Continuous rain for four days had turned the city into a damp, dark sponge. For the last ninety-six hours, there was no sign of the sun in the sky.
Faisal was sitting in the attic of his old ancestral house in Puran Dhaka, sipping coffee. The house was very old; its plaster had fallen off long ago. Green moss covered the cracks like veins, gripping the building like an octopus. The alleys outside were flooded.
Faisal was completely alone in this huge house. After his mother died four years ago, the house lost its soul. His father became ill from grief and eventually had a stroke. Now, his elder sister has taken their father to Toronto, for better treatment. Faisal stayed back because of his job and to look after the property. Many developers offered to break this house and build apartments, but Faisal refused because his father was emotionally attached to it.
The silence of the house usually created a void in Faisal's heart, especially during the rainy season. Suddenly, he heard a sharp, screeching sound from the rusty front gate. Creeak...
Faisal looked down from the balcony. A man was standing at the gate, wearing a dark raincoat and holding a black umbrella. He was walking toward the front door with something in his hand. It looked like a letter. In this age of WhatsApp and Messenger, seeing a real postman felt surreal.
Faisal went downstairs and opened the heavy wooden door. A cold wind hit his face. The man handed him an envelope. "Do I need to sign?" Faisal asked. The man didn't look up and muttered, "Normal letter. No signature needed." Then he quickly turned back into the rain.
The envelope was old and yellowish. Strangely, it felt damp from the inside. When Faisal held it, a rotten smell of pond water reached his nose. Inside the house, he looked at the sender's name, and his heart skipped a beat.
Sender: Shafiq.
Shafiq! How was this possible? Shafiq died exactly three years ago on a stormy day like this. Faisal remembered everything. They had gone for a boat ride in Gazipur. Suddenly, a storm came and the water turned black. The boat capsized. Faisal knew how to swim and survived, but Shafiq couldn't. Before drowning, Shafiq had reached out his hand, but Faisal missed it by inches. When the divers found Shafiq's body the next day, he was covered in moss and water plants. Those pale eyes still haunted Faisal's dreams.
How could a dead man send a letter? With shaking hands, Faisal opened the envelope. Inside was a piece of paper with Shafiq's handwriting. It said only two lines-
"Faisal, tonight at exactly 12 AM, when the first lightning strikes, someone will knock on your door three times. Don't open."
Faisal sat down in shock. The room suddenly felt freezing. Was this a sick joke? But how could anyone copy Shafiq's handwriting so perfectly?
Evening turned into a stormy night. At 10 PM, a transformer exploded and the electricity went out. Faisal lit a candle. In the dim yellow light, the furniture looked like strange monsters.
Faisal tried to be logical. He was an educated man with a corporate job. He didn't believe in ghosts. Someone was playing a psychological game with him. But the darkness was making him nervous.
The wall clock ticked. 11:45... 11:55... 11:59. Faisal sat like a stone, staring at the main door. The clock hit 12. One second... ten seconds... nothing happened. He was about to sigh in relief when-
BOOM! A massive thunderclap shook the house. The lightning lit up the room for a second, making it look pale like a graveyard. And right at that moment...
Knock... Knock... Knock...
Three knocks on the door. It didn't sound like a human hand. It sounded like something wet and heavy was hitting the wood. Faisal's blood turned to ice. He remembered the warning: DON'T OPEN. He didn't move.
After a few seconds of terrifying silence, he heard a sound from the other side. Splosh... splosh... It sounded like heavy, wet feet walking through mud, moving away from the door.
The next morning, the rain slowed down. Faisal hadn't slept at all. His fear had now turned into anger. He decided to find out the truth.
He first went to the local guard, Motaleb Uncle. "Uncle, did anyone enter this alley last night around midnight?"
The old man replied, "No, son. It was such a storm that even dogs and cats didn't come out. I was inside the tea stall all night."
Faisal then went to the local post office. He showed the envelope to an old clerk. The clerk looked at the stamp and said, "This was dropped at a local box two days ago. It's a normal letter."
Back home, Faisal examined the letter with a torch. He noticed something. The handwriting looked like Shafiq's, but it seemed like someone had first traced it with a pencil and then used a pen. He needed Shafiq's old handwriting to compare. He remembered he had Shafiq's old Botany practical notebook in the attic.
He searched the attic for two hours but couldn't find it. Then he called his father in Canada.
"Baba, did you see Shafiq's notebook when you cleaned the attic?"
His father replied, "Yes, I kept it on the shelf. But I remember Rashed came by that day. He was looking through the books. Maybe he took it?"
Faisal realized the truth. Rashed was his cousin, and his family always wanted this property. They probably wanted to scare Faisal so much that he would go mad, allowing them to take control of the house.
Faisal went straight to the police station. He told everything to the Officer-in-Charge (OC), who knew his father. The OC immediately brought Rashed in for questioning.
At first, Rashed acted innocent, but when the police threatened him, he confessed. "Yes, I sent the letter," Rashed cried. "I stole the notebook and copied the handwriting. I wanted him to get scared and leave the house so we could take power of attorney."
Faisal grabbed Rashed's collar. "And who did you send at midnight to knock on my door?"
Rashed looked confused and terrified. "Knocking? We didn't send anyone last night. It was raining too hard. I hired a local thug named Kalu, but he called me at 9 PM saying he couldn't go out in the flood."
The police checked and found that Kalu was actually in a police lock-up since 11 PM last night for a different fight. He couldn't have been at Faisal's house at midnight.
The OC told Faisal, "Go home, Faisal. Your cousin was trying to scare you, but the knocking was probably just your imagination because of the thunder and stress."
Faisal nodded and left, but deep down, he knew the truth. Those three knocks were real. And that wet, splashing sound... was that an illusion too?
It started raining again in the afternoon. Faisal reached his rusty gate. As he stood in front of the main wooden door, his heart nearly stopped.
On the door, exactly where the knocks had happened, there was a lump of wet mud. And right in the middle of the mud, there was a small piece of fresh, green moss and water hyacinth. How could fresh water plants from a pond appear in this concrete city?
Faisal's hands shook as he opened the door. As he pushed it open...
A trail of wet footprints started from the doorway and went inside. They were swollen, mossy, and wet footprints-leading straight from the drawing-room into Faisal's bedroom.
