The house that remembers


The House That Remembers

By Faraz Parvez
Professor Dr. (Retired) Arshad Afzal
Former Faculty Member, Umm Al-Qura University, Makkah, KSA
(Pseudonym of Professor Dr. Arshad Afzal)

1. The Bargain

When Sajjad and Nargis first saw the colonial-era bungalow in Lahore’s Gulberg area, it felt like a blessing.
White walls with moss creeping up the corners, thick wooden doors carved with faded floral patterns, high ceilings with slow-spinning fans — it looked like something out of an old film.

The rent was absurdly low for its location. Sajjad’s friend Ahmed, who arranged the deal, only shrugged.
"The owner lives abroad. He just wants someone in the house. It’s been empty for years."

They moved in with their two children — Hamza, twelve, and little Sana, six. For the first week, everything was perfect. The house smelled faintly of sandalwood, the kind of scent you couldn’t buy anymore. The floors were cool underfoot, and the garden bloomed wildly with hibiscus and marigold.

It was only in the second week that things began to change.

2. The First Shifts

It started with the lights.
The tube light in the kitchen would flicker, even though Sajjad had replaced the choke. Then the bedroom fan began to turn on by itself in the middle of the night.

Hamza swore he saw a man in the corridor — tall, wearing a sherwani, walking toward the study. But when Sajjad searched, there was no one.

Sana, meanwhile, started talking to “Auntie.”
"She lives in the back room," Sana said innocently one morning.
"Which back room?" Nargis asked, frowning.
"The one with the mirror. She says it’s her room, but she’ll share it with me."

There was indeed a room in the farthest corner of the house, locked when they had moved in. The landlord had given them one extra key, saying, "Better not open that one. It’s storage."

They didn’t open it. Not yet.

3. The House Breathes

By the end of the month, it was clear something was wrong.

Objects moved. Nargis’ favorite teacup would disappear from the kitchen and appear on the windowsill. The scent of attar grew stronger in the evenings. Doors that had been bolted were sometimes found ajar in the morning.

But the strangest thing was the sound.
Sometimes, late at night, Sajjad would hear whispers — not from outside, but from the walls themselves. It was as if the house exhaled softly, speaking to itself.

One night, Sajjad followed the sound into the corridor. It led to the locked room. The door rattled slightly, as though something inside was breathing against it.

He told himself it was just the wind. But the house was dead still.

4. The First Scene

The first scene happened on a rainy Friday evening.

The family was in the living room, drinking tea, when they heard the sound of music — a gramophone playing a ghazal. The melody was old, scratchy, and filled the air with longing.

Without knowing why, they all stood up and walked toward the study.
When they entered, the room looked… different. The furniture was not theirs. The carpet was Persian, the curtains heavy velvet. And there, sitting on a sofa, was a woman in a deep maroon sari, holding a silver revolver.

She didn’t look at them — she looked past them, toward a man in a sherwani. The man’s face was pale, trembling.
"You thought you could leave me?" the woman’s voice was cold.
The gunshot came before anyone could move.

The scene dissolved instantly. They were back in their own study, their own furniture in place.

Hamza vomited. Sana began to cry. Sajjad and Nargis stood frozen.

5. The Realization

The next day, they called Ahmed.
"Tell me honestly," Sajjad demanded. "What happened in this house?"

Ahmed hesitated.
"There are stories… Old ones. The original owner, Major Dar, was a British officer who stayed after Partition. His wife… people say she killed him in this very house. Others say she killed herself too. After that, tenants never stayed long. They saw things. Heard things."

"Why didn’t you tell me?" Sajjad’s voice shook.
"You wouldn’t have moved in."

That night, Nargis couldn’t sleep. She wandered the hallway, feeling the cool air press against her skin. When she passed the locked room, she heard faint weeping inside.

She turned the key.

6. The Mirror Room

Inside was dust and darkness. And a mirror.

It was massive, framed in carved teak, the glass slightly warped. But it was not her reflection she saw — it was the woman in the maroon sari, standing exactly where Nargis was, but in a different time.

The woman smiled faintly. "You look like me."

The scene behind the woman shifted. Now it was not the study — it was Nargis’ own living room, but with strangers sitting on the sofa, drinking tea. The faces were unfamiliar.

"Who are they?" Nargis whispered.
"Future tenants," the woman said. "After you’re gone."

7. The Trap

From that night, the family began to live other people’s moments.

One evening, Sajjad came home to find the dining table set with china they didn’t own, food steaming in silver dishes. They sat down without thinking, eating food that tasted rich and strange. Only later did they realize it had vanished from their plates.

Sometimes they woke up in different clothes — Nargis in an old silk gharara, Sajjad in a starched kurta, Hamza and Sana in clothes from the 1950s.

The house was dressing them for roles in its tragedies.

8. The Last Role

The final night came without warning.

The rain was heavy. The house was dark except for the light in the study. When Sajjad entered, he saw the man in the sherwani again — but this time, the man’s face was his own.

Across from him, the woman in the maroon sari was Nargis.

The gun was in her hand.

Hamza and Sana stood in the corner, their faces blank, watching.

"This is your turn," the woman’s voice echoed — though her lips did not move. "The house remembers. And it must repeat."

The gunshot cracked through the night.

9. Aftermath

The next morning, the house was empty again. No furniture, no trace of the family.

A month later, a new tenant arrived — a young couple, freshly married, excited for their first home.

When they opened the locked room, the mirror showed four people — Sajjad, Nargis, Hamza, and Sana — smiling faintly, frozen in place, waiting for the house to remember them again.

Final Note to Our Readers

Dear readers, horror in South Asia is never just about ghosts — it’s about memory, about places that refuse to let go of the past, and about how we live inside stories we don’t even know we’re telling.
The House That Remembers is part of that tradition.

For more such tales — horror, romance, slice-of-life, and everything in between — keep visiting:
farazparvez1.blogspot.com

Because some stories you read. Others… you live

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