The Concrete Between the Glass

The apartment on the fourth floor of the Tulsi Residency had always felt like a cage to me, but that morning it felt like a coffin. I’d returned to my hometown of Chandrapur for a short break, seeking the familiar comfort of the flat my parents had kept for years. The building was old, with peeling paint and a creaky lift, but it was home. The bedroom I slept in had two large windows side by side, overlooking the dimly lit lane below. The glass was streaked with dust, and the metal frames rattled when the wind picked up.

At 2:30 AM, I was jolted from a restless sleep by a sound that made my blood run cold: soft, deliberate footsteps. They began directly beneath the left window, as if someone was walking on the pavement outside, but the rhythm was off. The steps started at the left window, moved to the right, and then stopped. Then they started again, left to right, stop. Over and over. The distance between the windows was barely three meters, so why would anyone walk that short stretch repeatedly? My first thought was a watchman, but our watchman made rounds across the entire building, his footsteps echoing in the stairwell. This was confined to just that patch of ground, right below my window.

My heart began to pound. I lay frozen in the bed, staring at the dark ceiling, afraid to move. I wanted to check, to see if it was just a stray dog or a drunk, but a primal fear gripped me. What if it wasn’t? What if I looked down and saw something that would haunt me forever? I pulled the blanket tighter, my knuckles white as I gripped it. The footsteps continued, sometimes pausing for a few seconds, then resuming. I started to pray, whispering Jesus’ name over and over, my voice trembling. I reached for my phone and played worship songs at a low volume, trying to drown out the sound, but the footsteps seemed to sync with the music, as if mocking me. Gradually, exhaustion overtook me, and I fell into a restless sleep.

At 5:45 AM, the first light of dawn crept through the curtains. I woke with a start, my body drenched in cold sweat. The footsteps had stopped, but the memory of them was still fresh. I felt a sudden urge to know what had been out there. I crept to the window, my legs shaking, and peered through the gap in the curtains. The lane below was empty, save for a stray cat that arched its back and hissed at something invisible. The pavement was damp with dew, and I noticed that directly below my window, the dust was disturbed, but not in a way that made sense. There were no footprints, no marks of a person, just a strange, circular pattern etched into the mud, as if something had been standing there and rotating slowly.

I stepped back, a chill running down my spine. I tried to rationalize it: maybe a dog, maybe a drunk. But the pattern was too precise, too unnatural. I decided to forget it, to focus on my day, but as the hours passed, the dread didn’t fade. I went about my routine, but my eyes kept drifting to the window. I called the building watchman, an old man named Vishnu, and asked if he had been near my window that night. He looked at me with a puzzled expression. ‘I didn’t leave my post, sir. The gate was closed, and no one came or went.’

That evening, I couldn’t bring myself to sleep in that room. I moved to the living room sofa, but I could still see the shadows of the windows from where I lay. At 2:30 AM, the footsteps returned. This time, they were louder, more deliberate. I covered my ears, but the sound seemed to penetrate my skull. I felt a presence, as if something was staring at me, pressing against the glass. I turned on every light in the apartment, but the darkness outside seemed to swallow the illumination. The footsteps continued until the first light of dawn, then abruptly stopped.

I didn’t stay in Chandrapur after that. I packed my bags and left that evening, the sickly sweet smell of incense and old furniture making me nauseous. As I waited for the train, I called my mother and told her I was fine, but I couldn’t shake the image of that circular pattern in the mud. A week later, I received a call from my father. ‘There was an accident at the Tulsi Residency,’ he said, his voice shaking. ‘A woman fell from the fourth floor, directly below your bedroom window. They said she had been sleepwalking.’

But I knew the truth. That woman had been standing in that exact spot, circling, for hours. And the concrete between the glass is still waiting, its rhythm patient, for the next person to hear its steps and wonder.