Chapter 41: When the Past Calls

Nathan had spent years burying the past, shoving it into the darkest corners of his mind where it couldn't reach him. He had convinced himself that the whispers, the shadows, the eerie feeling of being watched had all been remnants of his childhood nightmares. But the past is never truly dead. It lingers, waiting for the right moment to call.

And tonight, it called.

The phone rang at exactly midnight, the shrill sound piercing through the silence of Nathan's small apartment. His heart clenched at the noise, an inexplicable dread settling over him. He hesitated before answering, a cold sweat forming on the back of his neck.

"Hello?" he said, his voice rough from sleep.

At first, there was nothing but static. Then, a voice emerged—a voice he hadn't heard in over a decade.

"Nathan," it whispered.

His grip on the phone tightened. The voice was familiar, achingly so. It belonged to someone who shouldn't be calling. Someone who couldn't be calling.

"Mom?" he choked out.

The line went dead.

Nathan sat frozen, his breath coming in short gasps. His mother had been gone for twelve years. Dead. Buried. How was this possible? He tried to tell himself it was a prank, a cruel joke. But deep down, he knew better. The past had finally caught up to him.

The nightmares returned that night, more vivid than they had been in years. He found himself back in his childhood home, standing in the dimly lit hallway. The scent of old wood and something rotting filled the air. The door to his mother's room was ajar, just as it had been on the night she disappeared.

He stepped forward, his legs heavy as if wading through water. He knew what waited beyond that door, yet he couldn't stop himself. The whispers called to him, growing louder with each step.

Nathan pushed the door open, and there she was. His mother stood by the window, her back to him. Her hair, once a deep brown, hung in tangled, lifeless strands. Her nightgown clung to her frail frame, and when she turned, her face was wrong—too pale, eyes too hollow.

"Nathan," she whispered again, the same way she had on the phone.

He tried to move, to run, but the floor beneath him shifted, turning into something slick and wet. He looked down to find it wasn't a floor at all, but a pool of black liquid, thick and writhing as if alive.

His mother's skeletal fingers reached for him, her lips curling into an unnatural smile. "Come home, Nathan."

Then he woke up.

Nathan barely made it through the day. The nightmare clung to him, suffocating him even under the bright daylight. He tried to drown himself in work, in meaningless tasks, but his thoughts kept circling back to the phone call. To the voice.

It had to be in his head. Stress. Exhaustion. Guilt. Anything but the impossible.

Then the phone rang again.

He didn't want to answer it. Every instinct screamed at him to let it go to voicemail, to pretend it wasn't happening. But his hands moved on their own, gripping the phone as he slowly raised it to his ear.

"Nathan," the voice whispered. "Come home."

He hung up immediately, his pulse roaring in his ears. He needed air, needed to clear his head. But as he turned toward the door, a chill ran down his spine.

The mirror across the room reflected his apartment as it should have. Except… in the reflection, the hallway was darker than it should be. And standing there, just beyond the doorway, was a figure. A woman in a tattered nightgown.

His breath hitched. He turned quickly, but the hallway was empty. His hands trembled as he looked back at the mirror.

She was still there.

And she was smiling.

Nathan knew he couldn't run from this. The past had come calling, and it wasn't going to stop until he answered.

So he did what he had sworn he never would.

He went home.

The house stood untouched, a relic of the past that refused to crumble. Dust coated every surface, and the air was thick with decay. It was exactly as he had left it the night he had been taken away after his mother vanished without a trace.

The whispers started the moment he stepped inside.

Nathan.

They slithered through the walls, curling around his ears, seeping into his mind. He clenched his fists, forcing himself forward, down the hallway, toward her room.

The door was open, waiting.

Nathan stepped inside. The air was colder here, the darkness thicker. And in the center of the room, standing exactly where she had in his nightmare, was his mother.

"Nathan," she whispered, her head tilting. "You came back."

His throat tightened. "You're not real."

Her eyes gleamed, black pits swallowing the faint light. "Then why am I here?"

A cold wind rushed past him, slamming the door shut. Nathan flinched but didn't move. "What do you want?"

Her smile widened. "You."

The room shifted. The walls pulsed, the shadows deepened, and suddenly, Nathan wasn't standing on solid ground. The floor beneath him rippled, that same black liquid from his nightmares pulling at his feet. His mother's form twisted, her limbs elongating, her fingers sharpening into claws.

"Come home, Nathan," she rasped, her voice no longer human. "Stay with me."

He stumbled back, his mind screaming at him to wake up, to escape. But this wasn't a dream.

Nathan took a deep breath and did the only thing he could.

He let go.

Of the guilt. Of the fear. Of the past that had haunted him for so long.

"You're not real," he repeated, louder this time. "You're just a memory."

The figure shrieked, its form flickering, distorting. The house trembled, the whispers turning into wails. Nathan shut his eyes, blocking it all out. He focused on what was real—his heartbeat, his breath, the warmth of the living world waiting beyond these walls.

When he opened his eyes again, the house was empty.

The shadows had retreated. The whispers had faded.

The past had finally let him go.

Nathan turned and walked away, never looking back.