The Last Room

This is the most scariest moment of my life to say the least. The story takes me back to my college days. I did my graduation from IIT Kharagpur. The biggest IIT campus and one of the most renowned Institutes of india. More than half of the campus is covered by evergreen forest. Kharagpur is a very small town in West Bengal. The place is mostly known for IIT kharagpur and its one of the biggest railway platforms. My hostel in the campus was one of the biggest hotels and it was newly build as well. During "Durga puja", which is a huge festival in West bengal, we get about a week off. It is that time of the year when everyone goes home for this festival. It is celebrated around the month of October every year.

So the festival arrived. The victory of good over evil as we know it in Hindu mythology. It is believed that the goddess visits her earthly abode during this time to bless her devotees. It was October, 2015 when everyone went home. But unlike everyone else, my room partner planned to stay in the campus for unknown reason despite him being from the same state and I on the other hand, had to stay as I was working on some important project and the deadline was round the corner.

I had this habit of coming late in the night. I used to roam around the beautiful campus till late night with friends or used to either sit in the library alone.

So the second day of this Durga puja vacation, I came back quite late in the night. It was about 3:00 am. Most of the tea stalls or canteens are open till 2:00 am only. So everything was closed by the time I returned. My friends accompanied me to the place where our hostels road bifurcates. My hostel was at five minutes walk from there. I traversed it alone in the absolute silence except few pole lights guiding me through. I reached my hostel. My room was on 3rd floor, Room no - 454. It was the "last room" of that hostel.

Only a few students were there in the hostel for the obvious reason and all of them seemed to be sleeping as I could barely find a single room with its lights on. Even the corridors' lights were off. Well, I switched on my phone torch to climb the stairs up to my room. Everything was so quiet in the hostel that I could loudly hear the taps of my feet stepping. Corridors were so long in my hostel that I was able to see the other end of hostel as much as I could see in that darkness at every subsequent floors. Anyhow, I reached my room, put the lights on, and rushed into washroom. We had attached washroom. I freshened up, came back and lay down on my bed.

My room partner anxiously said "Shivam, (lights off kar) put the lights off…"I could understand the anxiety in his voice. I got up from bed, switched off the lights and got back to my bed with sleepy eyes.

Suddenly, I realized that when I had come back to my room, the door was locked and I myself, unlocked it. Also nobody was there in the room. I ran towards the switchboard and switched the lights on. I was frightened to see that there was no one on the other bed. A shiver ran through my body. I was cold. This haunting event happened so close that It gave me goosebumps which paused on me for more than a minute, I guess. I had no courage to go out in the corridor so I just sat down on my bed with lights on the whole night. I had no one to call help for either. I could not sleep that night. I called my room partner in the morning and came to know that he decided and went home the night before without informing me.

Later, I changed my room and while writing this, I also realized that sum of the digits in my room number is 13 (4+5+4).

It was so traumatic that I still sleep with lights on.