The air in the house grew heavier as the days passed. It wasn’t just the oppressive silence, or the occasional whispers that seemed to drift through the walls. Something had changed, something had shifted. The ghost, once a quiet presence that lingered in the corners of my life, had become more… urgent. More desperate.

  I had gotten used to the strange noises — the creaking of the floorboards, the flickering lights, the occasional chill that swept through the house like a cold breath. But now, things were different. It wasn’t the same as before. I could feel it in my bones, in the way the temperature seemed to drop unexpectedly, the way every room felt colder than it should.

  One evening, after a long day of sifting through my sister’s belongings, I came home to a strange sound. At first, I thought it was just the wind — a gust pushing through the cracks of the windows, maybe. But when I stepped into the living room, I froze.

  The radio was on. Not just on, but bring — static filling the air like a harsh scream. The volume was turned all the way up, loud enough to shake the walls. My heart started racing as I rushed to turn it off. But when I reached the radio, my hand froze just inches from the knob. The static seemed to hum with something else — a presence, almost as if it were alive. A low hum, a pulse, like something trying to communicate.

  I swallowed hard, my breath shallow. This wasn’t like the faint crackling I’d heard before. It felt purposeful, like the radio itself was trying to tell me something. I pressed the button to turn it off, and after a moment, the static fell silent, leaving only the steady thrum of my own heartbeat.

  But that wasn’t the end of it. That night, things only escated.

  It started with the doors. I had just finished dinner, sitting at the table with my half-eaten pte of food when I heard it. The sound of a door smming shut somewhere in the house. I jumped, my stomach flipping over as I stood up, gncing around. The hallway was empty. The door to the bathroom was closed, but nothing was out of pce.

  Confused, I shrugged it off. It had to be the wind again, right?

  But then it happened again. A loud, forceful sm that echoed through the entire house. I rushed down the hallway, my pulse quickening. I found the front door wide open, the cold night air rushing in. I hadn’t left it open. I knew I hadn’t. I rushed to shut it, my hands trembling as I pulled it closed with more force than necessary.

  “Not now,” I whispered to myself, trying to calm my nerves. The cold air still lingered in the house, the weight of something invisible pressing against me. The house felt alive in a way it hadn’t before. A presence — something that wasn’t quite human — was making itself known.

  Later that night, when I went to check the mirrors, I found something that made my stomach drop.

  The bathroom mirror was fogged up, but not in the usual way. There were words. Scratched into the fog as if something had written them with a finger. I stared at the misty gss, my mind racing. The words were simple, but they were enough to stop me in my tracks.

  “It’s not over.”

  My pulse quickened. I wiped the fog away, but the message didn’t vanish. Instead, it seemed to linger, almost like the words were embedded in the gss, etched there with some invisible force. I reached out and touched the mirror, feeling the cool surface under my fingers. My reflection stared back at me, wide-eyed and uncertain.

  It wasn’t just my imagination. Something was happening. Something was trying to communicate with me. But what? What did it want from me?

  That night, as I y in bed, unable to shake the feeling that I wasn’t alone, I heard something else — a sound that sent a chill down my spine. A tap, tap, tap against the window. I shot up from bed and rushed to the window, heart hammering in my chest.

  There was nothing there.

  I let out a shaky breath and turned away, but the tap, tap, tap came again — louder this time, almost like it was coming from inside the room.

  My eyes darted around the room, searching for any sign of movement. There was none. Just the stillness of the night.

  And then, as if on cue, the radio turned on again. This time, it wasn’t static. It was music — slow, haunting, and somehow familiar. I could hear the faint, distant strains of a lulby, the same lulby my mother used to sing to me when I was a child. The music pyed, low and mournful, as if it were being pyed from a distant memory.

  My breath hitched. There was no way the radio had picked this song by accident. It was as if my sister was speaking to me, trying to tell me something. But what?

  I rushed to the radio, smming the button to turn it off. But it didn’t turn off. The dial spun wildly, the volume rising, as the music got louder, more insistent. I pulled the plug, yanking it out of the wall. The music stopped immediately, leaving an eerie silence in its wake.

  I colpsed onto the couch, my head spinning. I had to make sense of this. My sister wasn’t just haunting me. She was trying to communicate, trying to tell me something important — something that was still out of reach.

  The next day, I went to the church. I had to. I had heard rumors of a pce where the town’s secrets were hidden, and I couldn’t ignore it any longer. The church donation box, an old wooden box with a rusted lock, was where the st tape had been found.

  I walked through the empty church, the air thick with dust and the scent of old wood. My footsteps echoed in the vast space, bouncing off the high ceilings as I made my way to the back. There, nestled in the corner, was the donation box — old and weathered, with a faded sign that read, “For the Future.”

  I reached inside and pulled out an envelope, one with my name written on it in bold, frantic handwriting. The paper was crinkled, like it had been stuffed into the box in a hurry. My hands trembled as I tore it open, revealing another tape. The same kind of tape my sister had left for me before.

  I stood there for a long moment, the weight of the tape in my hand heavy with the unspoken words it held. Whatever was on that tape — whatever secret my sister had uncovered — it was closer than ever to being revealed.

  And I was ready to hear it.