It’s 3 in the morning, and I should be asleep or solving some hard questions on LeetCode, as my schedule says. But schedules are just on paper, and I doubt anyone would actually follows them...
So, here I am, sitting on my bed with my new friend (I’ll introduce him later) writing all this nonsense in my notepad.
This whole psychological thriller started about five months ago.I was surviving on a solid four hours of sleep.
A week before mid-sems, I pulled the ultimate nerd move: sat alone in my pitch-black room, face illuminated by the aggressive glare of my monitor, surfing the darkest corners of the internet until the sun came up. By 8:00 AM, my brain was completely fried. I ran down to the mess, aggressively inhaled two masala dosas with chutney, ran back to my room with a full stomach, locked the door, pulled up the rug, and flatlined on the bed.
Within minutes, I woke up. (Well, partially woke up.)
I could clearly hear footsteps echoing in the corridor outside. I could hear Haryanvi banger blasting from my neighbor's room. But there was a minor catch: I couldn’t open my eyes. I couldn’t lift my hand. I couldn't even flinch a finger. I was completely trapped inside my own skin. After a brutal, sweaty wrestling match against my own nervous system, I finally snapped out of it with a violent, dramatic jerk.
Yeah, I know what you’re thinking: “It’s just sleep paralysis, Lalla. Stop being a drama queen.”
I thought so too. Until the universe decided to add some extra masala to the script. A week later, around 4:00 PM, it happened again. This time, my eyes actually opened. But my body was in absolute lockdown. I looked up, and there was a pitch-black shadow cloud hovering directly above my face, pressing against my chest like an immense gravitational field, squeezing the air from my lungs.
Over the next month, this too became part of my regular routine. Every afternoon, I’d wake up frozen, evaluating this black cloud like a critic analyzing modern art. "Oh look, it changed its design today. Very avant-garde." It literally felt like a horror movie cutscene happening directly to me.
But then came the morning that completely broke my internal compass. I had just crawled back from the lab around 11:00 AM and promptly collapsed stomach-down on the bed. One hand was resting by my face, mindlessly scrolling through Instagram Reels, and the other arm was completely relaxed at my side. Absolute, peak comfort.
Suddenly, I felt a heavy weight drop onto my back. Like someone had just casually sat on me. Then, a hand reached forward and literally intertwined its fingers with my other hand.
My immediate internal monologue? “Ah, it’s just my homie acting gay again. Classic.”
Honestly, this ain't a new thing in a boys' hostel. A few seconds later, I stumbled upon a hilarious reel and sat up to show him. The weight smoothly slid off my back. I turned around, a sarcastic insult fully loaded in my mouth.
The room was completely empty.
My remaining three brain cells went into absolute overdrive, trying to process things that should not be happening according to physics. I vaulted off the bed, sprinted into my neighbor’s room, gasping for air, and blurted out: “Bhai, I felt something in my room. Kuch toh gadbad hai mere room mein!”
My neighbor, maintaining the legendary, unflappable chill of an engineering student, didn't even look up from his screen: “Haan bhai, zyaada nasha kar liya kya subah subah? Ja soja.”
A cinematic masterpiece of a reply. Truly inspiring. I convinced myself it was just a 4D hallucination brought on by sleep deprivation and went back to sleep.
Few days later, the entity upgraded. A kid started appearing in my room. He’d just stand there, staring directly into my soul for a solid two seconds before vanishing into thin air. As a massive cinephile, my immediate coping mechanism was: “Wow. I’ve finally unlocked my Tyler Durden phase. I am the main character now.”
Except this, this little badmash started following me outside the campus too. When a bunch of us went on a night-riding trip to Nongjrong hills to catch the sunrise, I swear I saw this kid standing at random junctions in those foggy mist. I even leaned over to the guy sitting behind me and whispered, “Oi, wo baccha hame hi dekh raha hai na?” He just stared at me like I was insane. So, I wisely shut up and drove the bike in silence. Seriously, nobody listens to me! -_-
Everything was fine until the day the ultimate horror movie trope played out. A bunch of us were packed into my room for our usual late-night roasting session. Right in the middle of a sentence, my old roommate suddenly stood up. The color had completely drained from his face, and beads of sweat were forming on his forehead.
In a quiet, shaking voice, he whispered: “Bhai…maa kasam meine abhi abhi ek baccha ko dekha and pal bhar mein gayab hogaya”
Silence. Absolute, pin-drop, radioactive silence.
My brain cells didn't just go into overdrive; I could literally feel the cinematic Dolly Zoom effect happening to my face. My entire body broke into aggressive goosebumps. If it was just me, I could blame LeetCode and caffeine. But the way he described the kid? It was the exact same entity I’d been dodging for a month.
KHEL KHATHAAAAAAAMMMMM…. As I am writing this exact sentence on my notepad right now, I can hear distinct, hurried footsteps rushing outside my door in the corridor. I know for a fact that everyone in this wing is dead to the world right now, and the adjacent lobby is completely empty because of the vacations.
The footsteps are getting louder.
They are approaching my door...
(Wait, if the ghost kid is currently sitting right here beside me on the bed, then who on earth is walking outside? Are his parents here to pick him up? Lol, my brain cells never work when needed. High ping at the worst possible moment).
KNOCK KNOCK.
“Kaun hai?!” ... No reply. Just loud silence.
“Arey bhai batao kaun hai?!”
“Arey main hoon, bawasir!”
I yanked the door open, sweat dripping down my neck, ready to fight for my life. It was just my friend from the other lobby, looking completely disheveled, holding an empty water bottle. Uffff. Crisis averted.
Anyway, back to the ongoing catastrophe.
The worst part of having a haunted room isn't even the entity, it’s your friends. My absolute clown circle of homies has officially turned my psychological trauma into a running campus joke. Every time they see me in the mess, instead of asking "How are you doing, bhai?" they look over my shoulder and ask, "Aur sunao, wo baccha kaise hai, kya chal raha aaj kal".
Meanwhile, things are getting progressively weirder. The slightest creak in the wardrobe makes me flash my phone torch like a paranormal investigator. To top it all off, the hostel cats have suddenly developed a deep cult-like interest in my room. There’s this one specific pitch-black cat that looks like it belongs to a high-ranking witch, and it just sits on the balcony ledge, keeping its unblinking eyes on me at all times.
This whole supernatural circus just reminded me of an incident back from my 1st semester.
It was around 3:00 AM. Back then, my room was on the ground floor, right near to the common washroom. After doom-scrolling I went to use the restroom, leaving my room door slightly open. While I was standing there peeing in the dead, terrifying silence of the night, I felt like someone,or something had climbed down the tree behind the washroom. I ignored it and walked back to my room, locked the door, flipped the lights off, and pulled the blanket over my head. Swoosh. Safe.
A few seconds later, I heard a distinct sound coming from directly under my bed. Something was scratching my trolley bag or trying to push it aside.
At first, I told myself, “It’s just your brain cells generating background noise, relax.” But no. I could literally feel the vibrations through the mattress. I did not have the courage to look down. What if that thing there directly jumped straight at my face?
In a shaky, terrified voice, I hissed across the room to wake my roomie. That man didn’t even flinch he was sleeping like an absolute log. Left with zero backup, my brilliant plan was to just ignore it, pull the rug over my head, and pretend I didn't exist. But guess what? My brain completely refused to cooperate. Instead of letting me sleep, my final two remaining brain cells decided to team up and started sketching high-definition, demonic designs of exactly what the creature under my bed looked like.
To beat those two high ping brain cells at their own game, I came up with a tactical genius plan. I grabbed my phone, flipped open the camera in video mode, and switched the flash to 'Always On.' Holding my breath, I slowly rolled over the edge of the bed like a tactical operative, lowering the camera into the dark underworld beneath my mattress.
Heart pounding, I pulled the phone back up and played the video.
To my absolute horror, two bright, glowing, demonic eyes were staring straight back at the lens. A second later, the flash illuminated a body covered completely in... bright orange fur.
Just as the video ended, the ultimate, terrifying reveal echoed from beneath the bed:
"Meow."
My adrenaline spiked, the fear instantly evaporated, and I angrily scolded the cat hiding in the darkness with pure, unadulterated hostel rage: "Billi, teri behen ki.......!"
it just replied : "Meow"
So silly. Turns out the legendary demon of the ground floor was just a ginger cat who wanted a premium spot to sleep on my dirty laundry.
Moral of the story: If you think your room is haunted, it’s either sleep deprivation, a stray cat, or your friends trying to ruin your sanity. Either way, keep the phone camera rolling.
