The Painted Floor

In the autumn of 2019, I was a junior accountant at a mid-sized firm in the city of Noida, my first job after college. My shift, due to the international clients we served, started at 2 PM and ended at 10:30 PM IST. I shared a rented second-floor flat in an old residential colony in Indirapuram, with three colleagues from the same company, but their shifts were from 6 PM to 3 AM, so I had the flat to myself from 11 PM until they returned at dawn.

The company cab dropped me at the main gate of the colony at exactly 11:05 PM. The walk to my building was about 700 meters, down a poorly lit lane bordered by a row of ancient, crumbling bungalows. That November had been unusually cold, and the night air bit into my cheeks. As I passed the third bungalow, a two-storey structure with peeling paint and boarded windows, I felt a sudden, inexplicable chill that had nothing to do with the temperature. It was as if someone had walked over my grave. I paused, but the wind moaned through the bare trees, and I shrugged it off, chalking it up to exhaustion.

Our flat was in a building that had been constructed in the late ’80s. The landlord had recently repainted the floors with a glossy, dark red paint that never quite dried completely, leaving a slight tackiness underfoot. The hallway and rooms thus always smelled faintly of chemical freshness. I unlocked the heavy iron door and stepped inside. The flat was silent except for the hum of the old refrigerator. I switched on the lights, flooded the living room with a harsh yellow glow, and headed to the kitchen to make myself a cup of tea.

As the water boiled, I noticed a faint, rhythmic tapping coming from the direction of the balcony window. My heart skipped a beat. I peered through the glass, but saw only the dark silhouettes of the neighboring buildings. The tapping stopped as abruptly as it had started. I dismissed it as a loose branch. Yet, when I turned back to the stove, I saw that the paint on the kitchen floor had a strange pattern—as if something had dragged a heavy, wet object across it, leaving a smear that shimmered in the light. I rubbed at it with my slipper, but it remained, like an oily stain.

I decided to check the bedrooms. The first was mine, small and cluttered with my things. The second, my roommate’s, was neat and tidy. The third, at the end of the hall, was usually kept locked because it was used for storage. But that night, the door was slightly ajar. I never entered that room, but now curiosity and a growing unease compelled me. I pushed the door open, and the creak echoed through the flat. Inside, the room was bare except for an old mattress propped against the wall and a single, dusty mirror. The mirror’s surface was cracked, and in it, I saw a reflection of the room behind me—but something was wrong. The reflection showed a different room, with a window on the wall where there was none, and a figure standing in the corner, its back to me.

I spun around, but the corner was empty. My breath caught in my throat. The figure in the mirror was still there, and now it began to slowly turn its head. I backed out of the room, slammed the door, and raced to my bedroom, my heart hammering. I locked the door and sat on my bed, trying to rationalize. The mirror was old, the crack distorted things. It was just a trick of the light. But I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was not alone.

I tried to sleep, but the tapping returned, now from the walls, as if something was crawling inside them. The air grew colder, and the red paint on the floor seemed to seep upward, staining the walls with crimson streaks. I covered my head with my pillow, but the sounds grew louder—a low, slow breathing, then a whisper: ‘You see me now.’

At 2 AM, I heard the front door unlock. My friends were back early. Relief flooded me. I rushed to the hallway and saw my first roommate, Arjun, stepping in. He looked pale and shaken. He said, ‘The cab dropped me off at the gate, and on my way here, I saw a woman in white standing in front of that abandoned bungalow, pointing at this building. When I approached, she vanished.’ I glanced down at the floor. The smear I had seen earlier was now a distinct footprint, small and bare, leading from the kitchen to the storage room door.

We stood in silence. Then, from the storage room, we heard a child’s laughter, muffled, as if coming from a great distance. Arjun grabbed my arm. ‘We need to leave.’ But when we tried the door, it wouldn’t open. The keyhole was plugged with dried red paint. The laughter grew louder, and then stopped. A heavy silence descended, broken only by the ticking of the clock. We looked at each other, and then, as one, we noticed that the painted floor in the hallway was now covered in hundreds of tiny, handprint-like smudges, as if a child had crawled across it, leaving wet red marks.

We spent the rest of the night huddled in the living room, every shadow a threat. At dawn, we finally managed to force the door open. The room was empty, but on the floor, written in the same red paint, were the words: ‘I was waiting for you.’

We moved out the next week. But even now, when I close my eyes, I see that room, that mirror, and the figure that finally turned to face me—a thing with no eyes, only black sockets, and its mouth stretched in a grin that reached its ears. I know it’s still there, in that flat, in the painted floor, waiting for someone else to come home.