Daniel Mercer was twenty-nine years old, tall but lean, the kind of build that suggested he worked with his hands but never in a gym. His hair, black and curling slightly when too long, hadn't been trimmed in weeks and clung damply to his forehead from the late August humidity. His eyes were restless and brown, his expression fixed somewhere between exhaustion and alertness, like someone who could never quite turn his thoughts off. He was driving home from another night shift at the gas station, his faded navy hoodie zipped tight despite the warmth. One sleeve was frayed where it had caught too many times on the stockroom door.
The road stretched ahead of him like a ribbon of black glass, lit only in patches where the old highway lamps still clung to life. His car, a beat-up Honda Civic with more rust than paint, rattled with each bump. He had the radio on low, a classic rock station that usually blurred into background comfort. Daniel liked noise. Noise kept him from feeling the weight of silence pressing too close.
It was 2:03 a.m. when the music began to fade. At first, he thought it was interference from the hills. Static filled the car, but it wasn't random. There was a rhythm to it, like it was trying to become something else. His hand moved toward the dial.
That was when he heard the whisper.
It was buried deep inside the static, stretched syllables breaking apart as though spoken underwater.
"—nnnnt lllleeeaaaavvveee—"
Daniel's fingers froze over the dial. He leaned closer, heart thumping louder with each breath. The sound did not repeat, but he could swear it was breathing. He could hear moisture on lips too close to a microphone, hear a throat swallowing. And then a thrum, so low and deep it sank into his teeth and made them ache.
He snapped the radio off.
Silence filled the car.
Except it wasn't silence.
From the backseat, in the thick dark where the dome light never reached, came the same hum. Bone-deep. Alive.
Daniel gripped the wheel tighter, his father's old voice echoing in memory: Don't look. Don't give it attention. If you don't look, it's not there.
The hum swelled inside him now, in his bones, vibrating his ribs, filling his chest cavity.
Then came the voice, clear as if someone were sitting behind him.
"Daniel."
He jerked the wheel. The car swerved hard enough for the guardrail to scream past inches from the tires. He dragged it back, heart pounding so fast he couldn't separate the beats. The hum stopped. The car went still.
He pulled onto the shoulder, lungs burning, hands shaking against the wheel. Sweat beaded across his forehead. His mind fought to rationalize—fatigue, stress, auditory hallucinations. He reached for his phone to call someone, anyone, but the screen lit before he touched it.
Unknown Number
Audio File Received
The blue glow pulsed in the dark car, daring him. His thumb shook as he pressed play.
What came from the speaker froze him where he sat.
It was his voice. His own voice screaming.
The sound filled the car, filled his head, louder and sharper than he had ever screamed in his life. He dropped the phone, heart pounding, staring at it as though it might grow teeth. The file ended.
Silence again.
Then another notification appeared.
Unknown Number
We hear you.
Daniel's breath hitched. He forced the car into gear, tires spitting gravel as he roared back onto the road. His reflection in the rearview mirror looked pale, his jaw clenched, his eyes wide and unblinking. For half a heartbeat, the mirror showed more than his reflection.
The backseat wasn't empty.
Something sat there. A shape made of vibration, of air trembling into form. No face, no features—just the suggestion of a body carved from sound itself.
And it was smiling.
Far from Daniel's car, in the town of Morningside, Emma Parker sat cross-legged on her bed beneath a canopy of fairy lights strung across the walls. She was twenty six, her dark-blonde hair pulled into a messy bun, strands hanging loose across her pale, sharp-boned face. Her gray eyes flicked over her phone screen as she scrolled, liking pictures she didn't care about, commenting on posts just to keep up the illusion of connection. The house was too quiet. She hated quiet almost as much as Daniel did.
Her son, Caleb, was in the next room. He was eight, small and wiry with sandy hair forever falling into his blue eyes. He hunched over a notebook, sketching monsters by the light of his desk lamp, headphones covering his ears. Their father, Frank, sat downstairs in his recliner, the glow of the TV flickering across his unmoving face, bottles clinking softly on the table beside him. Since their mother had died, the house felt hollow, like something essential had been scooped out of it.
It was 2:45 a.m. when Emma heard it.
At first, she thought it was Caleb's headphones. A faint hum, distant machinery maybe. But then the glass of water on her nightstand trembled. Ripples spread across its surface, tiny and perfect.
Her breath caught. The hum deepened. Louder. Stronger. It made the room itself feel smaller. She pressed her blanket tighter around her, her gray eyes wide.
The whisper came then, close as breath on her ear.
"Emma."
She bit her lip to stop a scream.
Across the hall, Caleb's pencil snapped between his fingers. His headphones slipped from his ears, and the hum filled his room. His eyes darted toward the corner, where the lamplight didn't reach. A figure stood there. Not flesh, not shadow. Just a distortion, like air vibrating too hard, sound shaping itself into the outline of a body.
He whispered his sister's name, but the hum swallowed it whole.
On the far side of Morningside, four teenagers sat by the lake around a fire Jake Holloway had built himself. Jake was seventeen, tall and broad-shouldered, his skin bronze and his short curls glistening in the firelight. His laugh usually carried, but tonight even laughter felt too loud. He wore his letterman jacket despite the heat, clinging to his place as the star of the football team. Beside him sat Lila Grant, small and freckled, her fiery red hair pulled into a braid that glowed copper in the flames. She leaned against Jake's shoulder, green eyes shining with the sharp curiosity she never turned off.
Across from them Marcus Lee stretched his long legs toward the fire, his black hair in a neat fade, dark eyes reflecting every spark. Marcus didn't talk much, but he noticed everything. Violet Kane, the youngest at fifteen, huddled in her thrifted layers, chewing at her nails, her raven-black hair falling over her pale cheeks. She hated the woods at night, but hated being left out more.
The fire crackled. The crickets sang. The lake lay still.
Then the water rippled.
No wind. No fish. Just a ripple spreading outward, wide and perfect. Jake frowned, leaning forward. "What the hell?"
Lila's eyes narrowed. "You saw that too?"
The ripples grew. The surface of the lake shimmered unnaturally, bending light. And then the hum began, faint at first, rising from the water itself. The ground beneath them shivered. The fire sputtered.
Marcus sat up straighter, dread coiling in his gut. "Do you hear that?"
They all did.
Violet's lips trembled. "It's saying something."
The hum warped into syllables.
"Don't… leave…"
The teens scrambled back from the fire as the water bulged upward. A shape rose from it, tall and formless, made only of trembling sound. Waves sloshed against the shore as it stepped onto land. The hum devoured everything.
And the world went silent.
Back on the highway, Daniel's car sped through the night, his knuckles white on the steering wheel. His phone still glowed in the seat beside him, the last message burning into his mind: We hear you.
He told himself he was imagining things. That he was too tired. That he needed sleep.
But in the rearview mirror, the shape leaned closer.
And Daniel realized something awful.
The sound wasn't just following him.
It had found him.