"Echoes of the Vanished"

🎧Disappeared Echo Episode 1: "The Day the Wind Stops"

[Sound Scenery: Soft Wind from the Trees. Low, repeat total. Mashing it into gravel. ]

Narrator (Calm, Reflective): When I left Willow Creek, I never came back. t is not for a funeral, not for a funeral. ven when my mother passed away. I sent flowers. I didn't go. 20 years later... Email changed everything. [sound: Keyboard typing. ] Narrator: No subject. Here is no sender name. > and attached - blurry photos of a child. ark hair. ide, non-fashionable eyes. I Stand in front of an abandoned station, but grew up every day. ate? August 3rd, 2005.

II was on the ship on the Greyhound and left town forever. [Music fades in: slow, ambient piano. Toiling. ]

Narrator: This podcast is a story about memory. About the secrets that twist and change over time. nd about children who probably should never exist. [Title Queue: ireless static. oor opening. ]

Narrator: Willow Creek hasn't changed much. as station.iner.

SI am an old face - if less than now. Passed a hollow elementary school that continued to excavate fires under no-rain skies. ut it wasn't nostalgia that brought me back. That's right. he girl in the photo.

[sound: Old cassette click. he play button will be pressed. ] Diary Band - August 3, 2005 (young voice): Today felt strange. s if the sky was meant to take your breath. [static. ]

Narrator: This voice? hat's me. hese ligaments were found in a box in mother's attic. I don't remember taking them. ut those times are there. feigned head.ear. dream. a. nd a name I don't recognize.

Segment 2: Cast cops [Sound: Coffee. D. iner Bell Ring. A]

Narrator:

I met Officer Lakinley on a diner on Route 9.

He has been at PD Willow Creek since 1998. n everyday man and a khaki Niorne. e knew my mother. He told me he was baking cherry cake. I asked him if he remembered the missing child in the summer of 2005. t's probably not the first time the case has slipped through a crack. "Narrator: I showed him the photo. [Musiksting:

NARRATOR: I appeared again. She did appear like me. Or like a model of me.

But I don't have any reminiscence of that picture graph being taken.

And no reminiscence of that dress — a purple sundress with white stars.

SEGMENT 3: THE TEACHERS MEMORY [Sound: Classroom ambience — faint echo, chalk writing, children giggling.]

NARRATOR:

Mrs. Deering turned into my second-grade teacher.

Shes seventy eight now, lives in a residence complete of books and dried lavender. When I asked her if she remembered something atypical from that summer, her fingers trembled a bit. MRS. DEERING (soft, growing older voice):

“There turned into a lady. Quiet. Always sat on my own for the duration of lunch. But once I went to test the antique elegance rosters… her call wasn`t there. In fact, no person recalls her at all. But I do.”

[Sound: Pages flipping. Faint heartbeat layered under.]

MRS. DEERING:

“She drew pix of… a teach on fire. Every unmarried day. Always that teach. Always burning.”

SEGMENT

: THE TUNNEL

[Soundscape: Underground tunnel reverb. Water dripping. [Flashlight clicks on.]

NARRATOR: Beneath the teaching station, there's an admission to the tunnel that runs for miles. We used to dare to move in whilst we were kids. I hadn't known about it in years, until the picture graph led me here. At the some distance cease of the tunnel, etched into the brick wall:

A call. Repeated dozens of times.

“LENA.”

[Sound: Sharp inhale. Tape recorder rewind. A girl`s voice repeats the name “Lena” softly.]

NARRATOR:

That voice?

Not mine.

But its on my antique diary tape. Who turned into Lena?

Why does she sound like me?

And why does no person forget her? ---

SEGMENT 5: DREAM OR MEMORY?

[Music: Slow, dreamy lullaby over a bed of static.]

NARRATOR:

That night, I dreamt of the station.

Of a lady in a purple dress.

She stood at the tracks, observing me, as a teacher rushed in the direction of her — however, the teacher by no means hit her. It just... surpassed through.

I woken sweating. Under my pillow turned into a small scrap of purple fabric.

White stars.

[Beat of silence.]

NARRATOR:

I stay on my own.

No one was in my room. --- ### SEGMENT 6: THE PSYCHIATRISTS FILE [Sound: Archive room. File drawers are opening. Papers rustling.]

NARRATOR: In the neighborhood archives, I determined something atypical. A sealed psychiatric assessment below my call, age 11.

Marked confidential.

Inside?

Drawings of a lady.

Descriptions of a “shadow twin” I insisted observed me.

A lady named Lena.

[Sound: Voice recorder — therapist session.]

THERAPIST (muffled tape):

“She claims Lena eats her thoughts. That she wakes up with no memories. This will be dissociative in nature.”

NARRATOR: What if Lena wasn't imaginary? What if I changed into Lena?

OUTRO: THE MISSING GIRL IN THE MIRROR

[Music swells: Low cello, slow heartbeat rhythm under ambient tones.]

NARRATOR: The deeper I dig, the more actual she becomes. Not a ghost. Not a memory.

But part of me — buried beneath layers of forgotten truths and suppressed voices. [Sound: Mirror breaking.]

NARRATOR:

Next week, I`ll talk to a person who claims to have visible Lena… simply ultimate year.

A girl of equal age. Who hasn't aged in decades.

Is she nevertheless right here in Willow Creek?

Was she ever?

Or am I simply chasing echoes of myself?

[Theme music rises — eerie lullaby returns.]

NARRATOR:

This is Echoes of the Vanished.

I`m Santo Halder.

Until subsequent time…

preserve your eyes open.

And query what you remember.