Julie's footsteps echoed against the cracked pavement as she made her way back to the center of Chandrakund. The encounter with Danny lingered in her mind, his words digging into her like splinters. "The sound isn't just noise. It's alive." She gripped the straps of her bag, the weight of the cassette tapes suddenly feeling heavier.
The air in the town had changed. It was subtle, a kind of pressure that seemed to wrap around her chest and make it harder to breathe. The silence wasn't peaceful—it was watchful.
She stopped in the middle of the street, glancing up at the old clock tower. Its hands, stuck at 3:15, stood as a frozen sentinel over the decayed town. A faint breeze stirred the dust, but even that seemed unnatural, like it didn't belong.
Then she heard it.
A low, resonant hum drifted on the air, so faint she thought it might have been her imagination. It wasn't a sound she heard with her ears—it felt deeper, resonating in her bones. She turned slowly, scanning the street.
Nothing moved.
Julie took a step forward, then froze.
"Julie."
Her heart stopped. The voice wasn't just familiar—it was impossible.
"Jack ?" she whispered, her voice trembling.
The name felt foreign on her tongue, like a word she hadn't spoken in years. And maybe she hadn't. She swallowed hard, turning in a slow circle, her flashlight sweeping over the empty street.
But she wasn't alone.
At the edge of the light, a figure stood motionless. Small. Frail. A boy.
"Jack!" she cried, her voice cracking.
The figure didn't move. Julie's feet carried her forward, the flashlight beam trembling in her hand.
The closer she got, the more certain she became. It was Jack. His dark hair was slightly messy, the way he always wore it. He was dressed in the same striped shirt he had been wearing that day in the woods, the day he disappeared.
"Julie," he said again, his voice small and scared. "Help me."
Her throat tightened, tears stinging her eyes. "I'm here. I'm here now."
She reached out for him, but the moment her fingers brushed his shoulder, he was gone.
Not vanished—disintegrated. Like smoke scattering in the wind.
Julie stumbled back, the air rushing out of her lungs. She swung the flashlight wildly, her breaths coming in sharp gasps.
"You're not real," she whispered. "You're not real."
But the hum was louder now, pulsing in her skull like a heartbeat. It wasn't just sound—it was alive.
Julie didn't remember running. By the time her senses returned, she was in her car, her hands gripping the steering wheel so tightly her knuckles were white. She sat there, staring at the dashboard, trying to calm the hammering of her heart.
Her brother's voice still echoed in her ears, and her hands wouldn't stop shaking.
Jack had been gone for years. She had replayed that day a thousand times in her mind—their game of hide-and-seek, her annoyance when he wouldn't come out of hiding, the moment she realized he was truly gone.
It had broken her family. Her parents had grieved in their own ways, retreating into themselves. But Julie had carried the guilt. She was supposed to look after him. She had failed.
And now, here in Chandrakund, his voice was back.
She opened her bag and pulled out the cassette tapes, staring at them as if they might offer her answers. What if the tapes weren't just a record of the town's final days? What if they were something more?
Her fingers trembled as she picked one up and slid it into her recorder. She pressed play, her breath held.
At first, there was only static. Then came the faint, crackling voice of a woman.
"They told us to keep working."
Julie frowned, leaning closer to the recorder. The voice was shaky, laced with fear.
"But the whispers... they were everywhere. In the tunnels, in the air. In our heads. You couldn't run from them. They knew things—things about us, about what we'd done. Things we'd buried."
The voice broke into a quiet sob.
"It's not just a sound. It's punishment."
The tape stopped.
Julie's hand hovered over the recorder. Her skin prickled with goosebumps, and her stomach twisted into knots.
Punishment.
Was that what the Sound was? Some kind of retribution? For the town, for the miners—for her?
Her head snapped up as something tapped against the window.
She turned, the flashlight in her hand shaking. Outside, in the darkness, a figure stood just beyond the beam of light.
It wasn't Jack.
It wasn't human.
Julie stared, her blood turning to ice as the shape began to shift, its outline flickering like static. And then it moved.
Straight toward her.
Julie's heart slammed against her ribs as the figure approached, its movements unnatural—jerky and uneven, like a puppet with tangled strings. She fumbled with the flashlight, the beam trembling as it landed on the figure's face—or where a face should have been.
Its features were a blurred void, shifting and distorting, as if reality itself refused to solidify around it. The only constants were its eyes—two empty black pits that seemed to swallow the light.
"Julie..."
The whisper slithered through the air, unmistakably her brother's voice.
"No," she said, her voice barely audible. Her fingers scrambled to start the car, but the engine only coughed in protest. "No, no, no!"
The figure drew closer, its shadow stretching unnaturally across the hood of the car, even though there was no light behind it.
"Julie... you left me."
The words hit her like a punch to the chest. She shook her head, tears streaming down her face. "I didn't! I looked for you! I never stopped!"
The whisper twisted into a chorus, overlapping voices rising in a cacophony.
"You should have stayed. You should have stopped it. It's your fault."
Her breath hitched as the voices turned guttural, each syllable dripping with malice.
The flashlight flickered, its beam sputtering. Julie's hands scrambled for the door handle, but it wouldn't budge. The figure was at the window now, its blurred form pressing against the glass. A faint crack spidered across the surface as it leaned closer, the black voids where its eyes should have been boring into hers.
In a panic, Julie grabbed the cassette recorder and hurled it at the window. The impact wasn't much, but it startled her enough to break her paralysis. Her hands found the gear shift, and she slammed the car into neutral.
The vehicle rolled backward down the slight incline of the street, gaining momentum. Mara fought the wheel, her breathing ragged. The figure didn't move to follow—it just stood there, watching as her car drifted away.
The whispers faded, but the hum didn't. It grew louder, deeper, resonating in her chest like the vibration of a giant tuning fork.
Her backward descent ended abruptly with a jarring CRASH as the car slammed into a rusted lamppost. The impact sent her sprawling against the steering wheel, her vision swimming.
For a moment, there was silence. Then the hum returned, softer now but more insidious, as if it had seeped into the very air around her.
Julie pushed herself upright, groaning. Her head throbbed, and the side mirror hung loosely by a thread of metal. She grabbed her flashlight, which had rolled onto the passenger seat, and stumbled out of the car.
She stood in the middle of the street, her knees weak, scanning the darkened surroundings. The figure was gone.
Or so she thought.
Then she saw it.
A faint light glowed in the distance, emanating from an old building at the edge of town. It pulsed faintly, like a heartbeat.
She shouldn't go there. Every instinct screamed at her to run the other way, to leave Chandrakund behind and never look back. But something else pulled her forward. Curiosity. Desperation. A need for answers.
Julie tightened her grip on the flashlight and began walking.
The Old Mining Office
The building was one of the few still standing, though time had left its mark. The windows were shattered, and the wooden siding sagged with age. The door hung slightly ajar, creaking on its hinges as she pushed it open.
Inside, the glow was stronger, emanating from a desk in the center of the room. Dust motes danced in the air, illuminated by the eerie light. On the desk sat an ancient reel-to-reel tape recorder, the source of the glow.
Julie's breath caught in her throat.
She approached cautiously, every step echoing in the silence. The recorder wasn't plugged in, and yet the reels spun slowly, emitting a faint mechanical whir.
As she reached out to touch it, a voice crackled to life, clear and deliberate.
"Julie Joseph"
She froze, her hand hovering inches above the device.
"You're not supposed to be here."
The voice wasn't her brother's. It was deeper, older, and carried a weight that made her knees buckle.
"Turn back," it continued. "Or the Sound will claim you too."
The glow intensified, casting long, warped shadows around the room. Julie's pulse thundered in her ears. She wanted to leave, but her feet refused to move.
And then the voice spoke again, softer this time, but filled with an icy finality.
"It already knows you."
The tape recorder stopped spinning, plunging the room into darkness.
To be continued...