"That Night… I Never Told Anyone What Happened"

That night… I never told anyone what happened. Not because I didn’t want to, but because I knew no one would believe me.

It was the summer of 2018, and the monsoon had just begun to wrap the city in its familiar dampness. I had returned to my hometown after five long years in Delhi. The reason? A wedding. My cousin Aarti was getting married, and the whole family had gathered in our ancestral home — a crumbling, three-storey haveli in the outskirts of Lucknow.

The house, with its fading blue walls and tall wooden doors, had always carried a strange energy. It creaked and groaned with every step, as though whispering old secrets that had soaked into its bricks over the decades. I remembered feeling uneasy there as a child, especially around the locked room on the third floor. My grandmother used to say, “Us kamre mein mat jaana. Woh jagah soyi hui hai.” (Don’t go into that room. That place is asleep.) Back then, it just sounded like one of her poetic warnings. Now I know better.

On the second night of the wedding celebrations, the house was buzzing. Music played loudly from the courtyard. Aarti’s friends danced under fairy lights while aunties filled plates with jalebis and samosas. I was tired, socially drained, and decided to sneak away to the upper floor for some quiet.

I climbed the worn-out stairs, the sounds of celebration fading behind me. The third floor was dim, lit only by the occasional flash of lightning through narrow windows. And there it was — that door. Tall, ancient, and still locked. Except… it wasn’t.

It stood slightly ajar.

Curiosity is a strange thing. It doesn't ask for permission, doesn’t wait for logic to weigh in. It just pulls. And that night, it pulled me straight into that room.

The air inside was thick, humid. A musty smell clung to the walls, but beneath it, something else — like roses that had died a long time ago. There was a large wooden trunk in the middle of the room and a faded mirror leaning against the far wall. The only other piece of furniture was a rocking chair, still slowly rocking when I stepped inside. I froze.

I was about to leave — every instinct in my body telling me to turn back — when I saw something in the mirror. A flicker. A movement that didn’t match mine. I stared at it, heart thudding.

The reflection didn’t show me. It showed a girl.

Not me — but someone else entirely. She was sitting in the rocking chair, her hair long and tangled, her face half-hidden in shadow. I turned to look directly — but the chair was empty. I looked back at the mirror. She was still there.

She raised her head.

I couldn’t scream. I couldn’t move.

She didn’t speak. Her lips didn’t move. But I heard her voice, sharp and clear in my mind: “He promised he would return. He lied.”

The door slammed shut behind me.

The next moments — or maybe hours, I don’t know — were a blur. I remember the trunk creaking open on its own. I remember the scent of roses becoming overwhelming, almost choking. I remember shadows crawling along the walls like smoke. And I remember her eyes in the mirror — wide, desperate, pleading.

Then, everything went black.

When I woke up, I was lying in my bed on the second floor. My mother was sitting beside me, wiping my forehead. She said they’d found me unconscious at the foot of the stairs. Everyone assumed I had fainted from exhaustion. No one asked questions. No one mentioned the third floor.

That morning, I tried to tell my cousin Ravi. I said there was someone in that room, that something was wrong. But he laughed it off, said the room had been locked for decades.

That’s when I went back up there in daylight.

The door was closed. I pushed it. Locked.

But on the floor in front of it… was a single red rose.

Wilted. Dried. Still fragrant.

I never told anyone what happened that night. Not the full truth. Not the way the air had turned heavy, the way the mirror had shown what reality didn’t, the way her voice still echoes in my mind sometimes — “He promised he would return. He lied.”

I’ve tried to forget. To rationalize. To bury it under time and distance.

But every time it rains, and the scent of wet earth mixes with the faint perfume of roses, I remember.

And I wonder: who was she waiting for?

And why did she choose to show herself to me?

That night… I never told anyone what happened.

But maybe I should have.