Sonu virat stands at the center of his living room, charcoal stick in hand, lost in the fervor of creation. He sketches vigorously, eyes ablaze, each stroke summoning a new doorway or alcove. The air is heavy with dust, and the silence is almost sacred, punctuated only by the scratch of charcoal on plaster.
"Tonight, I will draw an escape. A door to somewhere better," he murmurs, pressing harder as he carves out the shape of an exit on the far wall.
Sonu virat wakes with a start, heart pounding, and scans the walls for his meticulously drawn door. All he finds are unfamiliar passages twisting into imagined spaces. His belongings are scattered, displaced by the shifting boundaries of his own art.
"Where is it? I drew it right there... I remember the handle, the light beyond," he whispers, tracing his fingers over cold, textured charcoal where the exit should have been.
He opens a sketch of a staircase, half-expecting steps to materialize beneath his feet. Instead, there is only the flat wall, mocking him with its impossible geometry. Frustration mounts, and the air seems to thicken with the residue of his own restless energy.
"Is this still my home, or have I trapped myself inside my own imagination?" he asks, voice trembling, as he stares into a charcoal-drawn hallway that leads nowhere.
Sonu virat sits beneath a window, remembering the simplicity of his first drawing—a childhood memory of a door to his grandmother’s garden. Now, the walls are filled with portals to impossible places, yet none lead outside.
"I wanted to escape, but all I've done is build new walls," he confides to the silence, clutching a photograph of his old home.
He sketches a handle, a keyhole, the outline of distant streetlights. But as he steps back, each new door fades into the maze, devoured by the growing network of rooms. The apartment seems to pulse and shift, alive with the energy of his imagination.
"I need to get out. There has to be a way back," he pleads, voice hoarse, as he erases and redraws the exit over and over.
He realizes the apartment is not a prison but a canvas—a reflection of his own mind. Though the exit eludes him, Sonu finds a strange comfort in the rooms he has created, knowing they are uniquely his.
"Perhaps the way out isn’t drawn in charcoal, but lived—step by step, moment by moment," he says softly, setting down the charcoal and opening a real window, letting the crisp morning air flood in.
