Chapter 2: Whispers Only I Can Hear

The next morning, the Orange Anomaly was just a piece of plastic again. My dad, ever the pragmatist, spent a good ten minutes examining it, tapping its casing and unscrewing the back panel with a screwdriver from his toolbox.

"No batteries. No power source. No connection," he announced, snapping the cover back into place. "Must have been some kind of freak atmospheric event. Static discharge in the wiring, maybe."

My mom readily accepted this, relieved to have a scientific-sounding explanation to cling to. Thomas, however, kept shooting me speculative glances over his cereal. "So, you really heard something? Like a voice?" he asked when our parents were out of earshot.

"I told you," I mumbled, pushing soggy flakes around my bowl. "It was just static." The lie tasted like ash in my mouth. I couldn't bring myself to describe the whisper, the cold dread, or the flash of that awful, memory-drenched hallway. Saying it out loud would make it too real.

But the realness didn't need my permission. That night, at exactly 11:47 PM, it happened again.

BRRRING!

The sharp, metallic sound sliced through the house. This time, I was ready. I shot out of bed and was halfway down the stairs before the second ring. My parents’ bedroom door remained shut. They were either sleeping through it or, more likely, choosing to ignore it. Thomas appeared in the hallway behind me, his face pale in the dim light.

"You're not going to answer it, are you?" he whispered.

The question was pointless. The same unnatural compulsion from the night before was tugging at me, an invisible string pulling me toward the kitchen. I had to answer. I had to know.

I lifted the receiver. The ringing stopped.

"Anything?" Thomas asked, crowding close.

The static was there, a soft, fuzzy hiss. But beneath it, the whisper returned. It was clearer this time, less a feeling and more an actual sound. A boy's voice, thin and fragile, but laced with an ancient, chilling patience.

...can... you... hear... me...

My blood ran cold. I slammed the phone down.

"Dude, what did it say?" Thomas demanded, grabbing my arm.

"Nothing! It's nothing!" I snapped, my voice cracking. I shoved past him and fled back to my room, my heart hammering a frantic rhythm against my ribs.

It became a ritual. Every night, 11:47 PM. The unplugged phone would ring. At first, my parents would call out, asking what was going on. But my evasive answers and their own desire for normalcy soon built a wall of denial. It was "Liam's phone." An oddity they decided to live with. Their willful ignorance felt like a betrayal, leaving me utterly alone in a house that was no longer safe.

My desperation for proof became a frantic obsession. I wasn't crazy. I knew what I was hearing. I just had to make someone else hear it, too.

The fourth night, I was waiting with my cell phone in hand, the recording app open. Thomas hovered by the doorway, a reluctant witness. The ring came, sharp and punctual. I took a deep breath, hit record on my cell, and then lifted the orange phone’s receiver.

The whisper coiled in my ear, more distinct than ever. It sounded closer, as if the boy was standing right behind me, his lips brushing my ear.

...so... alone...

A profound, soul-deep sorrow washed over me, so potent it was nauseating. It was the loneliness of a graveyard, of a forgotten grave. I held the receiver out to Thomas, my hand shaking. "Listen!" I hissed.

He hesitated, then pressed his ear to it. His face was a mask of concentration for a few seconds before he pulled back, shaking his head. "I don't hear anything, Liam. Just a faint hum."

My stomach dropped. "No, you have to—"

"I don't hear it!" he insisted, taking a step back. "It's nothing!"

"Fine," I snarled, a wild hope still flickering. "Fine. Then listen to this." I snatched my cell phone back and stabbed the 'stop' button on the recording. My fingers trembled as I hit 'play.'

The speaker emitted a soft, uniform hiss. Static. Nothing more.

I played it again. And again. Just the meaningless sound of white noise. There were no whispers. No thin, reedy voice. No evidence.

Thomas looked at me, his expression shifting from curiosity to something I dreaded far more: pity. "Maybe Dad's right," he said softly. "Maybe it's just in your head."

He didn't mean it to be cruel, but the words were a physical blow. He walked away, leaving me alone in the kitchen with the two phones—one smart and modern and useless, the other ancient and plastic and screaming into my soul. The entity was clever. It had found a way to speak only to me, cutting me off from everyone I trusted, wrapping me in a shroud of disbelief.

The following days at school were a special kind of hell. The mundane chatter of the hallways, the squeak of sneakers on linoleum, the clang of lockers—it all felt like a movie I was watching from a great distance. I was jumpy, paranoid, constantly looking over my shoulder, half-expecting to see a flicker of shadow that didn't belong. The school bell made my heart leap into my throat, its loud, metallic ring a daytime echo of my nightly torment. I stopped sketching dragons and monsters in my notebook; now, my pen moved of its own accord, tracing looping, floral patterns I recognized with a sickening lurch from the wallpaper in my nightmares.

Because the nightmares had started.

Every night, I was back in the Big House. Not the warm, sunlit version from my early childhood, but the version from that one, terrible day. I’d find myself standing at the entrance to the upstairs hallway. It stretched before me, impossibly long, the perspective all wrong, like a drawing by a madman. The floral wallpaper seemed to writhe, the faded roses and vines twisting into skeletal faces and grasping claws. A single, bare bulb hung from the ceiling far, far down the hall, casting more shadows than light.

And from the darkness at the far end, the whispers would come, beckoning me. I would feel an overwhelming pull, my feet moving against my will, carrying me deeper into the oppressive dark. I knew something was waiting for me there. Something cold and possessive. In the dream, I could feel its touch, an icy pressure on my shoulders, holding me, claiming me.

I woke from one such dream with a strangled cry, my body drenched in cold sweat. The phantom sensation of the touch lingered, a chilling weight on my shoulders. My room was silent, the digital clock on my nightstand glowing 3:14 AM. The orange phone was hours away from its scheduled call.

But I couldn't shake the feeling. The dream had been too real. The pressure on my shoulders felt… more than a memory.

With a shaking hand, I threw back the covers and stumbled to the bathroom, flipping on the light. The sudden brightness was blinding. I squinted at my reflection in the mirror. My face was pale, my eyes wide and dark-ringed. I looked haunted.

I turned, craning my neck to see my back in the mirror. My heart stopped.

There, stark against the pale skin of my shoulders, were two faint, but perfectly distinct, handprints. They weren't bruises or marks. They were smudges, a grayish, dusty residue, like someone with filthy hands had gripped me tightly from behind. Each print was long and slender, with fingers that seemed just a little too thin, a little too long to be human.

I stared, frozen, my breath catching in my throat. I raised a trembling hand and touched one of the marks. The dust felt fine and dry under my fingertips, and it smelled faintly of decay and dried flowers.

It wasn't in my head. It wasn't a dream.

The proof I had been so desperate for was here, printed on my own skin. And the terrifying truth crashed down on me with the force of a physical blow: the thing from the phone, the boy from the hallway, wasn't just calling me anymore. It could touch me.