We followed the voice.
It had said a name — Wanida.
It sounded soft when Hana repeated it, like a word you shouldn't wake up.
She found a mention in an old newspaper binder: House fire near Kamphaeng Saen. One survivor. One missing woman.
No photo, no address. Just a half-melted line of print.
Enough to point us somewhere.
The rain started halfway there.
Thin at first, then steady, the kind that makes the air thick instead of cool.
The motorbike's headlight cut a white tunnel through it.
Every time Hana turned to check the road, her ribbon glowed red like a warning light.
We found the house by accident.
Or maybe it found us.
The trees around it had grown inward, like they wanted to hide it.
Charred stilts still held up half a roof; the rest had collapsed into a black pool.
Something about the air made my teeth ache — a low vibration, almost a sound.
Hana stopped a few meters away.
"Do you hear that?"
"I feel it," I said.
She nodded, and we both stepped closer.
Inside smelled of ash and wet cloth.
A plastic clock hung sideways on the wall, its hands melted together at 2:14.
Every step made the floor groan like it was remembering us.
I set the recorder down beside an overturned water jar.
The red light blinked once, twice, and steadied.
We didn't talk for the first five minutes.
The air was too heavy for speech.
Then Hana whispered, "Maybe she's still here."
Her voice didn't echo.
It just stopped in the air, like the room swallowed it.
When we played the tape back, the first sounds were expected: rain, a soft tap of insects against wood.
Then — a single knock.
Another.
Then three, uneven, like someone testing a wall.
Hana glanced at me.
"Wind?"
I shook my head.
The house didn't have wind.
Then a voice, faint enough to miss if you were breathing too loud.
A woman's voice.
"You came back."
Hana grabbed my wrist.
Her fingers were cold even in the heat.
We played it again.
Same phrase.
Same tone.
Only on the second playback, the voice was mine.
We left the house fast, trying not to look like we were leaving fast.
The road back to the main highway looked different — longer somehow.
Hana kept glancing over her shoulder.
Once she asked if I remembered how we'd gotten there.
I didn't answer because I wasn't sure.
At the gas station, she rewound the tape a third time.
The phrase changed.
Not "You came back," but "You never left."
She stared at the player until the batteries died.
Then she said, almost to herself,
"Maybe it's talking to you."
I told her that made no sense.
But the words felt wrong in my mouth, like something else was saying them for me.
That night I dreamed of the house again, whole this time, lights glowing behind every window.
Smoke rose from the roof but never drifted away.
A woman stood at the door, waving.
I couldn't tell if she was greeting or warning me.
Her face stayed shadowed, but her voice was clear:
"You came back."
When I woke, the ceiling fan wasn't moving.
The room smelled faintly of wet wood, though I'd closed every window.
The recorder on my desk was already running.
The counter showed 00:47.
Forty-seven minutes of silence.
I pressed rewind.
Static, then three knocks.
Then my own voice whispering, "You came back."
The next day Hana didn't mention the tape.
She talked about food instead, how the market fish had started tasting like metal.
I asked if she ever dreamt of the people we met.
She said, "Sometimes. But they don't dream back."
That stuck with me.
I spent the evening writing in my notebook, trying to put down what I remembered before it slid away.
Each time I lifted the pen, the last sentence blurred.
Ink spread like water finding cracks.
Later, I walked to the canal alone.
The moon hung low and yellow, stuck between the wires.
I thought I saw someone sitting by the kiosk again.
Same outline.
Same cigarette glow.
When I got close, the bench was empty.
Just a thin trail of smoke curling upward, refusing to fade.
I waited for the hum to start, for the world to breathe again.
It didn't.
Only the sound of the recorder in my pocket, turning itself on.
(End of Chapter 3 — "The House by the River")