Lantern of Forgotten Roads

The night Karam lost his way wasn’t supposed to mean anything.

He had only taken a turn too early, heading home from his uncle’s farm at the edge of the Khost valley. The stars were hidden behind heavy clouds, and the forest path looked different in the moonless dark. His phone had died hours ago. There was no signal anyway. Just trees, dirt, and shadows that felt too quiet.

And then, it appeared.

A lantern.

Flickering softly, resting on a wooden post that hadn’t been there before. Not a flashlight, not a bulb—an old-fashioned oil lantern, glowing amber in the dark. It lit a narrow path off the main road, a path that curved where no road should be.

Karam hesitated.

“Hello?” he called, though he didn’t expect an answer.

None came. But the lantern glowed warmer, almost like it breathed.

Something in him—a pull he couldn’t name—nudged him forward. He stepped off the trail.

The forest changed. The air grew thicker, stiller. Trees leaned in closer. And the deeper he walked, the more the world behind him seemed to vanish.

At first, it felt like a dream.

He passed an ancient gate carved with symbols he couldn’t read. Birds he had never seen watched him from twisted branches. At the edge of a shallow stream, he found stones arranged in the shape of a clock—but the hands pointed to thirteen.

Time, it seemed, did not behave the same way here.

And then he heard it: music.

A tune played on something between a flute and a whisper. It came from a cottage that hadn’t been there a moment ago, nestled between tree roots as thick as a house.

An old woman sat outside, stirring tea into a cup carved from bone. Her long, silver hair swayed gently though there was no wind. She looked up, smiled like she’d been waiting years.

“You took the lantern road,” she said. “Most people ignore it.”

“I didn’t mean to,” Karam replied.

“No one does. It only appears when something inside you forgets how to go forward.”

She handed him the cup. “Drink. You’ll remember.”

He hesitated, but drank.

And in an instant, the world unraveled.

He saw himself as a child, burying a small box in his grandfather’s orchard—a box he had forgotten existed. He saw his mother’s voice calling him home in a dream. He saw roads he had never walked, choices never made. A future where he became a writer, another where he never left his village, and one where he never made it back from this forest at all.

He saw not one life, but many—branches of himself, flickering like candle flames in a wind only he could feel.

Then the visions faded.

The woman was gone.

The cottage vanished, like breath on glass.

Karam stood alone. The lantern flickered once more, then went out, leaving only the soft hush of rain through the leaves.

He turned and found himself back at the edge of the main path again. The sky had begun to lighten, and the familiar scent of wet earth reached him.

But something inside him had changed.

In his pocket, he felt something small and solid. He pulled it out.

The box from his childhood.

The same one he had buried fifteen years ago.

Still sealed. Still waiting.

He opened it.

Inside was a note, written in his own messy handwriting:

"If you’re reading this, it means you got lost. Good. Stay lost long enough to find yourself."

Karam smiled. A quiet, knowing kind of smile. He folded the note and put it back inside.

He didn’t hurry home. He walked slowly, letting the morning wake the trees around him.

Some roads, he realized, don’t lead you anywhere.

They lead you back.

Not to where you were—but to who you were always meant to become.