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They told me not to open the door at night.
Especially if I heard a woman crying.
My name is Aarav. I'm a journalist from Bengaluru, and I don't believe in ghosts. That's probably why I took the assignment—an old village in Karnataka where people still scrawl "Naale Baa" (Come tomorrow) on their doors in chalk.
A decades-old legend. They say a witch roams the streets after midnight, knocking and calling in the voice of someone you love. If you answer…
You vanish.
It sounded like superstition—until I stayed a night there alone.
The villagers begged me not to. "Write whatever article you want," they said, "but do not open that door."
I laughed it off.
At 12:33 a.m., the knocking began.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
Slow. Deliberate.
I froze. My heart pounded.
Then I heard it.
"Aarav... beta, khol na... maa hoon..."
(Aarav… son, open the door… it's your mother…)
My chest tightened.
My mother had died six years ago.
I crept to the door. No peephole. No window nearby. Just that voice, soft and trembling.
"Don't you miss me?"
I almost reached for the handle.
But I remembered what they said.
So I picked up a piece of chalk and with shaking hands, scribbled NALE BAA on the wood.
The knocking stopped.
The silence was deafening.
I didn't sleep.
When dawn broke, the villagers found me pale, drenched in sweat. I tried to laugh it off again, but one old man pulled me aside.
He lifted my shirt.
Three long, black scratches marked my back.
"You opened it in your mind," he whispered.
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Since then, every night at 12:33, someone knocks on my door—no matter where I am.
And the voice changes.
But the question is always the same:
"Don't you miss me?"
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