When Ananya Sen joined Shantiniketan Multispeciality Hospital, Kolkata, she never imagined her first month on the night shift would lead her into the darkest corner of the building — and herself.
Everything felt normal at first: exhausted interns, beeping monitors, the sharp smell of phenyl clinging to the corridors.
Until she discovered Corridor 17.
It wasn’t like the rest of the hospital.
The lights flickered.
The air felt colder.
And the last room, Room 417, was always locked.
Nurse Paroma warned her, “Don’t go near that place, Ananya. That section is cursed.”
But curiosity dug deeper than caution.
One night at 2:45 a.m., while doing her rounds, she heard it:
knock… knock…
Soft. Echoing. Coming from Room 417.
She froze.
The room had been abandoned for years.
She stepped closer anyway.
“Is someone inside?” she whispered.
A faint, strained voice answered:
“Don’t leave… please.”
Her blood chilled.
She fetched the security guard, who opened the door with his master key —
only to reveal an empty, dusty room.
“Must be old pipes,” he muttered.
But Ananya knew the difference between pipes and a pleading voice.
The next night, at the same time, she returned.
The corridor lights flickered violently.
Through the tiny window of Room 417, she saw a shadow sitting on the floor.
A human shape.
“Who’s there?” she asked, voice cracking.
The shadow raised its head.
Two glowing eyes stared back at her.
She stumbled away, breath trapped in her throat.
When she returned with help, the shadow was gone — just dust and silence.
That evening, she searched the hospital archives.
What she found twisted her stomach.
Room 417 once belonged to Dr. Arindam Dutta, a respected neurologist who died alone during his night shift — a sudden cardiac arrest.
That same night, the corridor lights failed.
No one found him until morning.
His last words were faintly recorded on a damaged mic:
“Don’t leave me alone…”
Now the voice made sense.
And the eyes.
And the sorrow.
On the seventh night, she felt a strange pull.
At 2:45 a.m., she walked to Corridor 17.
This time, the door of Room 417 was slightly open.
Inside, the room was no longer dusty.
It looked… restored. Waiting.
A soft blue glow filled the air.
And Dr. Arindam Dutta appeared.
Not monstrous.
Not decayed.
Just painfully human.
“You can see me,” he said, his voice trembling.
Ananya nodded.
“I have been trapped,” he whispered. “My last patient’s discharge summary was never completed. I couldn’t… leave.”
He pointed to a desk where an almost invisible file shimmered.
“Help me finish it.”
Ananya wrote the line he dictated:
“Patient stable. Discharged with advice.”
Warmth filled the room.
Dr. Dutta smiled — the relief of a soul unchained.
“Thank you,” he said softly.
But then his expression twisted with fear.
“No… I shouldn’t have brought you here.”
Before she could ask why, the lights blew out.
A cold shadow slipped into the room.
It was Mrs. Ghosh, the elderly patient from Ward 12.
Except she had died earlier that evening.
Yet she stood there, smiling far too widely.
“I followed you,” she whispered.
“The voices told me.”
Dr. Dutta stepped back in horror.
“Ananya, get away from her.”
Mrs. Ghosh walked closer, spine cracking with each step.
“You freed him,” she rasped.
“Now it’s your turn.”
Darkness swallowed the room.
Ananya screamed—
And everything went silent.
She woke up in the ICU.
A doctor leaned over her.
“You’re lucky,” he said gently. “You survived a cardiac arrest. We almost lost you.”
Ananya stared at him, words failing.
Cardiac arrest.
Like Dr. Dutta.
He placed something in her hand.
A brand-new stethoscope.
Engraved:
Dr. Ananya Sen — In-charge, Corridor 17
Her heartbeat stumbled.
“That wing is shut,” she whispered.
The doctor smiled faintly.
“No, it reopened this morning. They assigned you to it.”
He pointed down the hall.
At the far end stood Room 417, dimly lit.
A faint shadow moved inside.
And then she heard it —
a whisper drifting through the corridor:
“Don’t leave me alone…”
But it wasn’t Dr. Dutta’s voice.
It was Ananya’s own.
