Chapter 10 — The Voice That Answered Me

Lina didn't call anyone.

She was sure of that.

And yet, there it was.In her call log.12:04 AM. Outgoing.No number. No name. Just: "Echo."

Her thumb hovered over it for a long time.

Not fear. Not curiosity.

Recognition.

Like a dream you don't remember until someone else starts telling it.

She tapped the call.

No ringing.

No dial tone.

Just sound.

Just her own voice.

"Why'd you leave it like that?"

Her breath caught.

Because it wasn't a voicemail.

It was live.

"Because I had to," the other voice answered.

Same pitch.

Same rhythm.

But not the same person.

Or maybe it was.

Lina didn't speak. Not out loud.

But the voice continued anyway.

"You didn't have to forget it, too."

She opened her mouth. Closed it.

"What is this?"

The question echoed — but not from her. From the voice.

Same inflection. Same hesitancy.

It was like listening to herself from another corridor in time.

"Do you remember the photo booth?"

Lina's knees gave slightly, and she sank to the floor beside her bed.

The strip of photos — still in the notebook. Still not hers. Still hers.

She whispered, "What are you?"

"I'm what you put away."

The room seemed to tilt, just a little. Like gravity had decided to shift elsewhere.

"I don't want this," Lina said.

"Yes, you do," the voice replied.

"I want the truth."

"Then stop watching and start remembering."

The call ended.

No beep. No click.

Just silence.

And then, the phone screen blinked once.A new note appeared in her files — one she didn't write.

Title:"The Things I Promised Myself I'd Never Open."

She didn't touch it.

Not yet.

Not until she understood what it would cost her.

In the morning, Lina walked to the station three blocks down. She hadn't been there in months. Maybe years.

The glass doors opened too early, like they had been waiting.

Inside: empty.

No ticket clerk.

No announcements.

Only a single message blinking across the suspended screen above the main platform.

"ECHO: DELAYED"

"RESUMES UPON CONFESSION"

She left.

Didn't run.

Didn't turn.

But her shadow did.

She saw it in the reflection of the darkened vending machine.Moving just a beat slower than her own steps.

At the apartment, the air felt stretched again.

Not wrong. Just… tight. Like someone had drawn the edges of her life inward.

On the table: a key.

Not hers.

Not new.

Old. Brass. Scratched. With a faded ribbon tied around it — pale yellow, fraying at the edges.

A tag attached:

"You left something behind. Open what you closed."

Lina didn't know what the key unlocked.But her hand wrapped around it like it remembered.

That night, she didn't work.

She stayed home.

She turned off every light except the one above the bathroom mirror.

And waited.

Not for Joon.

Not for the echo.

For the version of herself that used to leave notes in her own handwriting.

At 3:33 AM, her phone lit up.

Message preview:

"Audio file: 'Confession 04'."

No sender.

She pressed play.

There was a hum first. Mechanical. Far away.

Then her voice. Flat. Monotone. Tired.

"If you're listening, it means I failed."

Pause.

"It means you survived."

Lina's throat tightened.

"I left you the photos. The tea. The silence. The numbers."

"I needed you to follow the trail without recognizing it too fast. You always rush when you're scared."

She pressed pause.

Her fingers trembled.

Not from fear.

From clarity.

Because deep down, she had known — this wasn't a story she'd stumbled into.It was one she'd buried. Carefully. Desperately.

And now she was the one digging it back up.

The notebook on her shelf had a page dog-eared.

She didn't remember folding that corner.

When she opened it, a name had been underlined in thick blue ink.

J. Song — emergency contact.

The ink bled slightly.

Not from water.

From time.

In the hallway, the light flickered.

Not randomly.

In code.

Short. Short. Long. Pause.

Lina squinted.

She remembered this.

The old morse pattern she and her sister used as kids when they didn't want their parents to hear what they said at night.

She grabbed a pen.

Translated:

"Almost there. Room 403."

She looked at her door.

Apartment 304.

Room 403 was right above her.

But in her building, the fourth floor had been sealed off for years. No elevator access. No working stairs.

Condemned, they said.

But the light kept blinking.

And inside her notebook, one final line appeared in red pen — the same red as the vending machine graffiti from weeks ago.

She hadn't written it.

But it was in her hand.

"Go up. Don't knock."

She didn't sleep that night.

She didn't even try.

Instead, she sat at the kitchen table, fingers brushing the edge of the key, eyes fixed on nothing. Not the walls. Not the window. Not the notebook.

Just the air in front of her — thick with what hadn't happened yet.

The clock blinked.

4:12 AM.

Every minute after that felt heavier.

She imagined the stairs to the fourth floor.

Dust.

Paint peeled in slow curls.

Doors that hadn't been touched in years.

And somewhere past those — room 403.

A room that shouldn't be waiting.

And yet it was.

She thought of knocking anyway. Of calling out. Of breaking the rules written in her own hand.

But the note had been clear.

Go up. Don't knock.

She stood.

Not quickly. Not dramatically.

Like she was rising into something that already expected her.

The hallway was quieter than usual. Even the hum of the lights seemed to pause for her steps.

She passed 305.

The elevator door.

Stuck open, lightless.

She didn't press the button.

She turned to the stairwell. The sign said "Emergency Exit Only — Alarm Will Sound."

It didn't.

The door opened silently, like it had been unlocked from the other side.

The stairs groaned beneath her, but they held.

Each step up felt like walking into air slightly out of sync with her body — just enough to notice. Just enough to warn.

She reached the landing.

No number on the door.

Just a dent, low near the bottom.

Like someone had once kicked it. Or tried to get out.

She pressed the key into the lock.

It turned.

A sound not of unlocking — but of allowing.

She opened the door.

Room 403 was warm.

Dim.

Lit only by a bedside lamp shaped like an old film projector, casting slow-moving reels of light across the walls.

There were books, stacked high.

A coat, slung over the back of a chair.

Photographs pinned to the corkboard in a strange, spiraled pattern — not a timeline, but a memory-map.

And in the center of the room, on a small desk:

A mirror.

Not hanging. Just resting.

Covered in handwriting — written across the glass.

Backwards, like someone had written it from behind.

She stepped closer.

Each word was her own.

Letters looped in a way her hand remembered before her mind did.

She read the first line.

"Don't try to fix it. Try to feel it."

Then below:

"Every version of you ends here. Every one who left — came back."

Her reflection stared through the ink.

Still her.

Still not her.

She didn't move.

Didn't cry.

Just breathed once, slow and quiet, and whispered:

"…I'm here."

From behind her, the chair creaked.

Someone had been waiting to sit.

Or maybe had never stood up.

She didn't turn.

Not yet.

The mirror blinked.

Her reflection didn't.