The Whisper Inside the Walls
I never believed in hauntings until I shifted to Pune in July last year. The flat was old but cheap, tucked inside a faded apartment building in Sadashiv Peth. The broker said the previous tenant had moved abroad in a hurry. The rooms smelled of dust and naphthalene, but the silence felt heavy, like it was holding its breath.
For the first few nights, I heard faint tapping sounds from the walls, soft and rhythmic, like someone drumming fingers on the other side. I assumed it was rats. But the sound always came from the same corner near my bed. Once, around midnight, I tried tapping back, just once, playfully. The tapping stopped. Then, after a pause, it tapped back the exact same rhythm I had made. I didn’t sleep that night.
Weeks passed. I stopped reacting. You get used to anything when you live alone. But one night, while half-asleep, I heard a whisper right beside my ear—a woman’s voice saying my name. I froze. When I turned, there was no one. Just the faint smell of burnt camphor, something my mother used during evening prayers.
The next morning, I found an old photograph tucked under my bed. It showed a woman sitting on the same balcony where I usually had my tea. Her smile looked faintly familiar. On the back, in faded ink, was written: “He still hears me.”
Days started merging. Sometimes the taps on the wall came even when I wasn’t home. I’d return to find the window open, curtains wet, and faint wet footprints on the floor. I once told my neighbor about it, an elderly lady from the first floor. She looked uncomfortable and said, “Beta, you stay in flat number 203, right? The one where that music teacher lived?” I nodded. She didn’t say anything more, just pressed her lips tight and walked away.
That night, I looked up old Pune Times archives online. The previous tenant, a classical music teacher named Meera Joshi, had gone missing two years ago. Police suspected she had jumped from the terrace. They never found her body.
I wanted to leave the next morning. I started packing, but every time I turned my back to the wall, I could feel someone standing just behind me—the faintest warmth of breath on my neck. When I finally gathered courage and turned around, I saw it.
Not her face, but a reflection of her eyes inside the wall paint, like the surface itself was thin and alive. Her lips moved. And this time, I heard it clearly, not from outside, but from inside my head:
“You shouldn’t have replied that first night.”
I ran. I didn’t even lock the door.
Two weeks later, when I passed that building again, I noticed something. The balcony of flat 203, my old flat, had a new tenant. A young man, sitting with tea, exactly how I used to. And when he smiled at me from above, I could swear his eyes weren’t his.
Id : archisbhole
