The Last Message in the Static

“Don’t take the River Road tomorrow,” it said. “Please.”

She froze. The words were faint, distant, like someone calling from the other end of a tunnel. She turned the dial, half expecting a late-night DJ or a trick of the signal, but the voice came again.

“Nora, listen to me. You don’t have to believe it yet. Just… stay home tomorrow.”

She laughed nervously. Maybe it was an old broadcast looping back, or a neighbor’s frequency bleeding through. She didn’t believe in ghosts or time travel. She believed in coffee, bad traffic, and bills — things that made sense.

The next morning, she ignored it.

She took River Road.

By noon, her phone rang — a frantic call from her sister. There’d been a pile-up on that road. A truck had jackknifed on the curve. Two dead, three injured.

Nora wasn’t one of them. But she could have been.

That night, the radio waited. The static hummed low, like it was breathing. She turned the knob again, her pulse quickening.

“Who are you?” she whispered.

Silence. Then —

“I’m you.”

The words hung in the air.

“No,” Nora said. “That’s not possible.”

“I thought so too. But you’ll understand soon. There’s something coming, and I can’t stop it from where I am. You can.”

Nora’s throat tightened. “What’s coming?”

The voice faltered. “He never stopped loving you, you know.”

Then — nothing but static.

For days, Nora couldn’t shake the unease. She hadn’t spoken to her ex, Daniel, in almost a year. They’d broken things off after her mother’s death — grief had turned them into strangers.

But now she couldn’t ignore the message.

On the fourth night, she turned the radio on again. “If you’re really me,” she said, “prove it.”

“You still keep Mom’s locket in the second drawer,” the voice said softly. “And you never wear it because the clasp is broken. You were going to fix it this weekend, but you won’t get the chance if you don’t listen.”

The words chilled her. “What happens?”

A pause. “Daniel’s car. The storm. Don’t let him drive.”

The next evening, the sky cracked open with thunder. Daniel showed up at her door, soaked, nervous. “I just needed to see you,” he said. “I miss you, Nora.”

Her heart twisted. The storm outside roared like an omen.

He reached for his keys. “Let’s grab dinner, talk like old times.”

“Not tonight,” she said quickly. “Please. Stay.”

He smiled sadly. “You always worry too much.”

He left anyway.

Nora ran to the radio. “What do I do?” she shouted into the static.

The voice trembled. “It’s too late for me. But maybe not for you.”

The power flickered. Lightning split the sky. The radio went dark.

Hours later, her phone buzzed. There’d been an accident on the old bridge — a car swept into the river.

She drove through the rain until she saw the flashing lights. The car was Daniel’s.

But somehow — impossibly — he was alive. Shaken, bruised, but breathing. The rescuers said a stranger had called in the crash seconds after it happened, giving the exact coordinates. No one knew who.

Nora looked at her radio later that night. It was unplugged. Dead.

Still, from somewhere deep inside the static, a faint voice whispered:

“You did it.”

Tears slipped down her cheeks. She touched the locket around her neck — she’d fixed it earlier that day without thinking.

“Thank you,” she whispered.

Themes: Fate, love, redemption, second chances