Echoes of Yesterday

The first time it happened, Daniel dismissed it as nothing.

A passing sound—an old music box tune—floating in the air as he walked past a bookstore. He barely noticed it, yet something about it made his chest tighten, like a memory just out of reach. He paused, listening, but the sound was gone. Just a figment of his imagination.

Or so he thought.

Then it happened again. The hiss of a kettle boiling in an empty café. A soft hum of a lullaby in an otherwise silent park. A quiet, rhythmic tapping—like fingernails against wood—while he sat alone at his desk. Each time, the sensation returned, a phantom pressure inside his skull, as though something long buried was trying to surface.

By the fourth time, Daniel stopped ignoring it.

He started keeping track. He wrote down every sound, every place. He followed them, searching for a pattern, a connection. And then, in the dim glow of his apartment, surrounded by scrawled notes and a pounding headache, he found it.

They weren’t random. They weren’t meaningless. They were echoes—fragments of something he had once known, something his mind had locked away.

And they were leading him somewhere.

The next sound came at 11:52 PM. A knock at his door. Soft. Measured. Familiar.

Daniel’s stomach twisted. He hadn’t had visitors in months. He stepped closer, heart racing, pressing his ear against the wood. The silence stretched. Then—

Knock. Knock. Knock.

The exact same pattern from his childhood home. The last thing he had heard before everything changed.

Daniel’s breath came shallow. His fingers hovered over the doorknob. If he opened it, he knew—he knew—that the truth he had spent years avoiding would be waiting on the other side.

And he wasn’t sure he was ready to remember.

---

The door remained shut, but Daniel’s mind raced. He turned from the door, pacing through the apartment. His notes were scattered across the coffee table, cryptic recordings of sounds that made no sense. But this—this was different. This was real.

He sat down, gripping his head. Could it really be happening? Could sounds, mere fragments of the past, physically manifest? His mind played tricks before, but this felt tangible, undeniable.

He reached for his phone, hesitating before dialing. Who would believe him? He barely believed himself. His fingers hovered over his childhood friend’s number—Jake. They hadn’t spoken in years. What would he even say?

Before he could decide, another sound came.

This time, it was laughter. Soft, childlike, echoing from the kitchen. Daniel’s stomach churned as he turned his head toward the sound. The kitchen was empty.

His breath came ragged. He stepped forward, heart hammering. The laughter came again, distant yet close, like it was slipping through the cracks of time itself.

He knew that laugh. It belonged to someone he hadn’t thought about in years. Someone who was gone.

His sister.

A jolt of memory struck him like lightning—her small hands clapping, her head thrown back in innocent joy. A backyard bathed in golden light. A swing creaking. Their mother calling them inside for dinner. And then—

Darkness.

His pulse quickened. He stumbled back, gripping the edge of the counter. He had buried that memory long ago. Why was it coming back now?

The room felt suffocating, shrinking around him. The sounds weren’t just echoes. They were pieces—pieces of something he had locked away for a reason.

Another sound—rushed footsteps. Running. A door slamming. A scream.

Daniel gasped, his vision blurring. He knew where this was leading. He didn’t want to go there.

The door knocked again—three measured beats.

His hands shook as he reached for the handle. The air around him felt thick, electric, charged with something beyond comprehension. He turned the knob.

The hallway was empty.

Except for the old, dusty music box lying on the floor.

Daniel stared at it, his breath caught in his throat. He recognized it. It had belonged to her.

The lid was slightly ajar, and inside, the delicate ballerina figure stood still, frozen mid-spin. The tune it played—the one that had followed him all week—was playing softly.

His hands trembled as he bent down and picked it up. The moment his fingers brushed against the wood, his mind cracked open.

The memory flooded in.

A night filled with thunder. His sister crying. Running down the hallway. A shadow. A struggle. The sound of something heavy hitting the floor. A scream cut short. Silence.

Daniel’s breath hitched. His vision swam as the weight of the past crashed into him. He had been there. He had seen it. But his mind had shielded him, locked it away, drowning it in echoes instead of truth.

And now, the truth had found him.

He fell to his knees, clutching the music box, its lullaby winding down into stillness.

Some memories refuse to stay forgotten.