SISTER CALLING

It was past midnight, and the city was draped in silence. Matthew shuffled his way up the dark, narrow hallway to his small apartment, exhausted from a long shift. The faint glow from streetlights seeped through his window as he tossed his keys on the table and collapsed onto his bed, ready to escape into sleep. His eyelids were heavy, and as he drifted between sleep and wakefulness, he felt his mind slipping into a familiar, comforting darkness.

Then, his phone rang, piercing through the quiet room.

Groggy and irritated, Matthew fumbled around in the dark, finally grabbing his phone to see who was calling him at such an odd hour. The name flashing on the screen jolted him awake: Lily.

He felt a chill crawl up his spine. Lily was his sister, but she had passed away in a tragic accident a year ago. He stared at the screen, unable to believe what he was seeing. His hand trembled as he pressed the answer button, the phone cold and heavy against his ear.

"Matthew?" came a faint, familiar voice. It sounded just like her—soft, gentle, and unmistakably his sister’s.

Matthew's heart raced. "L-Lily?" he stammered, his voice barely a whisper.

"Matthew, you have to come home," she said, her tone calm but eerily insistent. "I need you. We all need you."

He wanted to ask a million questions, to scream, to cry, but all he managed to say was, "How...how is this possible?"

She didn’t answer directly. Instead, she repeated, “Come home, Matthew. It’s not safe here.”

And then, there was a soft click as the call ended, leaving only silence in its wake.

Matthew lay there in the darkness, the weight of her words pressing down on him. He could still feel the echo of her voice, the familiar comfort mixed with an otherworldly chill that left him feeling both drawn and terrified. He hadn't returned to his parents' home since her passing, avoiding the painful memories that place held. But something deep inside him, some inexplicable urge, told him he had to go.

Without thinking, he got up, grabbed his jacket, and drove through the fog-drenched roads that led out of the city and toward his family home on the edge of the woods.

As he arrived, he noticed the house seemed almost untouched, as if it were frozen in time. Everything was just as he remembered, yet there was something off, an oppressive stillness that seemed to cling to the very walls. The door creaked as he stepped inside, and he felt the cold settle over him.

“Lily?” he called out, his voice echoing through the empty rooms. There was no answer, but a faint whisper seemed to brush past his ear, urging him toward her old bedroom. His footsteps were the only sound as he moved down the hallway, his heart hammering in his chest.

As he opened her bedroom door, he felt a rush of cold air, and there, sitting on the edge of her bed, was Lily.

She looked almost the same, but her eyes held a sorrow that seemed otherworldly. She turned toward him, her gaze steady, piercing through him.

"Thank you for coming, Matthew," she whispered, her voice soft but filled with an unspoken urgency. "I needed you to see."

"See what?" he managed to ask, his voice barely holding steady.

She gestured toward the mirror on her dresser, and as he looked into it, his reflection began to distort. The room around him faded, and in its place, he saw a vision—a memory from the night of her death. She was driving on a winding road, the night thick with mist. Suddenly, he saw himself there, on the side of the road, calling out to her, warning her of the danger ahead. But she didn’t hear him, her car skidding as she tried to swerve around him.

Matthew felt a pang of guilt wash over him. He had always blamed himself, feeling as if he could have done something, anything, to save her. But now, as he looked into the mirror, he realized that the figure he saw on the road that night wasn’t him—it was something darker, a shadow that had taken his form, leading her to her fate.

"Lily, I...I'm so sorry," he whispered, tears streaming down his face.

She placed a cold hand on his shoulder, her touch like frost. "It wasn't your fault, Matthew. But now, you have to leave. They know you're here."

"Who? Who knows I'm here?" he asked, but the room began to darken, shadows creeping along the walls as an unseen force seemed to close in on them.

"Go, now!" she urged, her form beginning to fade.

With a last, desperate look, Matthew stumbled backward, rushing out of her room and down the stairs, feeling an oppressive force bearing down on him, pushing him to leave. He sprinted to his car, fumbling with the keys before finally turning the ignition and driving away.

As he glanced in the rearview mirror, he saw the house swallowed in darkness, the lights flickering out, leaving it shrouded in an eerie silence.

The next morning, he awoke in his apartment, his phone lying on his bed beside him. There was no record of any call from Lily, no sign that he had even left in the middle of the night. But he knew—deep down, he knew—that something had reached out to him that night. And that whatever lurked in his family home would always be waiting, hidden in the shadows, bound to the memory of his sister and the secrets of that dark, misty road.