Part 7: You left the door open!!!

My cat would always stare towards the balcony of my room from his bed. He would keep watching without moving. I decided to put a ply board in front of his bed. He would then stick his neck out, bend it a little to the left and stare at the balcony.

“I wonder what our cat keeps looking at in the dark”, I told my mom.

“Maybe he senses some animal”, she said, “They have a good sense of smell and powerful hearing ability”.

The balcony of my room always remains in darkness at night. It's not like there is no light there. It’s that on every third day the bulb gets fused. I finally got tired of changing it over and over again.

I was really very tired that day. I had class from 8:30 am to 5 pm. Before going to class, I had to attend tuition class which began from 5:30 am. Before sleeping, I always made sure that I had locked the room. But that night, I was too tired and fell asleep before my sister went to bed.

It was late at night, when I woke up at the sound of the door of my room opening. I opened my eyes to see a woman entering the room. I was half asleep and thought it was my mom.

I asked,” Ma, what’s wrong? Why are you here at this time of night?”.

She said nothing.

She had her back towards me and she was facing the windows near the door. The same window that I had promised myself never to open after the incident that happened to me when I was in the 10^th standard. They were not just kept closed, I always make sure that I even have the curtains drawn as soon as night falls.

I called out again,”What’s wrong? Why aren’t you saying anything?”

I suddenly felt a chill run through my spine.

“Who are you? What do you want?”, I shouted,”Get out of my room”.

The woman then slowly started removing the curtains. I realised, it wasn’t my mom.

My head started spinning. I sat on my bed stone cold, unable to utter a word.

I gathered as much courage as I could. Then, I jumped out of my bed and switched on the light.

The door was swung open, my sister was fast asleep in her bed and the curtains were half drawn out. There was absolute silence all around me.

I took my pillow and ran to my mom. There she was, fast asleep. I quietly curled up in her bed and went to sleep.

The next day, when I told about the incident to my parents, they laughed at me and told me that I was dreaming. But knew that I wasn’t. I was sure that I was wide awake…

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