The Lantern at the End of the Hall

I had spent months devouring every account of the unseen, every tale of the in-between, so I thought I was prepared. My name is Arjun, I’m fourteen, and I live in the coastal town of Kanyakumari, where the sea never rests and old temples cling to the rocks. My birthday falls in the middle of the monsoon, when the rain hammers the tin roof like a frantic drummer and the power often flickers. That year, my parents had rented a small, centuries-old house near the shore for a week, a place with thick wooden beams and a hallway that stretched into darkness if you didn’t switch on the single bulb.

On the night of my birthday, I had set my alarm for midnight, determined to be the first to greet the new year of my life. The whole family, my parents and my younger sister, were sleeping on mattresses in the living room, lulled by the drumming rain. I lay awake, staring at the ceiling, counting the seconds until the clock struck twelve. As the first chime of my phone’s alarm began, I felt a sudden stillness, as if the rain itself held its breath.

My eyes were drawn to the hallway. There, floating near the entrance to the small kitchen, was a soft, bluish glow, not like any light I knew. It pulsed gently, like a heartbeat. My phone was in the living room, and my parents’ phones were on the table, all silent. This light was different, it seemed to be coming from the old, rusted refrigerator that stood in the hallway, but the fridge was unplugged, its door ajar.

I froze. The light grew stronger, wrapping around the refrigerator’s edges, and then I saw it: a figure, not of flesh, but of something darker, standing beside the fridge. It was a tall man, but his features were indistinct, like a shadow given form. He wore a long coat, I think, and his head was tilted as if he were listening to the hum of the rain. He seemed to be holding a lantern, its light the source of that eerie glow.

‘Bhavani?’ I whispered, calling out to my mother, but she didn’t stir. The figure turned its head slowly, and even though I couldn’t see eyes, I felt its gaze on me. My heart hammered. The alarm on my phone had stopped, replaced by the ringing of the old landline in the hallway, a shrill sound that cut through the silence. But my father was awake now, and he stumbled toward the hallway, grumbling about the phone. As he reached the corridor, the light flickered and died, and the man was gone.

My father fumbled for the phone, but the line was dead. He looked at the fridge, shook his head, and went back to his mat. I lay still, my breath shallow, my eyes fixed on the spot where the figure had stood. In the morning, I told my parents what I had seen. They exchanged a glance, and my mother said, ‘Arjun, you probably had a dream. You were excited about your birthday.’ But I knew I wasn’t dreaming.

Later that day, I found an old photograph in a drawer of the house. It was a family portrait from the 1970s, and in it, a man stood in the same hallway, a lantern in his hand. I asked my father about it, but he dismissed it. Yet, that night, I heard a faint sound, like a whisper, coming from the hallway. ‘Don’t let the light go out,’ it seemed to say. I never slept with the light off again, and to this day, I avoid hallways that are too dark, fearing that the man with the lantern might be waiting, ready to light the way to something I don’t want to see.