The Voice at 12:00 AM

I first heard her at 12:07 a.m.

Not on Spotify. Not on the radio. Not from any known frequency. I was scanning through my father’s old analog radio—one of those antique ones with a dial that hummed and crackled—and landed on a whisper so delicate it barely stirred the static.

But once I tuned in, it was her.

She spoke like a ghost reciting poetry, her voice low and intimate, like she was sitting in the corner of my room.

“Tonight’s monologue is for the insomniacs, the wanderers, and the ones who still talk to people they’ve lost.”

I paused. The hairs on my arms stood up. I didn’t know who she was, but I knew she was speaking to me.

At first, I thought it was some underground late-night broadcast—maybe a college radio project or a weird podcast frequency. But the more I listened, the stranger it became.

Every night, precisely after midnight, her voice returned. Never at the same time, but always within a few minutes of the hour. Each broadcast was different—a memory, a dream, a confession. And yet… they felt familiar.

“There’s a staircase I keep climbing in my dreams. Each step creaks like it remembers who I used to be.”

That was a dream I had last week.

By the fifth night, I started recording her voice. Not because I wanted to prove it to someone—I already knew no one would believe me—but because I needed to understand.

She never said her name, but eventually, she slipped.

“Elara, Elara,” she whispered to herself between breaths. “You shouldn’t be telling them this.”

Elara.

It echoed through my head like a forgotten lullaby. The name stirred something in me—something I couldn’t place.

That night, her monologue was about a boy who almost drowned in a lake at age nine.

I did.

No one knew that story but me and my mother. And my mother had been gone for years.

The more I listened, the more her stories blurred with my memories. She talked about things I’d buried—things I’d never said aloud. Regrets, secrets, pieces of grief I thought I’d locked away. But she didn’t accuse, or dramatize. She understood. That was the worst part.

“We collect pain like postcards,” she said one night. “We keep them in a drawer, unopened, until someone reads them out loud.”

One night, I decided to speak back.

I sat in front of the old mic attached to my father’s receiver, not expecting it to do anything. I whispered, “Elara… who are you?”

Static.

Then—faintly—“You already know.”

The next night, she didn’t speak. Silence filled the space where her voice had always been. It was the loneliest kind of quiet—like someone you’ve gotten used to suddenly going away.

Then came the final monologue.

It was shorter than usual. Slower. Like she was tired, or afraid.

“This will be my last night,” she said. “I was never meant to speak for so long. But you listened. That’s all I ever wanted.”

“You kept the light on.”

“Thank you for remembering me.”

She paused, and for the first time, her voice cracked. Like she was holding back tears. Or maybe holding on to whatever kept her tethered.

“You called me Elara. But that wasn’t really my name. Just the name you gave the part of you that needed someone.”

“I was you. Or maybe just what you needed to hear.”

Then the signal dropped. The static swallowed her final breath, and the room went colder than it had any right to be.

I haven’t heard her since.

I’ve turned every dial, every night. I bought three new radios. Hooked up antennas to the roof. Nothing.

But in the silence, I sometimes hear an echo—not her voice exactly, but the memory of her tone. Like a warmth in my chest. Like someone brushing past you in a dream.

Was she real?

I don’t think it matters.

Elara was everything I couldn't say aloud. Everything I needed someone else to say for me. A voice born from grief, reflection, and the quiet kind of loneliness that hides under the bed when the world is asleep.

Now, I leave the mic on at midnight.

Not to hear her, but in case someone else is out there. Listening. Hurting. Waiting for a voice that feels like home.

And sometimes, just before I fall asleep, I whisper into the static:

“This one’s for you, Elara.”