Chapter 2 Echoes

I stared at the note in my hand longer than I meant to.

I saw you too.

Those four words crawled under my skin like ice.

The house was silent—too silent. The refrigerator hummed softly, the clock ticked, but everything else felt suspended, as if the air itself was waiting for me to react.

“This isn’t possible,” I whispered.

But the paper didn’t disappear. It didn’t blur or fade or crumble. It just sat there, neat and deliberate, written in a handwriting that should’ve been buried with someone who never had a proper grave.

I forced myself to breathe. In, out. Slowly.

Someone had been in my house.

That thought hit harder than the postcard itself.

Someone had come inside while I was gone.

Someone had left a note on the windowsill… for me to find alone.

I swallowed hard and grabbed my phone.

Unknown Number — 1 Missed Call

My chest tightened.

I pressed it, praying the voicemail didn’t contain the voice I’d tried to forget for years.

No voicemail.

But the call time—7:02 a.m.—was exactly when I’d been standing in the doorway staring at the playground photo.

My stomach flipped.

The phone buzzed suddenly in my hand.

Unknown Number calling…

My blood went cold.

I hesitated, then answered slowly. “Hello?”

A faint crackle.

A long pause.

Breathing.

“Who is this?” I whispered.

Nothing.

The breath on the other end shifted—soft, shallow, almost familiar.

I was about to hang up when a voice finally came through.

“Elena.”

A boy’s voice. Older, broken at the edges. A voice that pulled me backward through time like a hand around my throat.

My fingers trembled. “Who are you?”

Static. Then the line went dead.

I stood there, phone pressed against my cheek, long after the screen turned dark.

It couldn’t be K.

I knew that.

Logic knew that.

Reality knew that.

But my heart… my heart had never really believed he was gone.

I made a second cup of coffee just to keep my hands busy. The kitchen felt too big, too bright, too watchful. Every window felt like an eye. Every creak felt like a warning.

The note sat on the table in front of me. I didn’t want to look at it, but I couldn’t look away either.

I couldn’t tell Mark. He’d call it stress. Exhaustion. My “overactive imagination,” as he liked to label anything from my past that made him uncomfortable.

He already thought I was fragile.

He didn’t need more proof.

At 11:45, I grabbed my bag and left for my shift at the diner. The walk helped settle my nerves—it always did. Four blocks of normal: trimmed hedges, mailboxes, teenagers biking too fast, Mrs. Henderson’s cat sprawled on the sidewalk like royalty.

Everything looked ordinary.

Which somehow made everything worse.

At the diner, Liv noticed immediately.

“You look like someone told you ghosts are real,” she said, tying her apron. “What happened?”

I poured coffee for table six. “Rough morning.”

“Mark being a jerk again?”

“Not this time.”

“So… kid stuff? Work stuff? Existential stuff?”

I hesitated. I could tell her everything—the postcard, the phone call, the note—but the words wouldn’t come. Saying it aloud felt dangerous, like I’d break something delicate inside me.

“Just tired,” I said.

She snorted. “You always say that.”

“Because I’m always tired.”

Liv leaned in, lowering her voice. “You know you can tell me anything, right?”

I nodded, but didn’t speak. Not yet.

She gave me a long look, then patted my shoulder. “If some creep is bothering you, I can bring my pepper spray collection.”

I laughed despite myself. “I’ll let you know.”

But I didn’t show her the postcard. I didn’t show anyone.

After work, I walked home slowly, studying the street. Every sound made me jump. A dog barking down the block. A distant car horn. Leaves skittering across the pavement.

Nothing unusual.

But Sophie had seen someone.

And I had seen someone.

My pulse picked up the closer I got to my house.

Halfway up the path, I stopped.

Something was tied to the trunk of the tree across the road.

A piece of paper? A ribbon? No—something thicker.

I glanced around. No people. No cars. The neighborhood was still.

I stepped closer.

My heart pitched forward.

It was a photograph.

Old. Corners soft and bent. Weathered like it had been handled too many times.

Two children on a playground.

A girl with dark braids.

A boy with messy hair and a crooked grin.

Us.

Me and K.

I swallowed hard and reached for it. My fingertips brushed the edge of the photo—and that’s when I saw it.

Red ink.

A circle drawn around both our faces.

And beneath it, written in the same looping handwriting:

You’re remembering now.

My breath hitched.

“Who did this?” I whispered, looking wildly around the street.

No one.

Not a soul.

Just the maple tree creaking gently in the breeze, as if shrugging off my fear.

I snatched the photo, shoved it into my bag, and hurried inside, locking the door behind me.

My hands shook so violently I brushed them against my jeans to steady them.

Someone knew about K.

Someone knew the exact playground.

The exact photo.

The exact handwriting.

Someone wanted me to remember things I’d tried to bury for fifteen years.

But why now?

Why after all this time?

And why me?

I pulled out the photograph again, studying the boy’s face.

K had smiled like the world couldn’t touch him.

But the message written below us wasn’t playful.

It wasn’t nostalgic.

It was a threat.

You’re remembering now.

Remembering what?

The splash?

The scream?

The moment I turned back and saw nothing but ripples?

Or the part even I had tried to forget—that some part of me had always doubted the story they told me.

K never slipped.

K never drowned by accident.

Someone had been there.

Someone who didn’t want me to remember.

Until now.

A soft knock sounded behind me.

I jumped so hard the photo nearly flew from my hands.

It wasn’t the door.

It came from inside the house.

From upstairs.

My blood ran cold.

“Sophie?” I called, voice tight.

No answer.

Another knock.

Light. Delicate.

Like fingernails tapping wood.

My throat closed.

“Sophie?” I tried again.

Silence.

I forced my feet to move toward the stairs, my heart pounding so loudly it drowned out every other sound.

Halfway up, I froze.

A door creaked open on the second floor.

Not Sophie’s room.

Not the bathroom.

The storage room.

The one we never used.

The one we always kept shut.

The one that had no reason to be open.

A whisper of cold air drifted down the stairs.

And then—

A soft, low voice, almost too faint to be real, called my name.

“Elena…”