Dinesh moved into flat 9C in Pragati Apartments exactly three months after his divorce. He had chosen this place precisely because of its bland anonymity—twelve identical floors, beige-painted walls, and a hallway lit by flickering fluorescent lights. It suited him perfectly. He didn't want personality; he wanted quiet emptiness.
His new home consisted of sparse furniture: a bed, a desk, and a single chair. No television, no decorations—just silence. Silence and the hum of a ceiling fan that turned sluggishly, as if burdened by years of circulating stale air.
On his first evening, while arranging the bed, he noticed the faint outline of a patch on the wall opposite him. The paint looked slightly newer there, as if covering something hastily. Dinesh ran his hand across it, curious yet indifferent. It felt warmer than the rest of the wall. He shrugged it off and went to bed.
Exactly one week later, Dinesh woke at precisely 2:43 AM. It wasn't insomnia or dreams. It was voices. Soft murmurs, barely audible but distinct enough to wake him. He sat up, listening carefully. The whispers drifted in and out, unintelligible but undeniably present.
He pressed his ear against the wall. Silence. But when he pulled away, the murmurs returned, clearer and oddly soothing, rhythmic like a lullaby. He rationalised it as neighbours, though logic told him that 9C had no adjacent apartments. He fell asleep uneasily, convinced he'd imagined it.
But the whispers returned, nightly, clearer, more persistent. By the end of the second week, he found himself anxiously waiting for them, ear pressed against the cool plaster, heart racing, inexplicably drawn toward the hushed voices he couldn't quite decipher.
On a restless Tuesday, unable to bear the uncertainty, Dinesh knocked at the door of flat 9B, across the hall. An elderly woman with eyes too large for her thin face answered.
"Did the last tenant ever complain about noises?" he asked tentatively.
She eyed him for a long moment, then said softly, "Flat 9C has no tenants for long."
"Why?" Dinesh asked, feeling a knot in his stomach.
"That wall listens," she whispered cryptically. "It takes more than it gives."
She shut the door quietly, leaving him colder than the corridor's sterile lights.
That evening, Dinesh borrowed a hammer from the maintenance closet. He approached the warm patch on the wall, pulse hammering faster than rationality should allow. With a deep breath, he struck hard. The plaster cracked, revealing a small hole. Through it, darkness stared back, cold, empty, inviting.
The hole wasn't large, merely palm-sized, but its darkness was bottomless. Dinesh shone a flashlight through it. The beam vanished instantly, swallowed by absolute blackness. He pressed his ear against it and now clearly heard a single voice—a woman's voice, gentle yet pleading.
"Help," it whispered.
He recoiled. His blood chilled. The voice continued, clearer, closer.
"Please. I'm trapped."
Dinesh felt something shift within the wall, a subtle vibration. Fear and sympathy warred inside him. Driven by impulse, he reached into the hole. The air inside felt colder than ice. His fingers brushed against something impossibly soft—like damp velvet, alive and pulsing.
He jerked his hand back sharply, skin crawling.
Days became irrelevant. Sleep eluded him. Meals grew sporadic. The whispers were constant now—gentle pleas, demands, promises. He began speaking to the hole, whispering secrets of his loneliness, his divorce, his regrets. It listened patiently, responding with compassion, promising relief.
His colleagues began avoiding him, concerned by his haggard appearance. But Dinesh barely noticed. Every evening, he rushed home, desperate for conversation with the hole that now occupied his every thought.
One night, the woman's voice promised something new.
"If you want to see me, make the hole larger," she coaxed softly.
Driven by desire and dread, he hammered again, opening a gaping wound in the wall. Blackness poured out, spreading across the floor, thick as syrup and deeper than shadows should be.
Out of that blackness, a pale hand emerged. It was slender, delicate, with fingertips coated in something wet. Slowly, painfully, it pulled forward, revealing an arm, then a shoulder. Dinesh watched paralysed, unable to scream or move, caught between terror and fascination.
The woman crawled into his world. Naked, drenched, her skin pale blue like frostbitten flesh, hair dark as ink cascading down her thin body. Eyes wide, glistening like polished obsidian, fixed on him, unblinking.
"Thank you," she whispered, her voice echoing softly as though it came from within him. "I've waited so long."
She reached for his face, fingers gentle yet piercingly cold. Dinesh felt warmth drain from his body, siphoned into her fingertips. She smiled softly, kindly, as life ebbed slowly from him.
Days passed unnoticed in Pragati Apartments. Mail piled outside 9C. Neighbours ignored the silence, comfortable with indifference.
Then, one evening, a moving truck arrived, delivering sparse furniture—a bed, a desk, and a single chair—to flat 9C. A young woman named Kavya moved in. She appreciated the dullness, the quiet anonymity. On her first night, she noticed a faint outline of fresh plaster on the wall.
Curiously, she touched it. The wall felt unusually warm.
As she drifted to sleep, she thought she heard a whisper, gentle, pleading. She dismissed it as imagination. A trick of tiredness, surely nothing more.
In the blackness behind the wall, something stirred softly, whispering to itself, patiently waiting for the warmth of another listener.