Tonight, I was on the phone with my girlfriend as usual. She said she was lying in her hospital bed, reading a book, her voice calm and steady. But halfway through our conversation, a faint laugh suddenly crept into the call.
The laugh was high-pitched and clear, yet carried an unsettlingly childish tone, as if a little child were pressed against the microphone on the other end, giggling secretly.
I immediately asked, "Is someone there with you? A nurse, maybe?"
There was a pause on the other end. Then she whispered, "No… I'm alone."
A chill ran down my spine. Before I could react, the phone picked up a dragging sound—tiny footsteps slowly moving across the floor, the faint scrape of soles against the hospital tiles, stretching longer and longer.
"Wait… did you hear that?" I whispered.
She hesitated. "What sound? I didn't hear anything."
The next moment, a piercing shatter rang through the phone, like a glass breaking, followed by a sharp, static-like noise, and the call went dead instantly.
I stared at my phone, the eerie childlike laughter still echoing in my ears, sending shivers down my spine. The sound didn't belong to a stranger—it sounded almost exactly like my ten-year-old daughter's laugh.
Yet I knew she was fast asleep at her grandfather's house tonight.