Outside Jacob’s Hostel, icy winds sliced through the silence. It was the holiday season, and the hostel that once echoed with the noise of five hundred boys now lay deathly quiet. Nearly 95% of the students had gone home; only about twenty to thirty boys remained in the entire building.
On the third floor, in Room 304, eighteen-year-old Vansh sat feeling frustrated and helpless. His roommate had already left. It was 1 a.m., and sleep would not come. Vansh had just gone to the washroom to freshen up when a heavy crashing sound came from inside his room. Startled, he rushed back—but there was no one there. Everything was exactly as he had left it.
Just then, his phone on the table lit up. A notification popped up:
“Bro, come to my room. We’re all here.”
The message was from Ayaan on the sixth floor. Vansh immediately called him, but the reply was automated: “The number you are calling is out of network coverage area.”
He shrugged. Whatever, he thought. I’m probably just imagining things because I can’t sleep.
As he bent to pull a blanket from the drawer, the room lights began to flicker wildly—and in the next moment, the entire hostel plunged into darkness.
The silence grew so deep Vansh could hear his own heartbeat. With trembling hands he turned on his phone’s flashlight. From outside the window came the odd, frantic flapping of pigeons. The phone vibrated again. Another message from Ayaan:
“Bro, everyone’s waiting for you. Come fast.”
Vansh checked his battery—only 17% left. The fear of being alone in the dark pushed him to move. He put on his jacket, slipped the charger into his pocket, pulled on his slippers, and stepped into the corridor.
The third-floor hallway felt like a tunnel. The tap-tap of his slippers made the quiet more unsettling. Somehow he climbed the stairs and reached the sixth floor. Panting, he stopped outside Room 602 and was about to knock—when his feet froze.
A single thought struck him like lightning—Ayaan had gone home three days ago.
Cold sweat broke out on his forehead. If Ayaan wasn’t in the hostel, then who had sent those messages?
He ran toward the stairs in a panic. The lights flickered and returned. Relief washed over him at the sight of light. Right in front of him stood the elevator. Running down the stairs will take time. I’ll just take the lift, he thought.
He stepped in and pressed 3. The doors closed—but instead of descending, the elevator lurched upward. The lights flickered again and, with a sudden jerk, the lift stopped. Vansh assumed he’d reached the third floor—but when the doors opened, his senses failed him.
A rusted sign on the wall read: Floor 7 — the long-abandoned part of the hostel.
In the beam of his phone torch, blackened walls crawled with moss. Windowpanes lay shattered, and spiderwebs draped every corner. It felt like stepping into an old graveyard. Vansh’s throat went dry. He frantically hit the elevator buttons, but the lift wouldn’t move.
Ahead, a staircase led deeper into the darkness—right past Room 710. He closed his eyes and ran toward it.
Suddenly, with an icy gust, a swarm of bats erupted from the corridor, claws grazing his face as they flew past. Sweaty and bleeding, Vansh stumbled onto the stairs—but the moment he reached the landing, a scream escaped him.
Because what stood before him was something he had never even imagined.
To be continued…
Written by -
Yuvraj Singh Chouhan
