The kitchen window didn't just shatter; it dissolved. The glass didn't fall in shards; it turned into a fine, grey mist that swirled like a miniature storm before vanishing. Where my reflection had been, there was now only an empty frame—and the thing that looked like my father was gone.
I didn't wait to see if it would come back.
I lunged for the cellar door, my boots skidding on the linoleum. I practically fell down the wooden stairs, slamming the heavy oak door behind me and throwing the bolt. I sat in the darkness, my breath coming in ragged gasps, listening to the silence of the house above.
But the silence didn't last.
Down here, surrounded by old boxes and dusty jars, the noise found me. It wasn't just the kitchen radio anymore. My phone, tucked into my back pocket, began to vibrate with a violent, rhythmic intensity. I pulled it out, but the screen was a mess of jagged purple lines.
Through the tiny phone speaker, a voice emerged—not my father's this time, but a choir of them. Hundreds of voices, all layered on top of one another, chanting a single, distorted word: "Listen... Listen... Listen..."
The sound was so sharp it made my ears bleed. I threw the phone across the room, but the noise didn't stop. It started coming from the pipes. It started coming from the very walls.
I realized then that the cellar wasn't a sanctuary; it was an echo chamber.
I scrambled back up the stairs, desperate for the open air. I burst out of the house and onto the front lawn, but the sight that met me was worse than the ghost in the kitchen.
The entire neighborhood was bathed in a sickly, flickering purple glow. Every house on the street had its lights on, but they weren't steady. They were pulsing in time with the static. And there, on the sidewalk, stood the neighbors.
The Millers, the Johnsons, young Toby from next door—they were all standing perfectly still, their heads tilted back toward the moon. Their mouths were locked wide open, and from their throats came that same, soul-crushing hiss of dead air. They weren't people anymore. They were living antennas, catching a signal from a place that should not exist.
The wind picked up, carrying the scent of ozone and old, burnt paper.
"Leo," the wind whispered, perfectly clear now. "Why are you running? The broadcast is just beginning."