• Prologue
The Diwali lights outside had died into smoke. Houses slept behind locked gates, and the street lay silent under drifting ash.
In the middle of that quiet stood an old two-storey bungalow. Its upper window was half-open, curtain waving with the wind. Inside, Room Number 6 waited.
• Part 1: Samir
Samir, a twenty-year-old student, had stayed back for exams while his parents left for the village. It was his first night alone and it was fun. It was all about games, noodles, late night calls. Overall relaxing and enjoying the home alone and bachelor life.
He slept after playing games and chatting with his friend. His last text to his friend was, home alone night is always the best.
However...Tonight was not the one.
3 : 33 A M.
His phone rang.
He jerked awake, soaked in sweat, gasping like air itself had vanished. The ringtone echoed once, twice, thrice and then stopped ringing completely.
He tried to grab the phone but...his arm didn’t move. He looked confused. Then, he tried second time but results were same. He cannot move. He was conscious and knew that it wasn't a nightmare. It was real.
His chest locked. Eyes open but body stone-still.
Sleep paralysis—it is a temporary inability to move or speak that happens when you are waking up or falling asleep.
A clear definition came to his mind when he realised what was happening to him.
He rolled his eyes, capturing the whole room and felt like every corner had something stating at him. His anxiety levelled up. Specifically the right corner in front of him.
The darkness thickened until he could only hear his heartbeat and the fan’s uneven groan which filled the room.
He was scared. This was the first time such thing was happening to him.
He tried to chant inside his head—
Jai Hanuman gyan gun sagar …
A faint sound interrupted: clank.
Metal against metal. His every averted towards the door reflexively, it came from the downstairs. Another clank, then a slow drag, as if something...or someone...was pushing furniture.
At the same time the presence in right corner was getting more and more conspicuous. He cold feel that corner was colder than any area of that room.
He told himself it might be all in his mind, maybe it was a rat..?
He tried 4-6 inhale and exhale technique to relax himself. His breath came louder than the noise itself which only had negative effect.
He remembered how his parents had begged him to stay with his aunt for only just a week, and how he’d refused because he wanted late-night gaming and because of something he can't even think about right now. It will only make the situation worst.
The sound turned into footsteps on the stairs.
Clack...Clack...Clack!
As if every second passed, something was climbing the stairs. Slowly. It was a moment where he was getting cold sweat. Every step and his heart skips a beat.
He tried to shout but only a thin breath escaped. Every muscle screamed but nothing moved. He realised this was bad and a long home alone night was awaiting.
The steps stopped right outside his door.
Click.
The knob turned. The door slid open an inch.
Though...No one stood there, only darkness and a faint whoosh of cold air brushing his face.
Who's there? Is all he can think about.
• Part Two – The Robber
Earlier that evening, in the crowded bazaar, a man named Priyansh had overheard a careless conversation. He was on his way to a food stall. All those conversation didn't interest him but one line that made him stop walking.
“Yeah, my parents left for the village. Whole house’s mine for a week.”
That was Samir.
"Aren't you scared, dude? With few things happening around us?" Samir's friend said.
"Come on! It's okay, alright! I can do whatever I want for a week, like we'll just play late-night games and nothing will happen, right?"
"If that's what you think. I'm just going to tell you, just be safe then."
"You worry too much Tushar. But I'll, thanks!"
Priyansh, a small-time thief with a history of breaking into lonely homes, smiled to himself.
He followed the boy at a distance, noted the lane, the gate, the painted number 6.
Then he waited for sun to set and moon to shine brighter than ever at midnight, through fireworks, laughter, and smoke until silence returned.
At three at midnight, he made his move.
The lock opened with one practiced twist.
Inside, the air smelled of burnt incense.
The whole living room was filled with unique or expensive collection and decorations.
And it was Diwali so the decorations and lightings were heavy. Whole room was painted green in dim lights.
“Is green his favourite colour?” He murmured.
He pocketed trinkets, a silver idol, an expensive chinese vase, a gold chain laying down on table near sofa.
On the same table lay a folded newspaper, he picked it up and his eyes wavered at the headline on the front page:
[Man Dies in Fall from Rudra Heights Apartment F, 6th floor—Suspect is still Missing.]
Priyansh’s grin widened as he read it. Shagun, that had been him.
One shove, one scream, bones like twigs. It was all his doing which made him grin.
He was coming out as an evil through and through.
He looked at the table there was another file, and on the front a hospital name was written.
"Someone is a heart patient in this family..?" He mumbled to himself.
He was about to open the file with the intention of reading the patient's name but...
A ringtone shattered the silence upstairs. One ring, Two rings, Third ring then silence continued.
He froze.
“Damn it… is he awake..? Fucking brat these days!” He mumbled as he took out a knife from his back pocket.
Heart hammering, he crept up the stairs, each step avoiding the center to stop it creaking. The house felt colder now. Shadows seemed to breathe. He reached the open door of Room 6 and waited, knife tight in his palm.
He was scared to make a noise because he has listened to a story where a rich kid shoots down a robber. He didn't want to make that story a reality.
He hesitated to even go upstairs but curiosity or something else, an odd feeling that can't be explained to normal human dwelled up inside him which led him climb the stairs.
He silently went near the door, then placed his hand on doorknob and it clicked smoothly. The door was open an inch but he hid beside the door.
There was no movement from either side of door, but he waited hesitantly.
After a few seconds, he eased up and slipped inside the room.
The air felt heavier, colder.
Something about the left corner made him pause.
He stared at the dark patch there, certain someone...or something...was watching him.
But the corner was empty.
He exhaled and moved toward the bed, careful not to make a sound.
• Part Three – The Night of Three Shadows
Samir lay frozen, listening to the footsteps draw closer.
Each step sounded deliberate, soft, measured, almost searching.
He held his breath until they stopped.
What is it? Who’s there?
Questions crowded his mind, but no answers came.
He squeezed his eyes shut. If he couldn’t see it, maybe it couldn’t see him. But curiosity, that old fatal human urge, forced his eyes open again.
Something stood at the edge of his vision.
Tall. Human-shaped. Shifting like smoke.
His eyes widened, tears trembling at their corners. He wanted to scream, Go away, but his tongue refused to move.
The figure bent down. A sudden weight shifted beside him, then something was lifted from the bed.
A pillow.
Before his mind could catch up, a rough hand pressed it hard against his face.
The air vanished.
It wasn’t just the suffocation. It was the cold, unused smell of fabric, the sting of detergent, the trace of his cologne. The pillow sealed to his skin, drinking every breath from him. His chest burned; his eyes watered with heat and panic.
What’s happening?
He thrashed inwardly, body rigid, unable to move.
His mouth opened, but only damp warmth met him, saliva soaking the pillow’s edge. He could taste the salt, the chemicals, his own faint scent.
Why me? Why now?
His mind blurred. The world shrank to muffled heartbeats and the heavy drum of blood in his ears. Consciousness began to slip.
The hand holding the pillow trembled. For a moment, the pressure eased. The man above him, Priyansh stood frozen.
He felt it then, a wrongness, he wasn't having same fun. It wanted to see the person beneath him resist. But he wasn't, as if he never resisted in the first place.
Priyansh hesitated. The pillow lifted.
Air crashed back into Samir’s lungs like fire. He gasped, coughed, sneezed, choked all at once, tears streaking his face. The world spun, half real, half dream. He was alive, yet still paralyzed.
He tried to move, but his limbs refused. All he could do was cry in quiet, broken sounds that barely left his throat.
Priyansh leaned closer. His hand hovered over Samir’s wrist, then his neck.
A pulse fluttered faintly under his fingers.
He smiled. Everything was clear now, there was similarity. As if he has solved a difficult puzzle, he grinned.
In that faint, trembling heartbeat, Priyansh felt like the happiest man alive.
At the same time, Samir came to the realisation that it wasn't a ghost. It was a person. The warmth he felt upon getting touched on wrist and then his neck, it can't be a paranormal being. It was a human all along.
Was he a human, tough..? Samir thought to himself as he stared at Priyansh sacredly.
“Sleep-paralysed, huh?” he smirked. “Perfect timing, kid.”
Priyansh hauled Samir up, half-dragging him down the staircase.
At the final step, he felt cold breath brushed across his neck. He looked back instantly.
But no one was there.
In the hall, he dropped Samir into a chair. The boy slumped forward, wheezing faintly, eyes glassy with fear.
Priyansh tore a bedsheet into strips and tied him down tightly, almost ritualistic. Then he began to talk.
It wasn’t guilt. It was pride. A performance.
“There was another one… Shagun. Same as you, paralyzed in bed. Sixth floor, right? He froze like a statue when I approached. But unlike you, I didn’t carry him downstairs. I dropped him out the window.”
He smirked, voice tightening with excitement.
“Didn’t even scream. Like you won’t. Or will you? Either way, I’ll enjoy it.”
He laughed—high, unsteady, too loud for the small room.
“You’d be amazed how quiet a fall sounds. Just a faint dab. Not a single person came out to look. Hahaha!” He circled around the chair then came in front of Samir.
The laughter kept going, until it started sounding like crying.
Once, he had been just a small-time thief.
Now, something else was speaking through him. He was a big-time psychopath.
Samir’s chest convulsed. His heart pounded so violently he could barely hear anything else.
Shagun. His friend. His laughter still echoed in memory.
Shagun had died three days ago. He was Samir's friend.
That was why Samir’s parents had begged him to stay with his aunt. But on that same day, his cousin Dhruv had tried to take his own life, in that very house.
Samir had refused. He wanted silence and peace. Solitude, to clear his own mind.
Though, it turned out to be the worst decision he had ever made.
Now, bound to a chair, he realized he had chosen isolation over instinct. He could only whisper silent apologies to his parents, to his friends.
Shagun. Dhruv–his cousin. Samir. Tushar.
Four friends.
One gone. One broken. One dying. And one waiting for his turn.
A curse without a cause. They wronged no one, then why was this happening to them? Is what Samir cried in his mind.
“Don’t blame me. Blame life. You’re rich. I’m not. Why are my parents dead? Why am I the one starving? I was honest once… but honesty doesn’t feed you.”
He paused, waiting for sympathy.
Samir could merely glance at him.
Priyansh sighed in disappointment.
“Never mind.”
He stepped closer, knife raised like a question mark.
“Now that you’ve seen my face. Pick one. Hanging or bleeding out.”
Samir’s mind reeled. His lips trembled, trying to form a word—please.
A plea, an apology, maybe both.
“You can’t choose?” Priyansh teased. “Then I’ll pick for you. Bleeding out’s perfect. Thin cuts on the wrist… then the neck—”
He never finished.
The front door exploded open.
A violent BANG rattled the shelves, glass cracking like gun fire.
Priyansh froze, knife raised.
Silence.
Ten seconds.
Twenty.
Only the ticking clock.
“Who’s there?!”
The air thickened.
A sudden gust swept through the room, cold and heavy. The nearest chair lifted off the floor and flew straight at him.
It struck his head with a sharp crack. Blood streamed down his temple.
“For god’s sake...who’s there?!” he screamed, staggering backward.
The words echoed identical to Shagun’s last cry.
Then his feet rose off the floor.
Priyansh hung mid-air, thrashing wildly. Bones cracked—pop, pop, pop—like fingers snapping. His body twisted unnaturally as his screams shredded into silence.
The knife fell first, clattering across the tiles.
Then he hit the ground. Eyes wide, neck bent at an impossible angle.
Samir watched, paralyzed, tears glistening under the dim light. His heart hammered harder… harder… then stopped.
The house fell quiet again.
A place that had been alive with laughter a day ago now grieved in its own stillness like something inside it mourned the ones it couldn’t save.
In the midst, television turned on, static. A figure appears, oddly blurred. Then it turned off on it's own.
• Epilogue
3:33 A.M.
Tushar jolted awake.
His chest felt crushed; his limbs wouldn’t move.
The television flickered on. Static first, then a voice breaking through:
[Breaking news: It has been three days since a college student and an unidentified intruder were found dead in Room Number 6 of Swarna Bungalows. The student is believed to have suffered cardiac arrest—]
The screen hissed back to static.
Tushar’s eyes drifted toward the door.
Footsteps climbed the stairs, slow yet deliberate, one by one.
Each clacks louder than the last one.
The doorknob began to turn.
Outside, the curtain fluttered through an open window.
The house number caught the moonlight: 006.
~The End~
