The Sixteenth Floor Chime

I never believed in ghosts, not really. Even after my finals, when I moved into my aunt’s place in that half-empty tower block, I thought the silence was a blessing. The building was called ‘The Meridian’, a two-winged monstrosity of grey concrete, jutting up from a forgotten corner of the city. My aunt, her daughter Meera, and Meera’s son Arjun lived on the second floor of the west wing. The east wing faced us, its windows like vacant eyes, and only a handful of tenants dotted its floors.

Arjun was the only one close to my age, despite being my nephew. We spent that Friday afternoon binging ghost story compilations on my phone, laughing at the cheap jump scares, but as the sun sank, a strange unease settled in the hallway. The building’s silence was deeper than usual, the hum of the old elevator more mournful. That night, we were all supposed to go on a picnic the next morning, so we turned in early, but excitement kept Arjun and me awake in our separate rooms.

At 1:30 AM, a sound cut through the stillness. It wasn’t the wind or the pipes. It was a tiny, melodic chime, like a music box being plucked in a distant room. I sat up, heart thudding. The chime came again, a little closer. Then it started a pattern: three chimes, a pause, then a single low thrum, like a gong struck under water. I crept to my door and opened it a crack. The hallway was dark except for the emergency exit sign’s green glow. The chime was coming from the stairwell.

I saw Arjun’s door open across the hall. He waved at me, his face pale. ‘You hear that?’ he whispered. I nodded. Together, we tiptoed to the stairwell door. The sound was definitely coming from above. We looked up the concrete stairs, spiraling into darkness. The chime repeated, now seeming to come from the sixth floor. Arjun’s hand found mine, cold. ‘Let’s go back,’ he said, but his eyes betrayed a morbid curiosity.

We started climbing, step by step, the chime growing louder. On the third floor landing, we found a crumpled piece of paper, an old lottery ticket. On the fourth, a single woman’s shoe, not dirty, as if freshly dropped. The chime moved to the seventh floor, then the ninth. We were out of breath, but we had to see. On the eleventh floor, which we knew was empty, the chime stopped. Then a faint, rusted elevator door slid open in front of us, its light flickering. Inside, a small brass bell rested on the floor, still vibrating.

We entered, and the doors shut behind us with a clang. The elevator buttons were old, with labels partially worn. The top button, 16, glowed a dull red. We didn’t press it; it depressed on its own. The elevator lurched upward, and the chime returned, now a full melody—a lullaby I half-remembered from childhood. The floor indicator lit 12, 13, 14, 15, then paused. The doors opened onto a dusty corridor that was not the 16th floor. There were no windows, and the walls were covered in faded children’s drawings: stick figures holding hands, a sun with a face, and a house with a red door.

The chime came from the end of the hall, where a door stood ajar. We approached, our footsteps echoing. Inside, we found a small room filled with old toys and a music box on a shelf, its tiny dancer spinning. Beside it, a photograph in a tarnished frame: a young girl with braids, smiling. The lullaby was coming from the music box. Arjun picked it up, and the music stopped. The silence that followed was oppressive. Then, from behind us, a child’s voice whispered, ‘You found it.’

We spun around. The room was empty, but the door was now closed. A series of handprints, wet and grey, began to appear on the walls, as if a muddy child was walking around us. The voice giggled, and the lights went out. In the dark, the chime returned, now inside the room. We fumbled for the door, but it wouldn’t budge. The handprints covered the entire ceiling. A cold, damp hand gripped my ankle. I screamed.

We woke up in our beds the next morning. The sun was bright, and the picnic basket was packed. Arjun looked at me, his face ashen. We didn’t speak about it. But when we went to the hallway, we saw a small brass bell lying on the floor outside my door. And the elevator, which we always took, now stopped on every floor except the 16th, even though no one called it. The chime, though, has never stopped. We hear it every night at 1:30, growing closer. And we both know, the girl in the photo wants us to play.