The Canteen at 2 AM

I’ve never been one to believe in the supernatural without hard evidence. But what I experienced in the winter of 2002 changed my mind forever. I was twenty, studying for my bachelor’s in computer science at a sleepy coastal town called Narmada Nagar. The college had a hostel that was as old as the town itself, a crumbling structure with corridors that smelled of damp and old wood. Like every hostel, it had its share of ghost stories, but I dismissed them as the product of bored minds and late nights.

That particular night was cold and damp, the kind that seeps into your bones. The clock on my nightstand read 2:00 AM. My roommate, a quiet guy named Arjun, and I were hunched over our textbooks, trying to make sense of data structures. Hunger was a constant companion during exam season, and we had run out of the snacks we’d smuggled in. The mess was about fifty meters away, past a row of old, abandoned dormitories that were slated for demolition. They had been empty for years, their windows like hollow eyes.

We decided to risk it. We wrapped ourselves in thick jackets and stepped into the hallway, locking our room behind us. The corridor was lit by a single flickering tube light that buzzed like a trapped fly. As we walked, our footsteps echoed in the emptiness, the sound swallowed by the dark. The mess itself was a small building at the edge of the hostel compound, its lights a warm beacon in the darkness.

We got our food—some cold rotis and a watery dal—and started back. The bags were warm in our hands, and we quickened our pace against the chill. As we passed the abandoned dormitories, a sound made me pause. It was a faint, rhythmic tapping, like someone knocking from inside one of the rooms. I looked at Arjun, who had stopped too, a puzzled look on his face.

‘Did you hear that?’ I whispered. He nodded, and we both listened. Tap. Tap. Tap. It was coming from the third room down the line. We inched closer, our hearts starting to race. The door was ajar, creaking slightly. Arjun pushed it open, and we peered inside. The room was bare, with peeling paint and a single, broken window that let in the cold.

We were about to dismiss it as the wind when the tapping resumed, now louder and more insistent. It seemed to come from the floor beneath our feet. We looked down, and that’s when I noticed a small, dusty trapdoor in the corner. Arjun walked over to it and, against my better judgment, lifted it. The hinges screamed, and a cold draft blew up from the darkness below.

There was a stairway leading down, the steps covered in grime. I grabbed Arjun’s arm, but he was already descending. I followed, my heart in my throat. The stairs ended at a narrow corridor, lined with old iron bars. It looked like a storage cellar, but as my eyes adjusted, I saw something that made me freeze: a metal plate bolted to the floor, with a strange symbol engraved on it—a circle bisected by a jagged line.

Arjun knelt down and traced the symbol. ‘This is weird,’ he said. Just then, the tapping started again, but this time it was directly beneath the plate. The plate vibrated, and a low hum filled the air. I felt a cold presence, like a whisper across my skin, and I heard a voice—not with my ears, but in my mind. It said, ‘Let me out.’

We scrambled back up the stairs, not daring to look back. When we reached the ground floor, we slammed the trapdoor shut and ran back to our room, the cold food forgotten. We locked our door and sat in silence, the incident replaying in our minds.

The next day, we told some seniors about it. They paled and told us that those old dormitories had been the site of a tragic fire in the 1980s. A group of students had died there, and their spirits were said to linger. They had heard the tapping too, but no one ever dared to open the trapdoor. They warned us never to go back.

But I couldn’t shake the voice. It felt desperate, almost pleading. That night, I couldn’t sleep. At 2 AM, I found myself standing outside the dormitories again, alone. The trapdoor was still open, the darkness gaping like a hungry mouth. I took a deep breath and descended once more.

This time, I knelt by the metal plate and whispered, ‘What are you?’ The voice answered, ‘I was a student here. They sealed me in because of what I did. But I didn’t mean to. The fire… it was an accident.’ I felt a surge of pity and fear. I looked closer at the symbol and realized it was a binding seal, meant to contain the spirit.

The voice pleaded, ‘Please, break the seal. Let me rest.’ I hesitated, but the desperation in its tone was too much. I took a piece of broken metal and scratched at the edges of the plate. With a groan, it came loose, revealing a dark cavity from which a cold draft rose, carrying a smell of ash and regret.

Suddenly, the air around me grew heavy. I heard the voice, now filled with malice, say, ‘Thank you.’ A gust of wind extinguished the emergency light, and I was plunged into darkness. I stumbled backward, felt the steps, and clawed my way up. I crashed into my room, slammed the door, and didn’t leave until morning.

Now, every night at 2 AM, I hear the tapping from my floor. It’s coming from beneath my bed. And sometimes, when I look into the mirror, I see a face—the face of the student who was trapped. He smiles, and his eyes are empty. I’ve tried to move, but the hostel officials say there’s no change. I’ve tried to forget, but the tapping is relentless. It reminds me that I was the one who let him out, and now he’s never going to leave me alone.

That was the night I stopped being a skeptic and started believing in ghosts. But more importantly, I learned that some doors are better left unopened, and some voices, no matter how desperate, should not be trusted.