Static

Every night at 1:13 AM, the radio turned on.

Julia had lived in the apartment for just over a week when it started. At first, she thought it was interference from a neighbor, or maybe an old alarm setting on the vintage radio left behind by the previous tenant. But there were no alarms. No power cords. And no batteries inside.

Just static.

Heavy, hissing static — like the sound of deep space trying to speak.

The first few nights, she unplugged it. Still, it crackled to life at exactly 1:13.

So she moved it into the hallway closet and shut the door.

That night, it was louder.

Not just static anymore.

There were voices inside it.

She couldn't make out the words. Only the rhythm — fast, frantic, sometimes almost sobbing. Sometimes laughing.

And every night, it got closer.

On the seventh night, Julia listened closely.

She wrote down what she heard:

“Turn around.”

She didn’t.

The next morning, she asked the landlord about the apartment’s history.

“Oh, that place?” he said, lowering his voice. “Yeah, bit of a story. The last tenant — Eleanor — was quiet. Lived alone. Never missed rent. One night she just… disappeared. No note. No sign of struggle. Just gone. All she left was that radio.”

Julia asked, “Did they ever find her?”

The landlord shook his head. “It was like she never existed.”

Julia didn’t sleep that night.

The radio hissed on cue.

1:13 AM.

This time, she sat beside it. Eyes closed. Breath held.

She asked, “What do you want?”

The static twisted.

“Help.”

She pressed record on her phone. The voice repeated it.

“Help me.”

Her fingers trembled. “How?”

The radio screamed.

Not a sound. A scream — guttural, human, but not from the living.

Then silence.

And in that silence, Julia heard another voice.

Her own.

But younger.

“I didn’t mean to,” it said.

Julia froze.

She hadn’t heard that voice in twenty years.

Not since the fire.

Not since the night her childhood home burned down — with her little sister locked inside.

Everyone said it was an accident. An old heater. Faulty wiring.

But Julia remembered more.

The fight. The door slamming. Her locking it from the outside. “I need space!” she’d yelled. Her sister, sobbing on the other side. Then smoke.

She had never told anyone.

Now, the radio knew.

That night, Julia dreamed of her sister. Not as a child, but grown — with her same eyes, her same smirk. She stood at the foot of Julia’s bed, wrapped in smoke and shadow.

“You left me,” she said.

“I was a kid,” Julia cried. “I didn’t know—”

“You did.”

She woke up screaming.

The radio was beside her.

She hadn't moved it.

The dial turned on its own. The static sharpened into a melody — a lullaby their mother used to hum. The one she sang to them both before bedtime.

Julia wept.

She stood up, picked up the radio, and walked out.

She drove two hours to the ruins of the old house. Nothing but a broken chimney and blackened earth remained. She placed the radio where her sister’s room used to be.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered.

The radio hissed.

Then stopped.

The dial turned to OFF.

For the first time in eight nights, it stayed quiet.

Julia sat in silence for a long time, watching the stars. The wind moved through the trees like a breath held too long.

When she finally stood to leave, she noticed something beside the radio.

A charm bracelet.

Melted, but unmistakable.

Her sister’s.

She picked it up, holding it to her heart.

No whispers followed.

Just stillness.

The next tenant in Apartment 2B would find the place peaceful. Quiet. Almost too quiet.

Except for one odd thing.

At exactly 1:13 AM every night…

The radio would turn on.

Just for a second.

And play a lullaby..