The small white room apartment was the last apartment where the lights were still on.

The roads were silent and one could hear the howls of dogs. Like, they were screaming toward the void and emptiness in the dark. Maya was in her room reading her favourite Dan Brown book after a long day at work.

She was sipping her black coffee when she heard a knock on her door. She checked the time, it was 10 P.M.

“Odd hour for a knock.” She realizes, she looks at the door and realizes that she has forgotten to lock her door today when she came inside. Maya walks toward the door to see who it was?

“Aunty?”- She was not amused to see her landlady in such an odd hour. It was her habit to check on her before she goes to sleep.

“Why your door was not locked?”-She asked with a fake smile which Maya could understand. She shifted to this home three days back. A single woman who found a perfect place to live.

“I was going to do that.”-Maya lied.

“Open gates invite trouble. Lock them and go to sleep before 12.”-The landlady says and walks away with a cold expression.

Maya was quite disturbed by the way her landlady told her to lock the door. Ever since she has shifted to this new place, her landlady always checks if she has locked the door or not? Her curious mind was stuck on her landlady’s last sentence. Maya wanted to know if there is something wrong. She remembers coming to this house and looking into her new place for the first time. The clean room with a bed and in a good condition with low bucks is exactly what she needed in her initial period but, there was something weird about the house. She cannot put her finger on it but it was there.

Was it the silence? Or it was just her brain that is messing with her? She didn’t think about anything that much and slept right after she locked the doors.

It was somewhere between the night when she felt thirsty and her eyes opened. The lights were off and the clock showed 3 AM. She woke up but before she could drink the water she saw something. A shadow in her kitchen window and sound. A sound that seemed like someone was devouring something. The sound was demonic. She never heard something like this before. She opened the door of her kitchen and walked in slowly.

As soon as she enters, the sound stops.
When she switched on the light, there was no one. The silence again filled the place she could listen to her heartbeat racing. Her throat was getting dry. Maya knew she heard something. It was not her hallucination. She closed the door and walked back to her bedroom. She gulped some water and get inside her bedroom

“Maybe, I was hallucinating.”-She said to herself and closed her eyes. But then she heard a whisper from her open window.

“You were not.”-A demonic voice said. She looked at the half-open door and screamed.

A man was standing and looking at her through the half-open door. His mouth was filled with blood but he seemed like a human. She could see the veins popping in his forehead. She watched him coming close to her and before she could scream, She fell unconscious.

The light hits her room and she opens her eyes. The silence was filled with birds chirping. She instantly opened her window and there was no one. She walks down to check on her landlady.
“Good Morning Aunty.”- Maya says, her landlady who was sipping her morning tea smiled toward her and wished her good morning.

” Do you want some coffee?”- The landlady asks her.
“Sure.”- Maya says and smiles at her landlady. Maya looks at her landlady’s drawing-room. Painted in a common blue colour and with a very catholic vibe with the pictures of Jesus.

Maya moved to this new place a week back when she got a new job in the new city.

She knows her landlady preferred taking a young single working lady as a tenant (which was weird enough itself.) Later she realized, her landlady lives alone and does not prefer any man or family to disturb her privacy.

” Coffee Maya.”-The landlady says while. smiling at Maya and handed her the cup of coffee. Maya smiled back and took the coffee cup. She was struggling. She doesn’t understand if she should talk about it or not? But eventually, she told her about what happened last night.

“You were hallucinating Maya. There was nothing like that. I have been living here forever. I didn’t hear anything last night.”- Her landlady says. Helplessly Maya walks to her room and starts her day like other days. She swears she won’t ever wake up at night again.

The landlady cleans out her room and she looks at the backyard where the remains of the stray dog were. She has to hide it! She looks at Maya walking out of her room and going to her work.

“You were not hallucinating Maya. Open doors are not safe for anyone.”-She says to herself looking at the locked room where her husband was devouring another animal and not another woman who was living in the apartment of their house.