Old Architecture Building

Old Architecture Building

As it goes, there is an old building inside the campus. It takes a straight drive of a couple of hundred meters from our usual classroom complex to reach that building. But my friend, that drive would be futile, since the gates of the building are eternally lost for the students. Though in the daytime, you could peep into it, in the night, the security guard is strictly against any activity near that building. As the tale goes - they say it's not safe and thus closed. 

It had only passed a month, before I and my roommate, Kaka, got the ear of the tale. Neither of us at first believed in it. We were the youngest member of the student community and thus had enough energy with us to take a decision of paying the building a visit in the near future. 

The next day, we cycled after the class to the building gate and found nothing queer from outside - just a plain old building. Kaka got a text message. It read - "I overheard you talking with your friend about visiting the old Architecture building, would you mind if I join you? I got your number from Yashaswini" We zoomed at the profile pic, a girl, and we replied back - "Sure, no problem. But your name?" 
"Kshitija Pani" came the reply instantly. We fixed the same night, half-past eleven. 

The major hurdle was to sneak past the guard. And I would better not describe how we did that, something should be our secret only, right? We entered the building and confronted the first large gate. The most important thing that we had to follow was to keep ourselves silent, only small whispers allowed. Opening the gate might cause a large sound, thus we climbed and jumped inside. 
"Who the heck asked you to wear heels?" Asked Kaka.
"Others were hell dirty, so I washed them yesterday evening, they have not dried. Wearing heels, I suppose is better than naked feet." And silence followed. She could have asked her friend's shoes, but these girls - simply non-decipherable. 

With great difficulty, we brought her in. We walked into the ground floor. A common area. There were rusted chairs. A water cooler was there too. Most of the floor area had no tiles literally. It was feeling like waking on a rocky terrain! We stood still. We hoped something strange, something uncanny would happen. But our patience ran out after a mere five minutes, and we saw the stairs to the first floor. Kshitija was allergic to dust and covered her mouth with a white handkerchief. The initials K.P was on it.
We stood still again. We were heavily sweating. Our hands were wet. Suddenly, we heard a creak. A moment of silence, the creak followed again. We tightly gripped the hands of each other. We walked into the room from where the sound was coming. Nothing was moving. We searched for light switches in the hope of having a better view of the room. But alas! All switches were broken. We switched on our mobile flashlights. No one was there. But we could see, there were large, I mean huge sized tables with instruments lying here and there, covered with dust. It was as if somebody left them as such, and has never returned to use them. Kshitija sneezed. And damn that was loud. 
"Psst" 
"I can't, allergic to dust." 

We walked out of the room and looked at the watch. The noise came again, we entered inside the room again. There was the cupboard earlier, but the door was closed. Now it was open. Curiosity took over. Was that the noise of door creaking? Debatable. But I walked near the cupboard. Kaka asked to leave the room, but something impulsed me to open the cupboard completely. I opened it. The sound was at least confirmed. There was nothing inside, then how did it creak on its own? There was no wind. I turned back and shook my head to say nothing was there. Both of them joined me. 

The door of the room closed. We rushed to the door, smashed it all in vain. Kshitija got hell frightened. We continued banging. But all in vain. We had lost all hopes. Someone slipped past a piece of paper in the door gap. "Leave immediately, do not return. I spare you two" read Kaka. "We are three, right?" Said Kshitija. The door opened, and we had no idea, how fast we all ran. Who was going to be the target? We forgot everything and just had to save ourselves. We ran out of the building, out to the road. I took three deep breaths and looked at Kaka. Kshitija was missing. "Shall we take a look again?" "Agreed." And in heat of the moment, we again rushed back to the building. It was silent again. We went to that floor again. The same room. The piece of paper that we had left behind was no more there. The cupboard door was closed. She was no-where. We looked at the floor and found that handkerchief with K.P initials and her heels also. We carried it and walked outside. 

Five days passed as such, and we heard no notice that a girl named "Kshitija Pani" was missing. In the afternoon, after the class, we went near the building again. Some strange things happened with us inside. Kaka opened the chat, he couldn't find the message of Kshitija anymore. 
He looked at me and asked showing his phone - "Was she real?" 
There were her handkerchief and heels with us that led us to think she was real. But let me draw your attention, Kaka's real name is "Kshitij" and my surname is "Panigrahi". 

-Siba Smarak Panigrahi 

(Dedicated to Kshitij Anand)