Silent Caller

Sam woke with a start, his heart thumping from the sharp buzz of the landline beside his bed. No one ever called that late. Half-asleep, he fumbled for the receiver.

“Hello?”

Silence.

He pressed the phone tighter to his ear. Someone was on the line—he could hear the faint hiss of breath, steady and unhurried, like the ocean at low tide.

“Who is this?” he asked.

The breathing continued.

Annoyed, he slammed the receiver down. Probably a prank. Still, he couldn’t fall back asleep. When dawn came, the memory of that cold breath seemed unreal, like a bad dream.

But the next night, at exactly 3:07 a.m., the phone rang again.

“Listen,” Sam snapped, “I don’t know who you are, but this isn’t funny.”

Silence. Breathing. Then—so faint he thought he imagined it—footsteps, dragging across a wooden floor.

Sam shivered.

The calls came every night. Always at 3:07 a.m. Always silence, except for the breathing. Sometimes slow. Sometimes sharp and panicked, as if the caller were running. Once, he swore he heard a child laugh softly before the line went dead.

Sam told his best friend, Mark, over breakfast.

“It’s some loser messing with you,” Mark said. “Block the number.”

“There is no number,” Sam replied. “The caller ID’s blank.”

Mark smirked. “Old landlines pick up static. You’re stressing yourself out.”

That night, Sam tried unplugging the phone before bed. At 3:07 a.m., the phone still rang—its dead cord swaying like a cut umbilical. Terrified, he smashed it against the wall until the plastic cracked.

He almost wept with relief. Until his cell phone lit up.

Incoming call. Unknown number.

3:07 a.m.

Hands trembling, Sam answered. The same breathing poured into his ear, intimate as someone standing behind him. He flung the phone across the room, but the sound didn’t stop. He could still hear it, faint and ghostly, as if the breath had seeped into the air itself.

By the fifth night, Sam’s nerves were shredded. He barely slept. His apartment, once a safe retreat, now felt like a cage where he was watched.

He began noticing strange details: the curtains swaying when the windows were shut, the feeling of eyes on the back of his neck. At work, exhaustion made him short-tempered. He caught himself staring at clocks, dreading the inevitable moment when the night would turn, and the phone would scream.

On the seventh night, he decided to stay awake and wait. At 3:06 a.m., he sat by the phone, every muscle tense.

3:07. The ring pierced the silence.

He answered immediately. “Who are you? What do you want?”

Breathing. Then a long pause.

A whisper crawled through the line: “Look outside.”

Sam froze. Slowly, he turned his head toward the window. The glass reflected his pale face. Beyond it, the street lay empty, dark except for a flickering streetlamp.

He laughed nervously, convinced it was another prank. But then the whisper returned: “Not there. Behind you.”

Sam spun, his breath catching. No one. Only the dim shape of his living room.

The line clicked dead.

He didn’t sleep at all. The next day, Sam dug through old boxes and found his grandmother’s Bible. He wasn’t religious, but he clutched it like armor.

Mark dropped by that evening. Sam explained everything, his voice cracking.

“You need help, man,” Mark said. “Therapy. Medication. This isn’t healthy.”

“I’m not crazy!” Sam shouted. “I heard it! The voice told me to look behind me!”

Mark frowned, then picked up Sam’s smashed landline. “There’s no power in this thing. It can’t ring.”

Sam’s skin crawled. “But it does.”

That night, Sam left all the lights on. He sat in the kitchen, cell phone on the table. His eyes flicked to the clock every thirty seconds.

3:06. He gripped the table until his knuckles whitened.

3:07. The phone buzzed.

This time, the whisper came immediately. “I’m almost there.”

Sam’s blood iced over. “Where are you?”

A pause. The breathing grew heavier, closer, as though the caller stood just outside the door.

Knock. Knock. Knock.

The sound echoed through his apartment, rattling the walls. Sam dropped the phone. It kept whispering on the floor, words spilling in a language he couldn’t understand.

He backed into the corner, shaking. The knocking turned into pounding.

And then—silence.

The phone lay quiet on the tiles.

Sam exhaled, tears blurring his eyes. It was over.

Until he saw the screen.

A text message glowed in the dark.

“Open the door.”