The Last Call

Hasan never thought his job mattered much. He worked the late shift at a call center, answering questions that didn’t really need him. Most of his nights were spent listening to customers complain about internet connections, payment errors, or devices that refused to restart.

It was routine. Predictable. Forgettable.

But one night, something happened that Hasan would never forget.

It was close to midnight, just a few minutes before his shift ended. He had already started shutting down his computer when one final call came through. He sighed, straightened up in his chair, and pressed the green button.

“Customer support, this is Hasan speaking. How can I help you?”

For a moment, there was silence. Then, a soft, trembling voice spoke.

“I don’t need technical help,” the woman said. “I just… I just needed someone to answer.”

Hasan frowned. “I’m sorry, I don’t understand. Did you mean to call customer support?”

“I know where I called,” she said quickly. “But please—don’t hang up. I can’t be alone tonight.”

Something in her tone made him pause. It wasn’t the kind of silence he usually heard on prank calls. There was real fear in her voice, like someone reaching out from the edge of a dark cliff.

“All right,” Hasan said gently. “I’m here. What’s your name?”

“Leila,” she whispered.

And then she began to talk.

At first, her words were scattered. She told him she had been struggling for months—isolated, anxious, and unable to find meaning in her days. She felt invisible in a crowded world.

Hasan listened. He wasn’t trained for this, but something told him not to interrupt. He let her voice fill the silence, let her know someone was there.

After a long pause, she said something that made his chest tighten.

“I think tonight is the end for me. I just couldn’t leave without telling someone my secret.”

Hasan sat up straight. His heartbeat echoed in his ears. “Leila, what do you mean by ‘the end’?”

But instead of answering directly, she told him a story.

She spoke about her childhood dreams, the books she used to read under her blanket with a flashlight, the songs she never had the courage to sing in front of anyone. She spoke about love—how she gave her heart once, only to watch it break in silence.

And then she told him her secret: she had been writing letters to herself, dozens of them, each one sealed in an envelope and hidden in a shoebox under her bed. Letters to remind herself to hold on. Letters full of promises she couldn’t keep.

“I wanted someone to know they exist,” she said softly. “So that when I’m gone, my words won’t vanish.”

Hasan didn’t know what to say at first. His job was never about saving lives, but in that moment, nothing felt more urgent.

“Leila,” he said firmly, “you’re not gone. You’re right here, talking to me. And I’m listening. If those letters kept you holding on this long, then maybe you don’t need to stop now. Maybe what you really needed was for someone else to read them someday. I would be honored if you shared them.”

There was silence. Then, for the first time, he heard her laugh—a fragile, almost broken sound, but real.

“You don’t even know me,” she said.

“Maybe not,” Hasan replied, “but I know that your words matter. And I think your story isn’t finished yet.”

They spoke until the clock on the wall struck two in the morning. Hasan stayed long past his shift, listening as Leila’s voice grew steadier. She didn’t make any promises, but when she said goodbye, there was something in her tone he hadn’t heard before. Hope.

The line clicked. The call was over.

The next day, Hasan couldn’t stop thinking about her. He scribbled her name on a piece of paper and tucked it into his pocket, as though keeping it close would make her real. When his shift ended, he pulled up the call logs and tried to trace the number. He thought maybe he could reach out again, check in on her.

But when he entered the digits, the system froze. The screen displayed an error: This number does not exist.

Hasan blinked, tried again, and got the same message. It was as if the call had never happened.

He sat back in his chair, staring at the empty log. For a moment he wondered if he had imagined it. But then he felt the paper in his pocket, the name written in his own handwriting: Leila.

Real or not, Hasan knew one thing for certain: her words had changed him. His job no longer felt meaningless. Every call, every voice on the other end, could carry a story he didn’t yet understand.

And somewhere, whether in this world or beyond, Leila’s letters still existed—proof that sometimes, a single voice in the dark is enough to keep another alive