The Fifth Step

The first thing I noticed about the building was the smell. It wasn’t rot or mildew, but something older, like dust from a forgotten archive. My friend Rohan had invited me over to his new flat in the old part of Nagpur, a city I’d moved to for work a few months back. I’d known Rohan since college, and he was the last person I’d expect to be spooked by anything. But when I walked into his flat, he was standing in the middle of the living room, arms crossed, staring at the floor as if it might give way.

Rohan’s flat was on the third floor of a building that had seen better decades. The layout was simple enough: you stepped into a cramped foyer, and straight ahead was the living room. To the right, a narrow hallway ran past a small kitchen, a bathroom, and two bedrooms. It was the kind of place you could cross in five strides. But Rohan said there were twelve steps from the foyer to the living room, though any sane person would count ten.

That evening, we sat on his worn sofa, drinking chai, and he told me about the events. It started with the kitchen cupboards opening on their own. Then the bathroom door would be locked from the inside when no one was there. But the most persistent thing, he said, was the sound of footsteps. Not random, but measured, as if someone were pacing. He’d gotten into the habit of counting. ‘One, two, three, four – then a pause – five.’ He claimed it always stopped at five.

I stayed the night because I didn’t want to drive back to my place in the dark. Rohan gave me the guest room, which was at the end of the hallway. I tossed and turned, unable to shake the unease. Around 2 a.m., I heard it. The floorboards creaked as if someone were walking, slow and deliberate. I held my breath. The steps came closer. They stopped right outside my door. I felt a cold draft seep under the crack. Then, a soft, rhythmic breathing. I was too afraid to move.

The next morning, I confronted Rohan. I told him that I had a feeling – a sort of instinct – that something wasn’t right. I didn’t believe in ghosts, but I believed in evil, and I could feel it around us. Rohan admitted he’d been hearing things too, but he thought it was the settling of the building. We decided to investigate.

We started in the hallway. I counted the steps from the foyer to the living room: ten, obviously. But Rohan pointed to the air, tracing a line with his finger. ‘There’s a gap,’ he said. ‘Between the fourth and fifth step, there’s a space that doesn’t exist on the floor, but I hear it tread.’

That’s when we remembered the landlord’s warning when Rohan moved in: ‘Don’t count the steps twice. The wooden floor will get confused.’ We’d laughed it off. Now, we weren’t laughing.

That night, we armed ourselves with salt and a lamp. We sat in the living room, waiting. The footsteps came again, but louder this time, and they weren’t in the hallway. They were underneath us, from the floor below. But we were on the third floor, and the building had no basement.

I felt a surge of anger, not fear. I stood up and shouted, ‘Show yourself, you coward!’ The footsteps stopped. Then, from the kitchen, we heard the clatter of pots. We ran in and found the cabinets open, dishes scattered on the floor. On the counter was a single footprint, dark as soot, but it only had five toes.

That’s when I understood. The entity wasn’t trapped in the walls; it was trapped in the count. It had to take five steps, and it was stuck in a loop, never reaching its destination. We had to help it, or it would keep pacing forever.

I grabbed a piece of chalk from my bag and drew a spiral on the floor, starting from the foyer and leading out the door. ‘Rohan, we need to give it an exit,’ I said.

We left the flat, and I heard the footsteps begin again. This time, they followed the spiral, step after step. Five steps, then a pause. But the spiral had no end; it just went in circles. The footsteps grew frantic, like a trapped animal. Then, silence.

We returned to the flat. The chalk spiral was gone, as if erased. The building felt lighter, but wrong. Rohan moved out a week later. I still hear the footsteps in my sleep, but they never come close. They stop at five, always at five, and I know that somewhere, in that flat, a spirit is still pacing, waiting for someone to give it a final step.