The Last Room

Chapter Two: The Town That Forgot

The train to Guldarh wound slowly through the night like a story unwilling to be told. Advait sat by the window, watching the darkness slide past the glass. Forests turned into fields, fields into hills, and soon, the cold began to crawl through the cracks of the train car.

Guldarh wasn’t on most maps. Tucked between forgotten hills and fogged pine forests, the town sat like a secret whispered only among the locals. It had no airports. No highways. Only one crumbling road, a narrow railway line, and memories people preferred to leave behind.

By the time the train groaned to a stop at the desolate Guldarh station, the sky was bleeding morning light. Advait stepped onto the platform, bag over his shoulder, breath misting in the chilled air. The station was as he remembered—one tea stall, a broken clock, and a board with peeling white letters spelling out:

GULDARH | गुल्डारह

Altitude: 5,200 ft

Nothing had changed. Not even the silence.

A taxi stand sat empty beside the gate. No sign of tourists. Just the smell of wet earth, old wood, and the sharp sting of pine trees.

He took a deep breath and pulled out his phone. No signal. Of course.

As he stepped onto the main road, he spotted a man squatting beside a rusted Royal Enfield, lighting a beedi. The man wore a faded army jacket, and his eyes squinted at Advait with a familiarity that made him pause.

“Cloudview Retreat?” Advait asked.

The man took a drag, exhaled slow, then nodded. “You’re late.”

Advait blinked. “Sorry?”

“Journalist, right?” The man pointed at the press ID sticking out of his bag. “You people only come here when someone dies or disappears.”

Advait didn’t answer. Just tossed his bag into the back seat of the jeep.

As the vehicle rumbled up the winding road, trees closed in like memories. The fog thickened. And somewhere between the engine’s growl and the driver’s silence, Advait could hear Ira’s voice again—“They’re not just hiding something. They’re burying it.”

Fifteen minutes later, the car pulled up before a building half-swallowed by mist and moss.

Cloudview Retreat.

Three stories. Wooden balconies. Once a colonial resthouse, now a crumbling hotel with fading blue paint and hanging flower pots. It looked haunted by time itself.

Advait stood at the entrance. The same place where Ira had last been seen.

The bell at the reception didn’t work. He tapped the desk.

A woman emerged from behind a curtain. Middle-aged, sharply dressed, but with tired eyes.

“Room?” she asked.

“I had a friend stay here a few years ago,” Advait said slowly. “I was hoping to see Room 205.”

Her expression shifted. “We don’t give that one anymore.”

“Why?”

She didn’t answer. Just began flipping through the register.

“You’re not from here,” she said finally.

“I’m not staying,” he replied. “Just visiting.”

She didn’t smile. “Nobody visits Guldarh without a reason.”

Advait looked up the stairs. Room 205. The hallway where it all ended. Or maybe, where it never really did.

“Who cleaned her room after she vanished?” he asked.

The woman paused. “No one.”

He frowned. “What do you mean?”

“No one touched Room 205 since then,” she said. “The police locked it. Said they’d return.”

“And did they?”

She looked him in the eye. “They never do.”