.
Aarav blinked and rubbed his eyes, convinced that he was hallucinating. But as the train sped forward, the landscape only grew stranger. In the distance, he could see large rock formations that resembled ruins of ancient cities, standing silently in the desert.
His phone buzzed again. “Get off at the next stop.”
Aarav hesitated. Was this a trick? Was it dangerous? But as the train approached a small, isolated platform in the middle of nowhere, his curiosity won out. He grabbed his bag and stepped off the train just as it began to move again, leaving him alone under the vast, endless sky.
He stood on the platform, feeling a strange sense of calm despite the disorientation. There was no one around. Just him, the wind, and the golden dunes that stretched out into the horizon. Then he saw it. In the distance, partially hidden by the sand, was a small house.
It took him nearly an hour to walk to it, but when he reached it, he found the door slightly ajar. He pushed it open and stepped inside. The air was cool, and the room was bathed in soft, golden light. It looked like no one had been there for years. Dust covered the furniture, and old books lined the shelves.
But what caught his attention was a single piece of paper resting on the table in the center of the room. On it, written in elegant handwriting, were the words: “You’ve found what you were missing. Now, look within.”
Aarav sat down in the old wooden chair, staring at the message. It was both confusing and enlightening at the same time. The empty feeling he had carried with him for months—the dissatisfaction, the restlessness—began to make sense. It wasn’t the world around him that needed to change. It was him. He had been so focused on external achievements, material success, and the noise of daily life, that he had forgotten to look inside himself.
He spent hours in that house, thinking about his life, his choices, and the things he had neglected—his passions, his relationships, his own mental peace. By the time he left, the desert didn’t feel so barren anymore. It felt like a place of endless possibility, a reminder that sometimes, you have to step away from the chaos to truly find yourself.
Aarav returned to the train platform, unsure if the next train would even come. But when it did, he boarded with a sense of purpose he hadn’t felt in years. The train took him back to the world he knew, but Aarav was different now. He had found what he was missing, not in some distant place or through the guidance of a mysterious stranger, but within himself.
And with that realization, the journey was only just beginning.