Mara didn't sleep. She tried—curled up on the sagging couch in the living room, a quilt pulled tight around her shoulders—but every creak of the house jolted her awake, snapping her eyes open to stare into the dimness. The springs beneath her whined with every restless shift, the faded fabric of the couch scratching against her skin. The quilt, a patchwork thing her grandmother had stitched decades ago, smelled faintly of mothballs and dust, grounding her in this place she'd once called home. Yet, no amount of familiarity could settle the unease that gnawed at her, a persistent itch she couldn't scratch.
The attic phone lingered in her mind, its ring replaying like a stuck record, looping over and over until it became a phantom sound she couldn't shake. She'd left it up there earlier that day, untouched after its first inexplicable chime had startled her into dropping it. The receiver had clattered against the wooden floor, dangling off the hook where it still hung now, swaying slightly in her memory. She could picture it clearly: the chipped black rotary dial, the tangled cord coiled like a snake, the dust motes swirling in the beam of her flashlight as she'd backed away. It was an old thing, a relic from her childhood, something she hadn't thought about in years until she'd stumbled across it while sorting through the attic's clutter. She'd assumed it was disconnected, a dead line in a house that hadn't seen a phone bill since her grandmother passed. Yet it had rung, sharp and insistent, cutting through the silence of the empty house.
By midnight, she'd convinced herself it was nothing—an auditory hallucination, a trick of her tired brain. She was stressed, that was all. Being back in this place after so long had dredged up memories she'd buried deep: the creak of the floorboards under her grandmother's slippers, the smell of bread baking in the kitchen, the weight of loneliness after her mother's death. She hadn't been back since she was sixteen, not since she'd packed a bag and left for the city, swearing she'd never return. Yet here she was, drawn back by some unspoken pull, sleeping—or failing to sleep—on the same couch where she'd spent countless nights as a teenager. The phone was just a glitch, a figment of her imagination. She'd check it in the morning, prove to herself it was dead, and move on with her life.
The clock on the mantle ticked past 2 a.m., its hands moving with a sluggish reluctance in the dim glow of a single lamp she'd left burning in the corner. The light cast long shadows across the room, turning familiar shapes into distorted figures that danced along the walls. Mara stared at the ceiling, tracing cracks that spiderwebbed through the plaster like veins, mapping out a network of neglect. The house had aged in her absence, its bones settling deeper into the earth, its paint peeling like shedding skin. She wondered how long those cracks had been there, if they'd started small and grown over the years, or if they'd appeared all at once, a sudden fracture she'd never noticed as a kid.
The house was too quiet now, the kind of silence that pressed against her eardrums, thick and oppressive. Earlier, there'd been the usual nighttime chorus—the chirp of crickets, the rustle of leaves in the wind—but even that had faded, leaving her alone with the stillness. It was unnatural, she thought, how a place could feel so alive one moment and so dead the next. She shifted on the couch, the springs groaning beneath her in protest, a sound that echoed faintly before being swallowed by the quiet. Reaching for her phone on the coffee table, she checked the time again—2:13 a.m.—and frowned at the screen. No signal. Typical for this nowhere town, cut off from the world by rolling hills and decades-old wiring that hadn't been updated since the last century. She tapped the screen, willing a bar to appear, but it remained stubbornly blank, isolating her further.
Then it rang again.
The sound sliced through the stillness, sharp and unmistakable, a blade cutting through the fabric of the night. Mara froze, her breath catching in her throat, a cold wave washing over her. It was the same ring she'd heard earlier, the same shrill, insistent chime that had sent her scrambling out of the attic hours ago. It was coming from upstairs, from the attic, echoing down the narrow staircase like a summons she couldn't ignore. Her heart thudded against her ribs, a frantic rhythm that drowned out the clock's steady tick. She sat up slowly, the quilt sliding to the floor in a heap, her pulse hammering in her ears. Not again. Not now. She'd convinced herself it was over, that the first call had been a fluke, but here it was again, demanding her attention.
She grabbed her flashlight from the table, its weight a small comfort in her trembling hand, and crept to the base of the stairs. The attic ladder loomed above her, a dark rectangle cut into the ceiling, its edges swallowed by shadow. She tilted her head, listening as the ringing persisted, each note piercing the air like a needle. Peering up, she could see nothing but blackness, an abyss that seemed to stare back at her. The ringing stopped abruptly, leaving a hollow silence in its wake, only to start again a moment later, louder this time, as if impatient with her hesitation. Her rational side screamed at her to ignore it—to grab her keys, pack her bag, drive back to the city and leave this haunted heap of a house behind for good. She could be on the highway in twenty minutes, the glare of streetlights washing away the unease, the hum of traffic drowning out the echoes in her head.
But her feet moved anyway, drawn upward by something she couldn't name—a pull, an instinct, a thread of curiosity or dread that tugged at her core. She climbed the ladder one rung at a time, the wood creaking beneath her weight, her flashlight beam slicing through the dark ahead of her. Each step felt heavier than the last, as if the house itself were resisting her ascent, warning her to turn back. By the time she reached the attic, her breath was shallow, her skin prickling with the cold that greeted her. The air up here was sharper, biting at her bare arms, carrying a faint musty scent of old wood and forgotten things. Her flashlight swept the space, illuminating the clutter she'd left earlier—boxes of her grandmother's keepsakes, a cracked mirror propped against the wall, the trunk she'd rummaged through that afternoon. And there, in the center of it all, was the phone.
It sat where she'd left it, the receiver dangling off the hook, swaying slightly as if it had been nudged by an unseen hand. The beam of light caught the dust swirling around it, giving the scene an ethereal haze. The ringing continued, relentless, each chime vibrating through the floorboards and into her bones. She swallowed hard, her mouth dry as sandpaper, and stepped closer, her shadow stretching long and thin behind her. Her hand hovered over the receiver, hesitating, every instinct telling her to leave it be. But the sound wouldn't let her go—it demanded an answer, a response, a connection. She picked it up mid-ring, the plastic cool against her palm, and the noise cut off abruptly, replaced by a silence that lasted a heartbeat too long.
"Hello?" she said, her voice trembling, barely above a whisper. It sounded foreign to her own ears, fragile in the vast emptiness of the attic.
"Mara?" The reply came soft and shaky, a girl's voice teetering on the edge of tears. "Is that you?"
Mara's stomach dropped, a sick lurch that left her dizzy. "Who is this? How do you know my name?" she demanded, her grip tightening on the receiver until her knuckles whitened.
"It's Ellie. I—I don't have much time. He's outside, trying to get in." The girl's words tumbled out, fast and breathless, tripping over one another in their urgency. "I'm in the house. Your house. But it's… it's 1999."
"What?" Mara's mind reeled, the year hitting her like a punch. 1999. She'd been sixteen then, living here with her grandmother after her mother's car accident had left her an orphan. This house had been her prison and her refuge, a place of sullen teenage silences and late-night tears. But 1999 was twenty-six years ago—impossible. "That's not possible. What are you talking about?"
"Please, just listen!" Ellie's voice cracked, raw with panic. "He's got a mask, like burlap, with stitches. He's been watching me through the windows. I locked the doors, but he's breaking the glass—I can hear it downstairs. You have to help me!"
Mara's head spun, a carousel of confusion and disbelief. She tried to anchor herself, to pull up memories of that year. She remembered the summer heat, the way the attic fan rattled, the endless arguments with her grandmother about curfews and chores. But there was no Ellie in those memories, no masked man, no break-ins. The worst thing that had happened was a raccoon getting into the trash cans, or so she thought. "This doesn't make sense," she said, more to herself than the girl, her voice unsteady. "Are you in trouble now? Where are you really?"
"I'm here!" Ellie snapped, her desperation cutting through the static like a blade. "In the attic, hiding behind the trunk. He's coming—I saw him in the yard, holding a knife. Please, Mara, do something!"
Mara's flashlight darted to the trunk, its lid still ajar from when she'd pried it open earlier that day. The beam swept over the contents—old photo albums, a moth-eaten shawl, a rusted jewelry box—but it was empty of any hiding girl. The wood was cold and solid beneath her touch, undisturbed. "Look, I don't know what's happening, but I'm standing in the attic right now, and it's 2025. There's no one else here," she said, trying to keep her tone firm, to ground herself in the reality of the moment.
A sob broke through the static, jagged and heartbroken. "2025? No, that's… that's not right. You have to believe me. He's—" A muffled crash interrupted her, loud enough that Mara flinched, her shoulders hunching instinctively. Ellie's voice dropped to a whisper, tight with terror. "Oh God, he's inside. The kitchen window—I told you it was loose!"
Mara's breath hitched, her mind racing back to earlier that evening. She'd noticed a window latch in the kitchen when she'd gone to fill a glass of water—rusted, unhooked, rattling in the frame. She'd meant to fix it, but she'd been too distracted, too tired. It hadn't seemed urgent then. "Ellie, stay calm," she said, forcing the words out despite the tremor in her chest. "Tell me what to do."
"Lock it!" Ellie hissed, her voice a frantic plea. "Go downstairs, lock the window, please! He'll get in if you don't!"
The line went dead, the dial tone buzzing in Mara's ear like a swarm of insects. She stood there, the attic pressing in around her, the flashlight trembling in her hand, casting wild shadows across the walls. Her mind scrambled for an explanation—a prank call, a kid with a twisted sense of humor, a wrong number gone bizarrely specific. But that crash, the raw terror in Ellie's voice… it felt real, too real to dismiss. Her legs moved before her brain caught up, propelling her toward the ladder. She descended in a rush, nearly tripping on the last rung as her socks slipped against the wood, her flashlight beam bouncing erratically.
She hit the ground floor running, her bare feet slapping against the cold hardwood as she bolted to the kitchen. The room was dark, the single bulb overhead long burned out, but moonlight filtered through the window above the sink, illuminating the scene in a silver glow. The window hung open, its latch dangling uselessly, swaying in the breeze that slipped through the gap. Cold air poured in, carrying the scent of wet earth and pine, chilling her skin as she skidded to a stop. Her hands shook as she grabbed the frame, slamming it shut with a force that rattled the glass, her fingers fumbling to twist the latch until it clicked into place. She pressed her palms against the sill, breathing hard, her pulse a drumbeat in her throat.
She stepped back, staring at the glass, half-expecting a face to appear on the other side—a burlap mask with stitched eyes, a knife glinting in the moonlight. But there was nothing. Just the dark yard beyond, fog curling through the trees like ghostly fingers, the branches swaying faintly in the wind. She let out a shaky laugh, the sound brittle and forced, her nerves fraying at the edges. "Stupid," she muttered under her breath, scrubbing a hand over her face. "It's nothing. You're losing it."
But as she turned away, something caught her eye—a faint smear on the windowpane, barely visible in the dim light. She paused, her heart stuttering, and leaned closer, her breath fogging the glass. It was mud, streaked across the surface like fingers had brushed against it, clumsy and careless. Her eyes narrowed, tracing the mark, and then she saw it: a single, deliberate scratch carved into the dirt—a tally, precise and chilling, as if someone had stood there, marking their presence.
Her phone buzzed in her pocket, startling her so badly she nearly dropped the flashlight. She fumbled it out with clumsy fingers, her pulse spiking again, but the screen was blank—no call, no notification, no signal. Just a dead piece of tech, useless in her shaking hands. She shoved it back into her pocket, her gaze darting back to the window, then up toward the ceiling where the attic loomed overhead. The rotary phone stayed silent now, its earlier clamor replaced by an eerie calm that felt heavier than the ringing ever had.
Whatever Ellie was—or wasn't—Mara couldn't shake the feeling that she'd just changed something she didn't understand. She'd locked the window, followed the girl's frantic plea, but what did it mean? Had she altered some moment in 1999, a night she couldn't even remember? Or was this all in her head, a spiral of exhaustion and paranoia fueled by a house that refused to let her rest? She pressed her back against the kitchen wall, sliding down until she sat on the floor, the cold seeping through her clothes. Her flashlight rested beside her, its beam pointed at the ceiling, illuminating those same cracks she'd traced earlier.
Outside, in the fog, the shadows seemed to shift just a little too slowly, their edges blurring into the night. She watched them through the window, her breath shallow, waiting for something—anything—to break the stillness. The house creaked again, a low groan that might have been the wind or the settling of old beams, but to Mara, it sounded like a whisper, a secret she wasn't meant to hear. She hugged her knees to her chest, the quilt forgotten on the living room floor, and wondered how long she could stay here before the past—or whatever this was—caught up with her. The clock on the mantle ticked on, its hands creeping toward dawn, but for Mara, the night stretched endless, a thread of time unraveling around her, pulling her deeper into the unknown.