Chapter 4: A Voice from the Past

Chapter 4: A Voice from the Past

The sterile, fluorescent hum of the public library was a world away from the suffocating dimness of The Blackwood. Alex sat hunched over a public computer terminal, the cold, anonymous plastic of the keyboard a welcome anchor to reality. He had spent the day wandering the city in a daze, the image of Elara’s cold, watchful face and the memory of that greasy handprint replaying in a nauseating loop. He couldn't go back to the apartment, not yet. But he couldn't keep running, either. He needed answers. His desire for a rational explanation was a desperate, clawing thing.

His professional life had trained him to be a meticulous researcher, to dig through digital archives and unearth obscure information for design projects. Now, he turned those skills on his new home.

His first searches for "The Blackwood apartment building" yielded nothing but current rental listings and a map. It was a generic, forgettable name. Frustrated, he switched tactics, searching the building's address in the city’s digitized newspaper archives. For hours, the results were a mundane stream of tax records and utility notices. The obstacle was the building’s sheer, silent history; it seemed determined to keep its secrets.

Then, he found the first crack.

A brief article from 1987, buried deep in the local section. 'CONCERN FOR MISSING MAN.' A tenant named Julian Croft, a musician, had vanished from his apartment. 3B. Alex’s apartment. The article quoted a neighbor who described Croft as having become increasingly reclusive and paranoid in the weeks leading up to his disappearance. He’d complained of 'bad drafts' and had been heard talking to himself late at night. The police found his apartment in disarray, with strange symbols scrawled on the walls, but no sign of forced entry. Julian Croft was never seen again.

A cold dread trickled down Alex’s spine. Bad drafts. The same word Elara had used.

He refined his search, adding keywords like ‘missing,’ ‘strange,’ ‘incident.’ Another article surfaced, this one from 1996. A young art student living on the third floor—the article didn't specify the apartment number—had suffered a complete psychotic break. Her frantic 911 call was mentioned, a transcript of her screaming that “the walls were whispering” and that something was “trying to get in her head.” She was institutionalized.

Learn not to listen. Elara’s cryptic warning wasn't a folksy piece of advice; it was a survival strategy, forged from decades of this building’s history. He was just the latest in a long line of victims. He found a third hit, a post on a local paranormal forum from a few years back. The anonymous user claimed their grandmother had lived in The Blackwood in the 70s and refused to speak of it, except to call it a place with a "hungry shadow." They mentioned a local urban legend, a nickname for the phenomenon that plagued the building: "The Blackwood Echo." It was said to mimic sounds and voices, to learn its victims' fears and then whisper them back, driving them mad.

His phone vibrated against the table, a harsh, jarring buzz that made him jump. He snatched it up, his heart leaping into his throat. An unknown number. It was probably the landlord, wondering why he’d fled. He almost ignored it, but some instinct made him answer, his voice a tight, "Hello?"

"Alex? It's me."

The voice was a ghost from a life he’d driven hundreds of miles to escape. Mark. Smooth, confident, and dripping with a cloying, false concern that immediately made the hairs on Alex's arms stand on end.

"Mark? How did you get this number?" Alex asked, his voice sharp with suspicion. He’d changed his number specifically to prevent this.

"I have my ways," Mark chuckled, the sound meant to be charming but landing like a threat. "I was worried. You just disappeared. No note, nothing. That’s not like you, Alex. Running away again?"

Every word was a carefully crafted needle, designed to prick at his deepest insecurities. The condescending tone, the implication that he was unstable, childish. "I didn't run away, Mark. I moved. It's called starting over."

"Right, right. Your big adventure," Mark said, his voice oozing sarcasm. "So, where are you? Some rundown shoebox? You know you can't handle being on your own. You're too fragile."

Just as Mark spoke, Alex thought he heard something else on the line—a faint, sibilant hiss, like static or a bad connection.

...fragile...

He shook his head, pressing the phone harder against his ear. "I'm fine," he said, his voice trembling slightly. He was in a public library, surrounded by people. He was safe.

"You don't sound fine," Mark pressed, his voice lowering into a familiar, hypnotic cadence—the voice he used when he was about to dismantle Alex’s reality piece by piece. "You sound scared. What is it this time? Are you hearing things again? Seeing shadows in the corners?"

The static-like hiss grew louder, a dry rustle underneath Mark’s words. It sounded like the whisper from his bedroom door.

...shadows...

"I have to go," Alex said, his breath catching. The library’s fluorescent lights seemed to dim, the faces of the people around him blurring into indistinct shapes.

"No, don't hang up," Mark commanded, his tone shifting from manipulative to dominant. "Talk to me. You know you're all alone out there. You have no one."

And then it happened. The hiss resolved into a voice, a thread of sound woven perfectly into the gaps between Mark’s words. It was the ancient, genderless whisper of The Blackwood Echo.

"...so alone..." it whispered, a perfect, chilling harmony to Mark’s cruelty.

Alex’s blood ran cold. He pulled the phone away from his ear, staring at the screen. Mark was still talking, his voice a tinny, distant sound from the speaker.

"...you can't handle it," Mark's voice said. "Just come home. Let me take care of you. All you have to do is let me in."

And from the phone's speaker, a second voice, dry and sibilant, spoke in perfect, horrifying unison with the first.

"...let me in..."

The two voices—the abuser he knew and the monster he didn’t—had become one. They spoke with the same cadence, the same intent, the same soul-deep hunger to break him down and get inside. Was the entity feeding on his trauma, using Mark as a template? Or was this all a massive, elaborate breakdown, his mind conjuring a supernatural horror to avoid confronting the real one he’d fled? He couldn't tell them apart.

With a choked cry, Alex slammed his thumb down on the 'end call' button. He shoved the phone into his pocket as if it were burning him. He looked around the library, but it was no longer a sanctuary. The shadows in the corners of the room seemed to deepen, to stretch. Every quiet rustle of a turning page sounded like a dry, sibilant whisper.

He had tried to escape the monster from his past, only to find a new one waiting for him. And the most terrifying part was, they both sounded exactly the same.