The light inside the locked office flicked on by itself.
Arun saw it from across the empty school corridor and stopped mid-step.
The building in northern India was almost silent this late in the evening. Teachers had gone home, and most students had left hours earlier. Only a few after-school helpers stayed behind to tidy up, and Arun was one of them. He had walked this hallway a hundred times, but tonight it felt different. Still. Heavy. Watching.
He clutched the broom a little tighter and tried to laugh it off. Maybe someone forgot to turn the switch off. Maybe a teacher had come back. But when he walked closer, he froze again.
The office door was locked.
Locked from the outside.
He checked the knob to be sure. It didn’t move.
Yet the light inside glowed a warm yellow.
Arun stepped back. His pulse thumped in his ears. He wasn’t the type to scare easily, but something about the quiet light behind the frosted glass made his skin pull tight.
He forced himself to keep sweeping the hallway. The bristles scraped the floor, too loud in all that silence. Every time he passed the office door, he glanced at it. The light stayed on.
By the time he finished his work, the sun had set. The classrooms were dark, and the school felt colder. He headed toward the exit, eager to leave.
Then he heard a faint tapping.
A slow, steady knock.
He stopped. The sound came from the office.
Tap.
Tap.
Tap.
Someone was inside.
“Sir?” Arun called. “Do you need help?”
The tapping stopped.
He stepped closer, his throat dry. He shouldn’t open the door. He didn’t have the key. Only the headmistress did, and she had left early that day.
He pressed his ear gently to the door.
Inside, a chair scraped across the floor.
Arun stumbled back so fast he nearly dropped the broom. The office had been locked all afternoon. No student had gone in. No teacher either. He had been nearby the entire time.
His mind raced with simple explanations — maybe the window was open and something fell. Maybe the janitor had gone inside earlier without him noticing.
But the window in that room couldn’t open more than a few centimeters. And the janitor had taken the day off.
The chair scraped again.
Soft. Slow. Closer.
Arun hurried down the hall. He tried not to run, but his walk turned into a near-sprint anyway. He pushed through the exit doors and breathed in the warm night air, his chest shaking.
He didn’t tell anyone. Not his mother. Not his friends. Not even the headmistress the next morning.
But when he returned to the hallway after school the following day, the office light was still on.
Still locked.
Still silent.
Mostly.
Arun tried to ignore it. He cleaned, he swept, he carried stacks of worksheets. But his eyes kept drifting to that glowing door.
He wondered if anyone else saw it. Teachers walked past without a glance. Students joked nearby and never noticed. Even the assistant principal — whose desk sat right beside the office — didn’t look at the light even once.
It was as if only Arun could see it.
When he passed by that evening, something new caught his attention.
A thin shadow moved behind the frosted glass.
Not a clear shape. Not a person. Just a blur shifting across the light, slow enough to make his breath catch.
He whispered, “Who’s inside?”
No reply.
He felt like the hallway around him had sunk into thick water — heavy, muffled, strange. He stepped toward the door and placed his hand against the cool metal knob. It stayed locked. Solid.
He leaned closer. “If you need help… please say something.”
Silence.
Then the light inside flickered.
Once.
Twice.
Then held steady.
Arun backed away until his shoulders hit the opposite wall.
He tried to tell himself he imagined things. Stress from exams. Late hours. Too much staying behind at school when everyone else had gone home.
But that night, something changed.
While sweeping, he heard a soft click behind him.
The office door had unlocked itself.
He turned around slowly. The latch hung loose. The door stood slightly open, just wide enough for a warm strip of yellow light to spill across the hallway floor.
Arun held his breath.
Something shifted inside — the tiniest brush of movement, like someone standing up from a chair.
He took one shaky step back. “Hello?”
No answer.
He felt the urge to run. Leave the school. Never look back. But another feeling held him in place — a strange pull, like the room wanted him to look. Wanted him to step closer.
The door creaked open a little more, as if nudged from the inside.
He couldn’t stop staring at the crack of light. The shadows inside stretched toward him on the floor, long and slow.
He swallowed hard and whispered, “I’m not going in.”
Then the door shut.
Not loud. Not slammed. Just a quiet push, like someone gently closing it with their palm.
Arun dropped the broom.
He didn’t stay after school the next day, but he still passed the office before going home. He walked faster than usual. Real fast. Almost running.
The light was off.
Relief washed through him — until he noticed something else.
A thin sheet of paper had been slipped under the office door, curled slightly at the edges.
He almost ignored it. Almost kept walking. But something about the way it lay there, perfectly centered, made him stop.
He bent down and picked it up.
The page was blank.
Completely blank.
But the paper felt warm, as if someone had held it just moments before.
A soft vibration hummed through the floorboards under his feet. He stepped back. The hair on his arms rose.
Then, inside the office, the light flicked on.
He froze.
Someone moved again behind the frosted glass — slow, careful, almost expectant.
Arun held the blank paper against his chest and backed down the hallway, his footsteps echoing in the empty school.
He didn’t know who — or what — waited inside that locked room.
But as the office light glowed steady and warm behind the door, he knew one thing for certain:
Tomorrow, another paper would be waiting for him.
And maybe next time, it wouldn’t be blank.
