The Forgotten Flat: Room 7B
Written by Faraz Parvez (pen name of Professor Dr. Arshad Afzal)
The old elevator groaned to a halt at the seventh floor of Ghaus Apartments in South Delhi. Aarzoo stepped out, suitcase in one hand, a camera bag slung over her shoulder. She scanned the faded numbers on the doors: 7A, 7C, 7D…
No 7B.
She frowned, double-checked her lease agreement. Flat 7B. That was what the property manager had listed. Yet it stood missing, like a word erased from a sentence.
“Don’t bother looking,” an elderly man muttered, passing by with a bag of coriander and milk. “Some flats forget themselves, child.”
She looked at him, confused. “Excuse me?”
But he was gone.
The next morning, she visited the building office. The manager, Mr. Pillai, wore a mismatched tie and an expression of apathy.
“There is no 7B. Hasn’t been one since 1984,” he said.
“But I have a lease! Signed, stamped…”
He looked at the paper, suddenly pale. “Where did you get this?”
“Online. I applied through that RentNest portal.”
He shoved the paper back at her. “Burn this. Forget what you saw.”
Aarzoo couldn’t let it go. As a journalist with Paranormal Weekly, mysteries were her meat and mead. That evening, she returned to the seventh floor, camera in hand.
Where the wall stood between 7A and 7C, she now noticed something: a faint crack, running down the middle. Her fingers trembled as she pressed against it.
The wall breathed.
That night, her dreams twisted. A woman’s voice echoed, muffled by concrete: “Don’t let them erase me again.” A vision of a child, curled up in a corner, scribbling something in blood. An old radio playing ghazals in reverse.
She woke up to find her grandmother’s locket on her pillow—the one buried with her in 2003.
By the fourth day, Aarzoo was unraveling. She found an old blind poet named Shahid, once a resident of the building. He spoke in riddles but mentioned one name: Aafreen.
“She’s the girl who never left 7B,” he whispered.
An exorcist, Father Cyril, revealed that 7B had been sealed after a family died mysteriously. The records were purged. Only whispers remained.
A schizophrenic teenager named Iqra claimed she had seen the girl in her dreams. “She wears your face,” she told Aarzoo. “You are her.”
One stormy night, Aarzoo returned. The crack in the wall widened. A door appeared—rotted, red, numbered faintly: 7B.
She entered.
Inside, time collapsed. Walls bled memories. The furniture remained untouched, the calendar still showed August 1984. She found journals, photographs… and a mirror that didn’t reflect her. Instead, it showed the face of Aafreen, her grandmother’s sister.
The past had called her back. The house wanted to be remembered.
She screamed—but it wasn’t heard. Not outside. Not anymore.
The next tenant of 7C would report faint typing sounds coming from the empty wall at night. In Morse code.
“I’m still here. –A”
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