Echoes in the Silence

Mishka didn't move for a full minute, staring at her phone's screen until it dimmed. The golden afterglow of the recording seemed to linger in her vision even in the darkness. Carefully, as if it might burn her, she reached for the light switch.

The recording sat innocently on her nightstand – no glow, no warmth, nothing to suggest it had just delivered an impossible message. She picked up her phone again, checking the unknown number that had texted her. No carrier information, no location data. Just numbers that somehow felt... wrong, as if they weren't quite following mathematical rules.

"Not now," she whispered to the empty room. "We just fixed this."

She dialed Nathaniel first. He answered on the first ring, as if he'd been waiting.

"You felt it," he said, not a question.

"My mother's recording. A message. And then a text—"

"I know. The frequencies shifted for exactly twelve seconds. Just enough to allow... something."