When Vikram arrived at the hotel to attend the sales meeting of his company. He noticed two things. First his room had been booked in a separate hotel than the other attendees and the second that it was awfully quiet
People prefer quiet in a hotel especially when it’s the matter of a greater number of stars. But for Vikram, whose neighbourhood was a bit crowded and was never lacking action or sound, it was always a feeling of uneasiness when visiting such hotels. It was worse this time with no one else sharing the room or even living in the hotel.
When the first day of meeting ended, Vikram sat on the black painted wooden table, the television was on with a cricket match being shown, the volume had been muted. Vikram analysed the position of both teams before opening the box of pizza in front of him.
The pizza wasn’t part of the food which was included by the company, but Vikram preferred it during these meetings for otherwise he had to become health conscious to inspire his father, who would often stray away from the prescribed diet by the doctor.
The view from the hotel showed the apartments, mostly eight floored, the sky was prominently visible in the view.
As Vikarm sat engrossed in the match, there was a sound on the wall behind him. Like someone had come running from a distance and had an impact against the wall. What was behind the wall was not part of the hotel suite.
Vikram paused chewing the food and stayed quiet, listening for any other sound and there wasn’t until had almost decided to get back to what he was doing.
Vikram stepped out of his room and looked to the right, where the sound was coming from, it looked like a storage room because unlike the other rooms, this one wasn’t marked by a number and the distance between the door of this room and the hotel rooms next to it was not the same as it was of a door of a hotel room from the door of the next hotel room.
The door of the storage room was locked and Viram had called an attendant to open the door and check it out. However the attendant was unable to open the door, the door was locked from inside.
The attendant looked at Vikram and Vikram looked at him.
“I am sure there is nothing to worry about sir,” smiled the attendant, “You can go back to your room and relax. We will take care of it.”
Vikram returned to his room to a cold pizza. It was surely nothing to worry about but Vikram’s grandmother was quite excellent at telling stories from the horror genre and Vikram couldn’t help but focus on if any other kind of sound would come and it didn’t, until it was the sound of the wall breaking apart.
Before Vikram could react, it held Vikram by the neck and pinned him down on the table. It was just too powerful, Vikram could feel how weak he truly was in face of such a presence.
It picked up Vikram and dragged him towards the balcony and just before it let him fall down, from what it seemed it brought its invisible self closer and said, “you better wake up before touching the ground.”
Vikram had rested his head on the table and fallen asleep, his phone and laptop charger had fallen down on the floor when he had moved his hand and the sound and the sleep had contributed to the dream. But Vikram did not wake up from it, not until the next morning with a fever.
Written by Anuran Chatterji
Early Morning Memories 