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It was nearing midnight when Nidhi scrolled through her old WhatsApp chats, each a breadcrumb trail of friendships gone quiet. One caught her eye: “Sanskriti Hostel: 2nd Floor Gang.” It had been silent since last year, after the tragic fire during Diwali night. She hovered her thumb over the thread, hesitated, and tapped.
Unread message. Sent yesterday.
“Guys, is anyone still up? I smell fire again. — Riya”
Nidhi blinked. That was impossible.
Riya had died in that fire.
The official report blamed faulty wiring from an overloaded fairy light strip outside Room 212. Five girls died, including Riya. The university had shut that wing forever, and Nidhi—who had left for home just hours before the fire—never returned to campus again.
She stared at the message, heat rising in her cheeks, and typed a reply: “Riya, what joke is this? You’re gone.”
A new message popped up instantly.
“Not yet. But I will be, if you don’t remember. Come back. Please.”
Her chest tightened. She checked the number. It was Riya’s. Same last-seen timestamp. But the profile photo had changed—from a selfie in green kurtis to a grainy, low-light shot of Room 212’s scorched interior, walls black and warped.
She replied, hands trembling, “What do you mean, ‘remember’?”
This time, the message took a while. Dot-dot-dot typing. Then:
“You promised you’d stay. You promised you’d switch rooms. You left instead.”
A memory stirred—something forgotten. A conversation over Maggi cups. Riya pleading with her to exchange rooms so she could be closer to her study group. Nidhi had agreed, temporarily. But that night, she had panicked, said no, and left for home because of a creeping dread and awful dreams.
Was that why Riya had been in Room 212?
More messages followed now, from other names.
“Nidhi, you’re late. We’re stuck.”
“The fire started again. It doesn’t stop if the story stays unfinished.”
“Your chapter’s missing. Help us close it.”
They were all from her old hostel friends. All the dead ones. All speaking as if this weren’t over.
Nidhi’s phone screen shimmered faintly. Her back camera clicked on its own, snapping a blurry photo of her grimacing face. She gasped and threw the phone—but a loud chime echoed from it: a new message with an image.
It was a screenshot.
Of a new WhatsApp group being created.
“Second Floor Rewrite. Admins: Nidhi, Riya.”
She caught her breath. Her name was there. She hadn’t made the group.
The group icon was Room 212 again—but this time, the room appeared clean. Restored. Lit by working fairy lights. Decorated for Diwali. Frozen in a moment that shouldn’t exist anymore.
And then her phone buzzed—hard.
“Door unlocked. Welcome back, Nidhi.”
She looked up.
She wasn’t in her Pune apartment anymore. The green walls, the posters, her dog—all gone. She stood in front of Room 212. How? Noise filtered through the corridor—hostel girls laughing, clanking metal cups, festive music.
It was the night of the fire.
Breath shallow, she turned, stumbling away. But each hallway circled back to the same room. When she tried to scream, no sound came out. She pulled her phone out—it was still the same.
Only one app worked now: WhatsApp.
And a new message blinked.
“Memories rot if left incomplete. We’re fixing them. Together.”
Then it came.
Gradually, as though peeling off skin, her own memories rewrote themselves. She could no longer remember her Pune flat. Her tech job. Her boyfriend. Even her name wobbled.
She collapsed near the door.
Inside, the girls waited by a table full of Diwali snacks—mouths smiling oddly wide, eyes dim. Riya held an oil lamp, her hair char-colored but rebraided with jasmine. “Let’s fix the night you ran away,” she whispered.
The fairy lights flickered above.
Just as the plug sparked red and the air filled with the scent of melting plastic again.
Her last thought was not of escape—but a giggle that escaped her mouth, unbidden, as she too stepped into the photo that would become the group’s new icon.
Later, when her boyfriend tried calling her, WhatsApp returned one last seen: “Online.”
And added her to a new group she never created:
“Room 212. Tonight We Remember.”
