The Vanishing House

When Rehan came to the small village of Dharampur for his new job as a surveyor, he wanted only a quiet life for himself and peace. It had its own surrounding dense forests and misty hills, with narrow winding, twisted roads reminiscent of secrets. Naturally friendly people, but protective were the people living here-first caution even when he asked about the 'North Road'.

">"There is nothing up there," they used to say, changing lines.

But curiosity, as always, got the better of Rehan.

On one foggy afternoon after finishing his work, while he had missed the day's work out, Rehan decided to travel on the curious north road. The path was overgrown, which made the impression that Mother Nature was almost trying to hide it. After about half an hour walk, something strange he saw beyond the trees.

A house.

It was huge, Victorian-style, with iron gates and a garden that once might have been pretty, now swallowed by weeds. The weirdest thing was that this house was not on any of the maps he had seen. As a surveyor, he had seen this area in every minor detail.

Rehan squeezed in under the gates carefully. The front door opened by itself. "Hello?" He called out. Silence.

The house smelled of dust and forgotten time: furniture draped over in white sheets, chandeliers hung from cracked ceilings, and faded paintings stared at him from the walls. It felt like stepping into someone's memory.

As he wandered about, he discovered a library. In the center was a diary. The first entry read November 6, 1925.

"People talk of the curse of this house, so we do not really believe in it. All we wanted was peace for our family. I hope we make the right choice..."

Rehan read further. The entries kept getting desperate with every page.

"Things move on their own."

"My daughter saw someone standing in the hall, but there was no one there."

"Last night we heard murmurs through walls."

The very last entry was ice cold:

"I don't think that we are alone. This house doesn't want us to leave. "

Suddenly, noise came to Rehan. Footsteps. No, not from the outside. From above.

He stood frozen. The air grew colder. The footsteps stopped.

A whisper drifted down the staircase. "You found it..."

Rehan dashed outside the house, and didn't stop until he was in the village. Shaken and pale. The villagers didn't seem surprised when he told them what happened.

"You went to the house of the Banerjees," said the shopkeeper quietly.

"And what house is that?" Rehan asked.

"It belonged to a family almost a century ago," continued the old man. "One day, they simply... disappeared. No one ever found their bodies. It was said that the house appeared and disappeared. Some see it. Some do not."

"No way," Rehan muttered.

"Maybe," replied the man. "But you saw it, didn't you?"

That night, Rehan could not sleep. His mind was filled with thoughts of the house. The whispers, the diary, the feeling that something was now watching him.

So the next morning, he took his camera, GPS, and notebook because he was now determined to document it, and made his way back down the path.

But the house was gone.

Only trees stood where gates once had been. Not a trail, footprint, anything that would even indicate that it existed once.

For days, Rehan searched. In the forest, on every inch of ground, there was no sign of a house found. The ground was undisturbed. He even checked old land records; there was no mention of any Banerjee family. The last survey of that area said it was 'uninhabited forest.'

Was it a dream?

Weeks passed, and Rehan tried to forget. He continued with his work but often found himself gazing toward the north. One evening, while perusing his field notes, he spotted a photo he did not recollect taking.

It was a picture of the house.

Clear, sharp, detailed.

It sent a shiver through him. When he tried to print it, the printer jammed. When he tried to upload it, the computer crashed. Each time he tried to share it, something was at least spoiled.

And then strange things happened.

At night, he would hear whispers outside his window. Behind him in mirrors, he saw shadows pass before him. One morning, he woke up to find muddy footprints in his room, leading from his bed to the door.

Scared, he visited the village priest, who listened carefully.

"You entered a place not meant for the living," said the priest. "That house...it chooses who to show itself to. And once it does, it leaves something behind."

"Leaves what?" Rehan whispered.

"A door."

"A door to what?"

"To it."

The priest gave him a talisman. "Keep this with you. Never go near that path again."

Rehan listened to that. Gradually, the whispers ceased. The shadows stopped. But deep down, he knew something wasn't over.

Months later, he moved away from Dharampur thinking the nightmare was over.

Until one evening, as he followed things in his new apartment in the city, he found something strange while unpacking.

A photograph. One he didn't remember packing.

It was the house.

And this time, the front door in the photo was open.