The Uninvited Visitor

It was the night before our final exams, and my friend Priya had come over to my place to study. We lived in a quiet suburb on the outskirts of a small town, and my house was an old, sprawling bungalow with a veranda that wrapped around the front. The main gate was a rusty iron thing that groaned whenever it moved, and the garden was overgrown with weeds and bushes that cast strange shapes under the moonlight.

It was past midnight, and the house was silent except for the occasional creak of the old wooden beams. Priya and I were huddled over our textbooks, but our eyes were tired and our minds were wandering. To break the monotony, I started telling her about a renowned haunted mansion in a neighboring state, where people had reported seeing a girl in a white dress who would stand at the end of a hallway, her face obscured by long hair. Priya, who was easily spooked, gripped the edge of the table and pleaded with me to stop. I laughed and continued, my voice dropping to a whisper as I described the girl’s eerie smile and the way she would vanish when approached.

Just as I finished, we heard a knock on the door. It was not the front door but the one in my room that led to the veranda. The knock was soft, hesitant, almost as if the person was unsure. Priya and I exchanged glances. It was nearly 1 AM, and everyone else in the house was asleep. The main gate was locked, and the veranda was enclosed, so the only way to reach that door was through the garden and over the low wall, which was blocked by thorny bushes.

I approached the door, my heart pounding. I glanced through the sheer curtains and saw the silhouette of a girl standing there. She was about our age, with long, tangled hair that fell past her shoulders. She wore a dirty, torn dress that seemed too thin for the chill of the night. Her face was pale, and her eyes were wide and unblinking, staring directly at the door.

I hesitated, but the knocking continued, more insistent now. Priya whispered from behind me, ‘Don’t open it.’ But something about the girl’s desperate expression made me feel I had to help. I unlocked the door and pulled it open.

The girl took a step forward, her bare feet silent on the wooden floor. She opened her mouth, but only a faint, guttural sound came out, like she hadn’t spoken in years. She raised a hand, pointing a trembling finger at the dark corner of my room, where the shadows pooled. I turned to follow her gaze, and for a split second, I saw a figure standing there, all in black, with white, long fingers reaching out. I blinked, and it was gone.

When I turned back to the girl, she was gone as well. The door was wide open, the night air rushing in. Priya and I stood frozen, staring at the empty doorway. We tried to call out, but no sound came. Then, we heard a faint whisper from behind us, coming from the corner. It was the girl’s voice, but now it was clear and chilling: ‘She waits.’

We slammed the door shut and locked it, but we knew it was too late. The knocking started again, not on the door but from inside the walls, moving around the room, as if something was circling us. The lights flickered, and the temperature plummeted. We huddled together, weeping, as the sound of a girl’s soft laughter echoed through the house, a sound that was not human.

In the morning, we found the door open again, and on the floor, there were wet footprints leading from the veranda to the corner of the room and back out, but they were all heel-less. We told our families, but they dismissed it as a prank. Yet, from that night on, whenever we were alone in that room, we would hear three knocks on the door, and a faint whisper: ‘Let me in.’