Speaker 1: The call came on a Tuesday morning, just after I
poured my first coffee. It was an unknown number with
the rural area code. I didn't recognize. I almost let
it ring out. Nothing good, it ever comes from a
stranger calling before nine a m. But something in me
picked up. Anyway, who's this, ethan, A man asked. His
voice was steady and official. Yea, I said, who is this? Missus,
Sheriff Talbot, Redwood County. I'm sorry to contact you like this, Sun.
We've recovered a woman's body in the state forest. Your sister.
You're listed as the closest next of kin. I actually
laughed one short, confused breath. You've got the wrong guy.
A pause, then pages rustling. Her name was Sarah Morecraft,
my last name. I sat down a little too quickly.
My coffee sloshed over the rim o. K. Well, that's
definitely not me, I said, I don't have a sister.
I've never had a sister. He paused for a moment.
Your mother was Angela Morecraft corrects, I said she died
three years ago, and your father alive, but he lives
in Nevada. Now we don't talk much. Talbot cleared his
throat well, sir, I understand this is difficult, but our
office already ran a preliminary DNA test. The State Lab
sent the results thirty minutes ago. The deceased woman is
a full biological sibling match ninety nine point nine nine percent.
The room tilted for a second. I thought the sheriff
might have misread something, mixed up files, contaminated samples, or
maybe there's a glitch in whatever software they used. Look,
I began trying to keep any panic from my voice.
I'm an only child, always have been. My dad would
have mentioned something like this, like a dead daughter, my mom.
I cut myself off. She wasn't here to clarify anything.
I understand. Talbot said, but the state doesn't normally get
these things wrong. I'm afraid will need you to come
down and formally identify the next of kin. My brain
snagged on the phrase like it was written in another language.
Formerly identify the next of kin? How was I supposed
to identify some one I didn't even know existed? Identify
her how? I asked quietly in person. He said, when
you see her yourself, we'll know more. His words stuck
with me long after the call ended. When you see yourself,
we'll know more. The implication wasn't subtle. Whoever she was,
whoever I apparently shared blood with, they thought I would
recognize her. I drove six hours to Redwood County. It
was a nowhere town that didn't even bother with a
welcome sign. It was surrounded by forests, littered with gas stations,
and a stretch of road that looked like they'd been
forgotten by time and funding. The sheriff met me outside
the building. It was an older guy with a drooping
mustache and a wrinkled face that looked like it had
been whittled out of pine bark. He nodded and led
me through a side entrance into the coroner's suite. I'd
expect it to be like what you see on TV,
with high tick equipment and bright white tiles, but instead
I was greeted with a concrete floor, lilonium walls, and
the smell of preserved meat and bleach that has salted
my nose. She isn't draw six, the coroner said quietly.
A woman mid fifties. Maybe her badge read Dr Elkins.
I followed her to the wall of refrigerated units. She
glanced at me, like she was waiting for me to
give her a reason now to do this. I didn't.
She pulled open the drawer. The moment I saw the body,
my stomach turned cold. She was about thirty maybe thirty five, skin, pale,
lips drawn back, dark hair, brittle and sunken around a jaw.
There was something about her face that it wasn't quite alien.
If anything, it was worse than that. She looked like
my mother, close enough that I instinctively took a step back.
Same nose, same curve of the cheekbones, same slightly offcenter
parting of her hair. But there was something wrong beneath
the familiarity. Her frame was frail, like she gone years
without proper food. Her ribs rose like piano keys beneath
her skin, fingers bone thin and curved, like they've been
clenched for too long, and a skin grayish waxy, was
marred by little patches of what looked like hardened scarring
around the nose and mouth. Elkins noticed me staring calcified
scar tissue in the lungs. Probably longtime exposure to mineral
heavy dust could be a fungal build up. Honestly, we
haven't seen anything like it outside of old mining accidents,
She paused, Do you have any idea how this happened?
I shook my head. I hadn't even known she existed
a few days ago. Sorry, she said gently, didn't mean
to push. The sheriff stepped closer and handed me a
sealed evidence bag. Inside was a small, water damaged polaroid.
It looked like it had been clutched tight for years, creased,
torn in one corner, yellowed at the edges. I turned
it over. It was me, five years old, bowl cut,
missing front teeth, standing in the grass somewhere with a
toy plane in my hand. Next to me was a
girl about my age, smiling, holding my hand like we'd
done it a hundred times. The background was a blur
of summer the corner of the house I barely recognized.
I didn't remember taking that photo. I didn't remember her,
but there we were, like siblings, like we belonged together.
I told myself a hundred times I was going to
sell the house after Mom died. I even had a
reel to and stand by keys and a manilla envelope
business card paper clip to the top, but I never
followed through. Every time I tried. Something in me locked up.
My chest became heavy, and it was like I was
abandoning my parents, my childhood, everything that used to feel solid.
It wasn't logical. I knew she was gone. I knew
the house couldn't hold on to them, not really, but
some part of me I still believed that as long
as I had the keys, as long as the furniture
stayed where they left it, I hadn't lost everything. So
when I got back from Redwood County, that's where I went.
The house was still how I'd left it. Sheets over
the furniture, A faint trace of Mom's perfumed still lingered
on the carpet. Every room carried a memory, like wallpaper,
but now that wallpaper felt thinner, brittle, like if I
peeled back the right corner, something else might be underneath.
I started in the living room. Her storage stops were
still stacked behind the couch, labeled in neat cursive X
mess important papers, Ethan's school and photos. That was the
one I grabbed first. I sat cross legged on the floor,
a plastic tub between my knees, and flipped through album
after album, baby pictures, birthday parties, school photos, smiles, and
crown drawings aneast the basket, But somewhere around age three,
the timeline blurred. Photos were missing, Whole pages had been
ripped out, slices of times gone without explanation, No photos
between Halloween of ninety three and the summer of ninety seven,
just blank spots, torn stops where glue once held something real.
I checked three more albums, same thing, age three to
seven erased gone. I had to wonder had my mom
done this? Was she trying to hide something? Or had
it been Dad? I could almost hear his voice my head, annoyed, impatient.
Why I tick up the past? Nothing good comes from there.
The thing is I wasn't digging, I was remembering, or
trying to. It was nearly midnight by the time I
finished tearing through the boxes and albums. I didn't want
to stay the night. The house didn't feel like mine anymore.
It was still the same layout. I grew up in
the same walls and corners, but without them there it
felt hollow. But I hadn't slept much since the morgue,
and the highway back to the city was all curves
and blind turns. I didn't want to risk it, not
with the rain starting to spit and streak the windows,
so I stayed. The air mattress I kept rolled in
the trunk was still there, along with the sleeping bag
and a half dead flashlight. I inflated it in what
used to be the den, hardwood floor, high ceilings, and
the dusty ghost of where the couch used to be.
The smell in the house had turned damp, like wet
cardboard and neglected drains. I had to wipe the floor
down with a dish towel just to make room. The
silence pressed in. Once I lay down, I left the
hallway light on, just in case. I don't know when
I fell asleep. I just remember waking to a voice.
It whispered my name, faintly, softly, almost playful, coming from
somewhere down the hall. I froze for a moment, holding
my breath to listen out, but there was only silence.
I sat up, reached for my phone to trick the time.
It was three a m. That was when I saw them.
There were bare, muddy footprints tracking across the wood floor
from the kitchen, leading from the back door. They were small,
too small to be mine, too wide apart to be
a child crawling. They ended at the edge of my
air mattress, right at the corner where my head had
been moments earlier, and there were no prints going back.
I stood slowly, not breathing hard, smashing my ribs, and
backed into the kitchen. I flicked on the overhead light.
The back door was locked, dead, bolt in place, no
windows broken, no wind, no creaking. I pulled out my
phone and opened the app for the old security cameras.
I had installed them right after month passed. They were cheap,
motion sensitive ones, just enough to spook off any squatters
or drifters. The house had sat vacant too long, and
I didn't trust people not to take advantage. The feed
from the backyard loaded first at two point fifty am.
The camera glitched for just a frame. Then the back
door opened slowly, no one in sight. Then something entered, small,
crouched low like an animal. Its outline shimmered like heat
on pavement, and then the feed glitched again, static blooming
across the screen, and the door was closed. Nothing else.
I screwked back and forth, pausing at the exact frame
where the things stepped through. There was no shape to it,
but there was a shadow and the shadow reached out
to touch the door frame like it was routine. I
turned half, expecting something to be standing in the room
behind me, empty, except the footprints were try now crackling
like they'd been there for hours. I went still. The
whisper came again, closer, this time you forgot me. I
spent most of the morning sitting in the same chair
I used to eat cereal in as a kid, staring
out the window like I expected the trees to spell
something out for me. When I finally dialed, I already
knew what he'd say, but I needed to hear it.
He picked up on the third ring. Yeah, Dad, I said,
it's me. I pause. So everything okay? No, I said,
not even close. I could already hear the defensiveness loading
behind his silence. I need to ask you something, and
I need you to tell me the truth. No nonsense,
he sighed heavy through the receiver. It's about your mother's
house again, No, I said, it's about my sister. That
word landed hard. I heard it hit him. Something shifted
in the way he breathed, but his voice didn't break
when he replied, you don't have a sister. There was
a body found in Redwood County. A woman I was
listed as the closest next of kin. The state ran
a DNA test. She was a ninety nine point nine
nine percent sibling match. That's not possible, he said, instantly,
too quick. It's a mistake. They mix things up all
the time, you know they don't, and you're dodging. I'm
not dodging anything, he snapped. There was no sister, There
was no other kid. If this is some scam or
some prank, I don't want anything to do with it.
I forced myself to stay calm. Then explain the photo,
I said, the one she was holding, it's me five
years old with her and all the photo albums in
the house of the same years. Ripped out like someone
wanted to eraise her silence longer this time. Then, jeez,
you sound like your mother, he muttered, digging into things.
I don't matter. She was always like that, making stories
out of shadows. He was unraveling. Dad. I said, just
tell me the truth. I am telling you, he said louder. Now,
there was never a daughter, just you. That's it. You
understand me. I opened my mouth, but the line went dead.
He hung up. I stared at the phone in shock,
pardon me. Hoped he would call back, but he didn't.
I opened my laptop and started digging. The county clerk's
website was a mess, but with the right filters and
an address I'd memorized decades ago, I found what I
was looking for. It was a public record, dated twenty
seven years ago, filed under Angela Morecraft report type missing
person minor name redacted, juvenile protection relation daughter age five.
Case status closed withdrawn by father, child's safety accounted for,
signed Richard Morecraft. Time elapsed forty eight hours. She tried
to report it. He made it disappear, just like her.
Around sunset, I heard a small, sharp tap from the
back hallway, then another, then a third, closer, like some
one drumming their finger nails along the wall while they walked.
I rose and listened, but there was nothing. Then there
was a whisper, so faint. I wasn't sure if it
was my imagination, hey soft, Curious as if testing the air,
I grabbed my keys and went straight to the front door.
Twisted the knob, but it didn't budge. I threw my
shoulder into it. Nothing, not even a rattle. Cold crept
up my back. I tried the back door, then the windows.
I even hauled a dining chair and smashed it against
the largest pane. The chair just bounced. The glass didn't
even tremble. On the final impact, the room exhaled a low,
vibrating groan from the walls that felt disappointed. That's when
the house went quiet, a sealed space, quiet, like someone
had wrapped the place in cotton. And then came the
second whisper, closer, don't leave yet. I backed into the
living room, chest tight. The lights dimmed, and that when
everything started. More taps, faster, sharper, scratching, racing along the
walls in erratic loops, then pounding, pounding hard, like fists
beating from the inside of the walls trying to break out.
The lights flickered with each strike. I stumbled backwards and
something cold wrapped around my ankle. I screamed and fell,
kicking instinctively. Nothing there but the imprint stayed, a perfect
child size handprint, pale against my skin. I scrambled under
the couch, panting, clutching my shirt. Then the ceiling above
me began to weep, water, thick drops falling hard enough
to splatter against the floorboards. Metallic smell hit me instantly.
I gagged through the dripping. I heard something else beneath
the floor, sobbing, her child sobs muffled but unmistakable, shaking
the wooden planks beneath my feet. I didn't want to move,
but the house forced me to feel it. Suddenly, the
back door creaked open. It wasn't forced open by anything,
just wide open, like it had been waiting for me
to notice. I didn't think. I ran. The yard was
still wet with rain, grass slick under my shoes. As
I cut toward the shed. It was pure instinct, some
half formed belief that if I got outside, she couldn't follow,
as if ghosts respected thresholds behind me. I swear I
heard her footsteps match mine. I ran too, She whispered.
The footsteps kept pace, so I changed tact and looked
for somewhere to hide. I remembered my old spot, the
place I go to when I was overwhelmed as a kid,
the shed. I threw open the shed door and slammed
it shot behind me, latched it. Even though the wood
was soft from water, dammich like that would stop anything
inside the air was thick with rust and dust, everything
smelled old and sour. I tried to catch my breath,
but she kept speaking. I hid too, she said, I
thought it would keep me safe. Something in me recoiled.
I was running on pure instinct, but according to her,
I was doing everything as planned, following a route she
had as a child. Outside. The footsteps returned slow, deliberate,
circling the shed. If I was being predictable, then I
needed to throw things off. As a kid, the tool
closet was my go to spot, big enough that you
could sit in there for hours, and out of the
way for anyone not looking too hard. It was the
first place i'd run, so I made sure to dart
past it. He was relentless. The game would stop if
I asked, but this time he was determined to catch me.
The footsteps paused at the door. I scanned the shed.
There were crates along the wall, old reinforced toolboxes. I
moved toward them, desperate for something, anything that might buy
me seconds. If I was still a kid, i'd fit
in with ease, but it took me a few attempts
to squeeze in. I slipped the lid over and held
my breath. I thought I was being smart when I
avoided the tool closet. We always used that spot when
we were desperate. In total black, my heart raised. I
felt like there was nothing I could do to avoid
this predetermined path, forced into following her steps before her demise.
He walked in, called my name. I didn't answer. The
footsteps softened. I couldn't hear where she was. Then bang,
a strike rang out across the wood. I felt like
my heart would stop from the shock, thinking it was
her way of saying I got you. But then another
bang sounded on the crate, then another. I didn't know
what was happening until she carried on her tail. He said,
that's better, she murmured and started sealing me in the
reality of what she was doing. Kicked in. When I
felt the tip of a poorly placed nail dig into
my side. I screamed and threw my shoulder against the lid.
It didn't move. I kicked, pushed. The crate wouldn't budge,
no give, like the walls were holding me down, not
that I could get much perch with how cramped the
crate was. I begged, She whispered. I told him I'd
be good. I told him I'd be quiet. He didn't listen.
The crate shifted, tilted, then lifted. I was moving, jolted
across the shed floor, the world tilting. He drove me far,
she said, I don't know how long. I couldn't scream
any more. My voice was gone, tears blurred, everything scraping
from inside the crate, something that wasn't me, something with
too many fingers. I felt the little space I had
in the crate fill impossibly with some thing that felt
like skin, ice cold against my face, and the voice
that I had only been hearing muffled from outside the
crate spoke clearly from inside, so that I could feel
the cold breath of my nose. When I couldn't scream,
I started dreaming, and when I dreamed, they heard me.
It's hard to say how long I was in the crate.
Time didn't pass normally. In their second stretched hours collapsed.
I started counting breaths just to keep my mind from breaking,
but I lost track somewhere around five hundred. The air
went stale, my knees ached from being folded too long,
Sweat soaked through my shirt, and every few minutes, something
inside the wood would twitch or creak, not like old wood, settling,
but like it was breathing with me. Please stop, I begged.
The voice that came back wasn't sympathetic. That's what I
said too. Before I was buried. Her voice croaked, speaking low,
an inch from my ear. The weight above me got heavier.
I could hear the shifting of packed soil, the sound
of roots pushing in through cracks. I started to cry, quietly, bitterly,
and somewhere in the grief, the truth settled in. My
sister was buried alive by her father, and no one
had come for her. I had lived a normal life,
birthday parties, road trips and a decent college. She had
died in a box, forgotten by everyone. And now I
was in her place. And the worst part, I couldn't
even say. She was wrong to put me here. That's
what gutted me the most. You didn't deserve this, I whispered,
none of it. The great creaked. You're just the kid.
I should have known, I should have remembered. I paused,
tried to swallow the lump in my throat. My chest
was shaking. But it wasn't me who did this to you.
It was him silence, but I could feel her listening.
It should have been him inside this box, not you,
not me. The darkness held his breath. You want someone
to suffer for what happened, Fine, so do I, I pleaded.
I waited. A long silence passed his He's still alive.
The voice came from just above my head. Clear. I hesitated, Yes,
another silence, and then the weight started to lift. The
pressure above me eased. Her presence dissipated from the crate.
I could feel the top of the crate were just
blowing inward from the pressure easing. Then I'll make you
a promise, she said, I'll let you live if you
give me him. I paused. Even with everything I'd been through,
some small part of me still clung to the idea
that I was betraying my father. But then I remembered
the missing child report, the photo albums, the sound of
nails being driven in, and the silence that followed. He's
in Nevada, I said, desert Ridge, using the name Edward Fox.
I'll even give you the address. The crate split open,
just opened. Cool night air hit my face like a slap.
I gasped, crawling out into the damp grass under a
sky I hadn't seen in what felt like days. No
one was around, but I knew she'd heard me. When
I pulled myself out, I expected to see the backyard.
I didn't. I was in the woods, deep enough that
the trees blocked most of the sky. Wet leaves clung
to my shirt. My knees buckled as I stood, legs
stiff and shaking from being culled up so long. For
a minute, I just stood there, breathing, was alive. I
turned slowly, taking in my surroundings. That's when I saw
the yellow police tape, fresh still tied to the trunks.
It sagged between two trees like a cautionary whisper. There
was a shallow pit nearby, half filled with disturbed earth.
This was it where they found her. She hadn't taken
me to some memory or symbolic grave. She'd brought me
to the exact place her body had been unearthed, and
somehow she'd made the journey feel like a memory instead
of miles. She'd retrace the path. It took me hours
the hike back to the road longer still to find
someone willing to give me a ride into town. Every
step I took I thought about him, My father, part
of me hoped she was already there, that it was
done that the next time I checked the news, i'd
see a report about a man found dead in his
trailer in Nevada, cause unknown. But part of me didn't
because he was still my father, and even if he
deserved it, I needed to understand why her, Why bury her?
Why make me forget? I borrowed a phone from the
gas station clerk. It took me three tries to dial
the number. He answered on the second ring. His voice
was groggy, probably drinking, maybe sleeping. I didn't care. Hello.
I said nothing at first, not knowing what to say.
Then I simply decided to be blunt. She's coming, silent,
What the hell are you talking about? He snapped, Who
is this? You know who?
Speaker 2: This is?
Speaker 1: Another pause and rustle of movement, like he was sitting
up straighter. Look, you never had a sister drop this nonsense.
Do you understand me? You're being manipulated. I could hear
the panic under the anger. Now you can tell her
that yourself, I said, flat, she's on a way to you.
The silence that followed didn't stretch. It snapped, jeez, he whispered.
It didn't stop. I didn't say anything. He started breathing heavier,
not scared for himself, but scared of something bigger. Listen,
I didn't kill her, he said, not really. I tried
to stop what she was becoming, what she was bringing through.
He spoke like the dam had broken, like he'd been
waiting to say this for years. She was born wrong,
he said, not deformed or something genetic, just off, like
her eyes saw something the rest of us didn't. And
when she talked in her sleep, the walls would sweat.
Do you understand water condensation, like something was breathing on
the other side. At first, I thought she was just disturbed,
maybe even gifted. But the older she got, the worse
it got. Birds stopped nesting near the house, Mirrors walked
around her. She stopped aging. For almost a year. I
felt the blood drained from my face. She told me
things she had no way of knowing. She started to
whisper names at night, names that weren't real, not in
this world. They weren't even pronounceable. And one night I
checked the baby monitor and his voice broke. Something else
was whispering back. I sat down on the curb outside
the gas station. The world felt suddenly too big, like
it was pressing in from all sides. My grandfather left.
Speaker 2: Journals, old country stuff. He always believed some people could
act like like doors, not possessed, just born open, not
even on purpose. Sometimes something just slips through. She was
one of them, a breach. I tried everything, prayers, locks,
psych wards, but she kept getting worse. And then one
day she just stopped. He poured.
Speaker 1: I could hear him swallow. She came to me, calm, smiling,
She said, it's ready. I couldn't risk it, not the world,
not you. So I dealt with it and it worked.
I felt hollow until I told her where you were,
I whispered. He led out a sharp, shaking breath. You
don't understand, she said, that thing needed closure, a story
that ends. You gave it what it wanted. It doesn't
end with me. I'm just the final ritual, the finishing
nail before she begins. If I die, it's loose. There
was a single crack of static on the line, and
then he said something I'll never forget. It wore your
sister like a mask, but it's not her anymore, and
it's not done with you.
Speaker 2: Click.
Speaker 1: The line went dead. The trip home felt like a punishment.
I walked for miles before I found a bus stop,
then another hour before anything came. Transfers, delays, cold benches,
paper coffee cups with films skimming the top, no phone,
no way to check if it had happened yet, if
he was still alive, if he had won. Each hour
that passed pulled me in two directions. Part of me
prayed it was over. Part of me prayed it hadn't
started yet. When I finally reached the house, it was
nearly three in the morning. The place looked the same,
unassuming quiet, like none of it had ever happened. I
opened the door with shaking hands, stepped inside, and quickly
closed it behind me, like I was afraid of what
might follow. The silence hit me first, waited, silence, like
the kind in old churches and deep caves. I found
my charger plugged in my phone. The screen took longer
than usual to wake. The battery ike ipulsed red like
a dying heart. I waited. When it powered on. I
opened the call log. No new calls, no texts, no
mist voice mails, just blank space and times stretching too long.
I sat down on the couch, phone balancing in my palm,
like I might summon an answer. I stared at the screen,
waiting for it to light up, waiting for a message
that said I'm okay. I stopped it, everything will be okay.
But all I got was static pings, old notifications, junk
from apps. I never used a weather warning from a
county I wasn't in anymore, And in the stillness I
noticed something else. The air was damp. I touched the
wall beside me, wet, not the usual humidity, dripping, the
same slow weep I remembered from the nursery, from the crate,
from her, And in the awful, heartsick moment, I realized
I wasn't watching my phone for news anymore. I was
watching it for the reflection, because the glass on the
screen was it's the only place I could see the
window behind me without looking directly. And something had started
to whisper again, soft, high, sweet, almost a lullaby in reverse,
like something humming a song that hadn't been written yet.
I turned the phone just slightly, angling the reflection toward
the far wall, and there she was, just outside the window, smiling.
Her face didn't move like a human's, her skin looked
brittle like porcelain, stretched too thin. Her mouth was smiling,
but her eyes warmed. They were watching me, not in
a malicious way, not fully, just patient, like she'd been
waiting her whole life for this moment. My brain clung
to hope because I made a deal, gave her what
she wanted, thought I'd be free. But I also remembered
what Dad said, when I die, it's loose. It's not
her anymore, and it's not done with you, And now
it's my turn.