I had made a terrible mistake. A fatal one? I shuddered.
I could hear my mother's voice calling.
Knock, knock! "Open the door."
I glanced at the clock on the wall. Metallic hands told me it was two a.m.
"NO WAY! JUST GO AWAY!" I screamed. Her voice. So real.
My throat... It hurt like hell and then some. I'd a raging throat infection from the past three days. No fever, just incredible pain. The doctor had put me on a week of some highly powerful antibiotics. They didn't help. I now wondered if it was something else. I planned to visit the doctor the next morning.
Knock, knock! "I know you are inside. Let me in."
Really! Such a terrible mistake! I should have listened to my friends.
I should have. But, I had just laughed at them.
"You're new here. Listen to us. Don't take this matter lightly. This may kill you."
Shaking their heads disapprovingly, pointing their fingers, they had warned me.
"I have other, better things to worry about". I'd told them with a laugh.
Now my whole body trembled. I gulped.
Sweat trickled down my forehead. I took another sip of the hot coffee I had been drinking while working on my paper on molecular biology. Coffee helped me focus. And I needed to focus hard. I had to complete my paper in a week and present it at a national conference for budding scientists. It was not an easy paper. I'd be up the whole night.
But that was all before I heard the knock.
Knock, knock, knock! "I've come a long way for you, son!"
She was here! It was really happening! I would not let this affect me. I would not. Or was it just the guys messing with me?
"Just go away", I yelled back.
Yet the creature spoke with my mother's own voice.
I should have written 'Nale ba' ('come tomorrow') outside my door. I didn't have to die. Nobody had to die.
I didn't write it.
And now the creature was here. It was real.
Maybe it would just tire and go away if I ignored it.
"Come on, son! Open the door. I'm your mother."
The thing outside was nobody's mother. My real Mom was several towns away, safe with my father and her aged siblings awaiting my return in a week.
The door of my apartment crashed open.
Stillness.
No other sounds.
It was a full moon night.
Nobody would come to my aid. Nobody would dare!
Streams of water rolled down my cheeks. Tears? Damn, I was crying.
She was already inside.
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I am from India. And India has no dearth of urban legends. During the 1990s, this 'Nale Ba' legend became really popular in Bangalore city.
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I wrote this story as an entry for the super cool Urban Legend Flash Fiction Contest hosted by 
