The One Who Breathes Beyond the Door

In a corner of the village, a small mud house is covered in the shade of a banyan tree. It is very old, but everything inside is tidy—as if someone has left everything in order. Abir lives alone here, in his fifties, a retired school teacher. He has no wife, no children, and no relatives. Loneliness is his only companion.

The villagers say that no one used to live in this house. Everyone is afraid. But Abir doesn’t believe this. “There are no ghosts,” he says. “All are made-up stories.”

However, the problem suddenly begins one night. It is winter, bone-chillingly cold. Abir has closed the door and is lying down. Suddenly, he is awakened by a whisper.

“Huh... huh...”—The sound of breathing from the other side of the door.

He sits up in surprise. There is no one in the house! Moonlight is streaming in through the glass window, and there is silence outside. Still, the sound is clear—someone is breathing on the other side of the door. He got up and slowly opened the door.

No one was there.

The next morning he smiled to himself. “My mind made a mistake,” he thought. “I’m getting older, my imagination is growing.”

But this ‘mistake’ kept happening every day. Every night, the same words. Eventually, the words changed to whispers.

“This is my house... Why did you come?”

Abir was surprised. He opened the door and shouted, “Who’s there? Who?”

There was no answer. The next day, he searched everywhere in the daylight. While rummaging through the old diaries and files in the house, he found a rotten, smelly envelope. Handwritten on it:

“My name is Rajiv. I died in this house. But no one knows.”

Abir sweated and got feverish. He thought, maybe someone was joking. Maybe it was a story about an old house.

But the story didn’t stop.

When he went to sleep at night, there was a sound of crying from the other side of the door. Sometimes, there was a “rattling” sound of fingers running on the door. Sometimes it seems like a shadow moves under the door. What's the matter? He's a regular now.

"You've taken my place. I'll be back."

One night, Abir stood by the door and asked without opening the door, "Who are you?"

A muffled reply came from inside—

"You."

It was 3 am. Suddenly, the whole house shook. The lights flickered on and off. The door opened on its own. There was nothing outside. But standing in front of the mirror, Abir saw that his reflection was not in the mirror.

The clock had stopped ticking.

The next day, the people of the village gathered in front of the door of the house. Abir did not respond to anyone's call. Some went inside and saw Abir's body lying on the bed. He was not breathing. The doctor came and said, "The heart has stopped. He probably died last night."

But the story did not end there.

A month later, a new teacher got a posting in the village. He chose that old house to live alone—freshly painted, clean. The lights were bright all around.

The first night, as he was going to sleep, he suddenly heard the sound of continuous breathing from the other side of the door.

“Huh... huh...”

He opened the door and looked.

No one was there.