Being No One

This haunting flash fiction follows Anay Mehta, a man stuck in a government office routine. A gripping psychological short story about trauma, lost identity, and emotional unraveling. This short story explores how routine can mask reality.

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They say if you do something long enough, it starts to feel like purpose.

For Anay Mehta, it was paper.

He filed paper. Stamped paper. Signed paper he didn’t understand.

Room 908, Government Records Division, Pune.

A beige table in a room with a rusted fan, flickering tube lights, and a window that never opened. Anay had been there 28 days. He never questioned why. He just… showed up.

He never remembered his interview. Or the first day. Only that he belonged. Or needed to.

8:03 a.m. punch-in.

Lunchbox at 1.

One sugarless chai at 4:15.

Leave at 7:30.

Routine was religion.

But lately, something was off. He started having these flashes. Not dreams. Moments.

A child laughing that wasn’t him.

A different school uniform in childhood photos.

A memory of this very office, before he ever stepped in it.

He brushed it off as fatigue. 

Or trauma. Something buried.

But when the chaiwala asked innocently, “Sir, how long have you worked here?”

He paused. “Almost a month now,” he said with pride.

The chaiwala tilted his head. “But… this floor was shut after that fire, no?”

He shrugged it off and went to 9th floor, room 908, his beige table and started his work as routine.

That night at home, in the mirror, he mumbled to no one,

“Does anything I do even matter?”

His own reflection didn’t blink.

“Been trying to become someone my whole life,” he muttered.

“But what if I’ve just… ended up being no one?”

The next day, he went to HR to inquire about his salary.

There was no slip. No record.

His ID card didn’t scan.

The HR clerk chuckled nervously. “Where did you say you worked?”

“Room 908.” Frantically, he showed his company ID to HR, and then

Even his ID had no barcode. It was just “Authorized Temporary Access Card.”

He asked to see the archival records. Fire damage. Minimal retrieval.

Still, the clerk pulled out a scorched folder:

“Govt Records Division – Fire Incident Report – 2025”

Inside were pictures. Burn marks. Ash-covered desks.

Three deaths. He scanned the names.

Then he stopped. “Deceased: Arnav Mehta.” His brother.

Suddenly, the fragments clicked.

The voice in his dreams.

The reason Room 908 felt hauntingly familiar the first day he arrived.

After Arnav died, no one said it aloud.

But there was a gap. In the family. In the income. In the very air of the house.

Anay was younger. Softer. More lost.

But he stepped in. Wore Arnav’s clothes. Took his job place.

He was in shock which he couldn't come out of it.

"I kept thinking I was a no one.

But maybe being no one was the only way I could keep someone else alive."

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