TW: Mentions of whipping and physical violence.
I awake to the sound of my phone going off beside me. I roll over to the right, searching through groggy eyes and faint, incorporeal moonlight for my tormentor. The ringtone blares in my ears.
I curse loud and well before, finally, my hand grabs onto something tangible. The glare of my phone screen is blinding in the infinite shadows, and I squint through the burning blue light. It is three in the morning. Who would call me at three in the morning?
I close my eyes, lower the brightness, and open them once more. Even after the fact, I cannot bring myself to truly let go of the things I saw. The things I heard.
The numbers flash across my eyes. Shapes I cannot recognize, colors I could never have imagined in my wildest nightmares dance across the screen of my fading vision. A sickening crack erupts from the ground as my phone crashes on the floor.
I get back in bed. The horrible shapes still linger in my periphery. I rest my head against the wall, staring around me. The room appears darker, as if the walls are closing in on me by the second. The shadows are indifferent to my suffering. Only I exist. I...and the phone.
The hairs begin to rise on my back. Ice creeps up my spine as I reach for the device. It is so bright...I am drawn to it, like a moth to a flame. Knowing I'll be burned, but never able to resist. Hands trembling, I press the button that seals my fate.
"H-hello?"
"Hello?"
The voice sounds rushed, and panicked. As if running from something.
"Who are you?" I ask. My bones turn to ice when I hear the screams in the background.
"Help me! Please!" the person, a female by her voice, screams.
"Where are you?" I ask once more, grabbing a pen and paper to write down her location.
"I don't know where I am-oh God, help me!"
I don't know why, but for some reason her words cut right through my skin. I know this woman, somehow. Somehow. The hairs on my back begin to rise, as if sensing for some dark presence around me.
"Who are you?" I demand, a little bit louder, the pen nearly breaking under the pressure of my fingers. I hear footsteps, but from where?
The sound of a whip and chains can be heard in the background. I close my eyes, trying to focus on the voices. And then I hear it. It is faint, yet loud. Female, yet male. Childish, yet adult. As if every voice in the world was locked into one, final, dissonant chorus of unspeakable horrors.
I inhale, trying to shut out the barrage of thoughts that overtake my mind. I must focus.
"Oh God. I'm sorry...I'm so sorry. Please, I swear, I didn't mean it! It was an accident!"
It was an accident.
It was an accident.
It was an accident.
Somehow, I realize what has happened. The pen drops to the floor, ink bleeding out of the cylinder. Cold fingers brush against my nape.
"Samantha?" I call out, the horror evident in my voice.
"Liam?" she responds, her shock ringing loud and clear.
"Samantha, what's happening?" I shout, the panic continuing to build.
"It's-it's about Tommy. Liam, that wasn't our fault, right? He died of some kind of freak accident. He fell down the stairs or something. Liam, it wasn't our fault."
She repeats the phrase again and again.
"Not our fault. Not our fault. Not our fault."
"Samantha..." my voice falters.
"It's not our fault! Please, tell me it wasn't our fault. It was an accident!"
She shrieks violently. Something that sounds disturbingly like a crash echoes through the tiny chamber I call a bedroom. I can hear her on the other end. The sound of heavy breathing is broken only by a final cry. This time, she tells the truth.
"It's not my fault! Liam spilled the oil all over the staircase. He was mad at Tommy for cheating on me. That's why he slipped! I just covered for him, cleaned it up and stuff! Please, it's not my fault. It's not my fault..."
For years, I have tried to understand what happened that night. Those sounds. Sounds that were a mix of indifferent static and horrified, miserable wailing. Add in just a touch of pure fear, and you'd have something close.
After so long, I have come to the conclusion that the thing was...laughing. I can still feel it. It dances in the corner of my mind, turning into smoke just as I manage to grasp what happened. Every sound, joyous music or heart-felt sobbing, I can never appreciate again.
"Liam, please, help me! Help me Liam! Save me, please. It's not my fault..."
I can do nothing but crumble, as the phone finally disconnects, and my whole world turns dark. As dark as my own soul.
Every night, I hear her. Her pleas, and that thing's laugh.
I punished Tommy for his crimes.
Now, I see him in everything I do. And that is a punishment, all in itself.