Within the Shroud of Darkness

Dakshita dug her hand deep into her purse to find some spare change.
Her hand felt some coins and picked them out. She counted the coins;
they would cover the cost of a small packet of brown bread.

Dakshita walked back to her apartment building from the grocery store.
The path remained damp from when the mist cannon truck had passed.
Dakshita often planned her grocery store visits on her way back from
office.

Dakshita entered the apartment compound. The guard greeted her and
informed her of a package which had arrived for her. Dakshita walked
to the building’s reception area to collect her package. The
receptionist was not present. She looked around, no one was present,
it was unusually empty. Dakshita looked at the clock on the reception
wall, it was 8:11 pm.

Dakshita decided to wait and sat down on one of the several reception
chairs arranged around a round wooden table. She took out her
smartphone to check her mails for what had been delivered in the
package, but the smartphone screen did not display anything, the
battery had drained out.

Dakshita sighed as she had made no progress towards receiving her
package and she was tired from her day at office. She waited for
fifteen minutes before deciding to return to her apartment. She was
about to get up from her chair when she heard footsteps approaching
from a passage.

Dakshita waited in anticipation of the receptionist appearing. The
footsteps approached and at the entrance of the passage the shadow of
the person coming was visible now. But it stopped.

Dakshita focussed upon the shadow, it did not move ahead, it did not
move at all. There was no sound, not of movement or even breathing.
The situation was reaching a point of discomfort. Dakshita was about
to call out to whoever it was, but she was suddenly startled by the
sound of a package being kept on the table. She looked at the package
as the receptionist stood confused by the expression on Dakshita’s
face.



“The security guard informed me of your arrival, so I had gone to
fetch your package from the storage room,” the receptionist explained.

“Oh.. all right, thank you,” said Dakshita as she got up and looked at
the passage. The shadow was still present but then it slowly
retreated. The receptionist showed an expression of confusion as
Dakshita picked up the package and walked away.

Dakshita walked to the elevators and pressed the elevator button. She
waited for the elevator to arrive, meanwhile she did not think much of
what had occurred and thought of what other tasks remained to be done
apart from washing clothes and preparing dinner.

The elevator arrived and its doors opened to reveal the two boys whom
it was carrying down. They were Mrs Mishra’s sons. Mrs Mishra was a
friend of Mrs Bakshi, Dakshita’s immediate neighbour. Dakshita had
seen the boys on multiple occasions along with their mother.

“Hello.. Mrs Mishra hasn’t come with you two today?” Dakshita asked as
she stepped aside with her package so that the boys could move out.

“No, mother hasn’t come today, so we have come on our own.” replied
one of the two boys, as the boys exited the elevator and smiled at
Dakshita before walking away.

Dakshita had shifted to this city from her hometown, in search of
better employment. She had spent seven months in the city, she had
found a decent job and had shifted in her new apartment a month back.

Dakshita stepped in the elevator and pressed the 12 numbered button.
The doors of the elevator closed and it began its climb upwards.

A small no smoking sign was a new addition, it was just above the LCD
display which displayed the floor numbers.

The elevator stopped, Dakshita looked at the screen, it was the fifth
floor. She took a step back to leave space for the person who was
about to step in. Dakshita had never been to the fifth floor of the
building.

Although each floor of the apartment was the same in structure, over
the time as people continued to live in them, there was a certain
change that could be felt on each floor.

The doors of the elevator opened. No one was there. Dakshita turned
and tilted her head to check if there was someone who was busy taking
a call or an open door of an apartment of someone who had rushed back
to get something at the last moment. She didn’t find anything of such
sort, but her eyes couldn’t miss how this floor felt.

The fifth floor felt completely different than the rest of the floors
in the building. There was no sound or any trace of anyone living
there. The apartment doors looked exactly the same, there were no
decorated name or number plates on the doors, no potted plants,
fragrance of food cooking or sounds of children laughing & adults
talking.

Everything was covered in dust. The corridor ceiling lights had lost
their shade of milk white and most of the white wall lights were off
and one was flickering. The air smelt like it had not moved from this
floor for a long time.

Dakshita noticed movement amongst the shadows at the far end of the
corridor. She thought she had caught a hint of the same shadow that
she had noticed before. But this time it vanished before it could be
seen clearly. Dakshita once again thought of calling out to whoever it
was, but her voice couldn’t reach her mouth, she was unsure of who or
what would reply back if she called out. This floor had started to
affect her senses.

It had been some time since the elevator had halted. ‘Why haven’t the
elevator doors closed yet?’ Dakshita thought. She pushed the closing
button several times but the doors refused to close. The digit 5
disappeared from the elevator’s LCD screen. Dakshita pressed other
buttons but nothing happened and then the lights of the elevator
turned off. Dakshita stared at the elevator’s ceiling for a few
seconds, the rhythm of her breathing started to pick up speed.

Dakshita started thinking of what to do next, when her eyes caught
sight of something in the corridor. In the middle of the corridor, on
the dusted floor, there was a single pair of footprints of shoes, both
the prints were adjacent to each other, as if someone had stood there
for a while. There were no other prints besides it.

‘Were the footprints there before? Whose footprints, are they?’
thought Dakshita. Anxiety had started to set in, drops of sweat
started to appear on Dakshita’s forehead. Dakshita did not want to
leave the elevator, partly hoping for it to start functioning again.

Then came the first sound that was heard during this duration of
Dakshita’s presence on the fifth floor. It was the sound of a door
unlocking, it was one of the doors at the far end of the corridor.
This is when Dakshita knew she had to get out of there as soon as
possible. She frantically started pushing at all the elevator buttons.
It was no use; the elevator wouldn’t respond. Dakshita stepped back
till her back pressed against the elevator wall, the package she was
carrying fell off her hand.

‘What in the world is happening here?’ Dakshita thought.

Creaking sound of a door opening echoed through the corridor.
Dakshita’s eyes widened and she became as quiet as possible with all
her focus upon the open door which was slowly opening. A yellow light
spread out from the door opening, and a shadow of someone standing
could be seen. It was the same shadow and it remained still without
any sound or movement. The wall lights near the door turned off and
the ceiling light on the ceiling above the door flickered a few times
before distinguishing and then finally the yellow light from the room
faded out and the shadow vanished along with it.

At this point Dakshita remembered the emergency staircase. She
recalled the door to the staircase being at the end of a passage to
the left of the elevator lobby.

Dakshita rushed out of the elevator, turned left and ran towards
through the passage, occasionally taking support of the wall to ensure
she did not fall in her panicked state. She did not make any attempt
at looking back at what or who could be following her.

Dakshita reached the door which led to the emergency staircase, it was
over, she would return to her apartment and ask the security guard to
check the fifth floor. Dakshita turned the door handle and the door
opened but what she saw made tears start to collect in her eyelids. It
was not the door to the emergency staircase, it was a utility room,
Dakshita experienced a new wave of panic and weakness, as she looked
at the sign on the wall beside the door, ‘UTILITY ROOM’ was written in
bold capital letters.

Dakshita slowly turned her head back towards the elevator lobby and
right above the right passage, the sign of the emergency staircase
could be seen. She would have to run once again, through the elevator
lobby where the corridor was waiting for her.

‘Whoever or whatever was inside that apartment might be out….’ Dakshita thought.

Dakshita started walking slowly trying not to make any sound.
Everything was silent, it remained silent till a chiming sound was
heard, it came from the elevator as its doors closed. Dakshita ran
towards the elevator but it was too late. The elevator was already
past this floor.

The sound of footsteps approached the elevator. Dakshita stood still
for a second and then with all the energy she could find she ran for
the staircase door without turning to see who it was and that’s when a
wild angry scream of man tore through the floor, and Dakshita’s mind
and soul froze as she disbalanced and fell on her knees gasping for
breath. Her consciousness was failing her. She struggled to raise her
head; there it was the door to the staircase; Dakshita could see its
sign.

Dakshita raised herself and started running again focussed on the
staircase door. She started running as fast as she could, she wasn’t
planning on stopping to open the door but rather breaking through it.

With tears cascading down her eyes she slammed into the door
successfully breaking it open but couldn’t control her speed and fell
down the staircase. This was it; she had done all she could to save
her chance at life. She couldn’t feel the fear, the pain and the
weakness anymore.

Footsteps approached and Dakshita closed her eyes to accept whatever
was to come.

“Call an ambulance”, Dakshita heard a woman speak, she slowly opened her eyes.

“It will be ok, we found you here, my husband is calling an
ambulance.”  the woman said as she checked for wounds.

Dakshita was admitted to the hospital with several injuries including
a broken arm. The police took her statement and began an
investigation.

Dakshita’s father and sister came down to check on her. No one talked
about the incident. Everyone wanted her to recover peacefully.

One day Dakshita’s neighbour Mrs Bakshi came to visit Dakshita in the hospital.

“I don’t understand, why is an entire floor empty?” Dakshita asked.

“The fifth floor is not empty; all the apartments are occupied there.
How did you manage to find it the way you described has confused
everyone, even the police.” spoke Mrs Bakshi, her face showing
concerns for Dakshita.

“I do not know what happened that day, and the way things went, had I
not seen it with my own eyes I would say it was unreal. I cannot make
any sense of it,” said Dakshita trying her best to not let her mind
venture into the depths of the incident.

Mrs Bakshi held Dakshita’s hand, “It is all right. Maybe you were very
tired; a tired mind can sometimes see things.”

Dakshita thought about it and replied, “That can be possible. Maybe, I
will ask Mrs Mishra’s sons if they noticed anything unusual that day,”

Mrs Bakshi’s grip on Dakshita’s hand tightened, and she stayed silent
for a few seconds before speaking, “Dakshita, I am sorry but that is
not possible. Mrs Mishra’s sons passed away during the second wave of
Covid 19 about two years back.”

Dakshita’s eyes widened. The two of them remained silent as Dakshita’s
mind struggled to process what exactly had occurred there and how it
would impact her life ahead.

Written by Anuran Chatterji

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