[Audio Log 23 — recovered from Nakhon Pathom relay site, date unknown.]
(Soft rain. Tape hiss. A woman's voice, unsteady but controlled.)
My name is Hana.
This is the final log for the relay project.
I came back to return the tapes.
(Long pause. A faint, wet breathing can be heard close to the microphone. It doesn't match her rhythm — too calm, too patient.)
The tower's still standing.
No power for kilometers, but the light…
it keeps blinking.
Slower now.
(Rain intensifies. Static flickers. The breathing continues — slow, almost peaceful.)
I found Koy's recorder inside the shack.
It was still running.
The reels are warped, but his voice—
you can still hear him.
He keeps saying he'll stay until it clears.
He keeps saying that.
(She rewinds the tape; faint mechanical whine. Then, playback: Koy's voice, smooth through static.)
"Signal received. Field stable. Tell Hana I'll stay until it clears."
(She stops the tape. Her voice breaks slightly when she resumes.)
I think he meant it.
He thought if he just kept listening,
the world would come back on.
But there's no current.
There hasn't been for years.
(Thunder in distance. The microphone crackles as if from static electricity. The wet breathing fades for a moment, replaced by a faint humming underneath her words — human voices blending into the rainfall.)
They call this place the Disturbed Field now.
The floodplain hums when it rains.
Some nights the ground shakes,
and the air buzzes hard enough to kill radio.
People think it's just water pressure.
They don't hear it whisper.
(Pause. The hum begins to separate into hundreds of low voices, indistinct, repeating the pattern.)
Three long. One short. Pause.
That's how it starts.
But tonight—
it sounds different.
(Her voice trembles. She steps closer to the mic. The whispers rise, thick and wet, like breathing through water. Then one separates — a male voice, soft, close to her ear.)
"Hana…"
(She gasps — half sob, half disbelief. The mic scrapes as if she's turning sharply.)
Koy…?
(The whisper answers, gentle, like a sigh.)
"Signal received."
(The hum stops. Only rain. The breathing returns — nearer than before, calm, steady, next to the mic. Hana speaks in a whisper.)
If anyone finds this—
don't record.
Don't listen.
It remembers who you are.
It waits for the voice to finish its sentence.
(Three slow, deliberate knocks echo on the control shack door — deep, metallic, wet. Each knock lands in the same rhythm: three long, one short. The mic crackles. A click — tape ends. Then, silence.)
Postscript (from recovery report)
Recovered log ends at 04:12.
Final three knocks audible on both interior and exterior microphones.
No further transmissions detected.
Relay tower's light ceased operation forty-eight hours later.