a voice.
“Help me…” it whispered through the static. The voice trembled, distorted, as if the speaker were very far away.
“Shit,” Dan whispered, recoiling.
The tape continued spinning… The voice grew louder, clearer.
“Please, help me… he’s coming…”
Suddenly, the cassette player crackled, and a loud, sharp scratching sound rang out – like fingernails raking across wood. The basement light flickered, casting twitching shadows on the walls. Martin quickly hit the “Stop” button, and a ringing silence filled the basement.
Dan was breathing heavily, his heart pounding in his chest. He stared at the cassette player, unable to look away.
“This… this is just an old recording, right?” His voice was hoarse.
Martin remained silent, his finger still on the button. He didn’t like what was happening. At that moment, he too felt an inexplicable sense of unease.
A faint rustle sounded from the corner. Dan jerked, whipping his head around.
“Did you hear that?” he whispered. Without waiting for his partner, he bolted up the stairs.
Dan shot out of the basement. The air above felt unexpectedly cold, but it brought no comfort. He barely registered that his legs were carrying him away from the stairs, away from that place, away from the oppressive darkness steeped in the scent of dampness and old wood. His mouth was dry, his palms sweaty, fingers trembling like he had just escaped a nightmare that had somehow become real.
He didn’t even look back at Martin, who remained below, still intrigued by what had happened. Dan ran into the main hall, tripped over a loose floorboard, and grabbed the nearest wall to keep from falling. He tried to slow his breathing, but his lungs felt tight, refusing to let him take a full breath. It felt as if the entire house was watching him, creaking in its beams, sighing through its drafts, peering through the cracks in the boarded-up windows.
“What’s wrong with you two?” Martin’s voice called out.
Dan turned sharply. Martin stood in the basement doorway, holding the dusty cardboard box in his hands. His face remained calm, but a note of caution showed in his eyes.
“That… That wasn’t just an old recording,” Dan said, wiping his face with a trembling hand, trying to brush away the sticky fear. “You heard it too! That voice…”
He stopped short, remembering how desperate, how hopeless that whisper had been – trapped in the swirling noise and static. The words still echoed in his ears – “He’s coming.” Who? What?… Dan clearly didn’t want to know the answer to the question he had just asked himself.
Martin exhaled heavily, shifting the box to his other hand. He looked thoughtful but moved without panic, trying to make rational sense of what had just happened.
“We need to show this to the site supervisor,” Martin finally said, nodding toward the box. “Let him decide what to do with it.”
Dan said nothing. He glanced around once more, listening to the house as if expecting it to respond. Inside, it was quiet – but behind that silence, he sensed a looming, almost tangible danger.
“Yeah,” he finally exhaled. “Let’s get out of here.”
The construction company’s office was located on the outskirts of town, surrounded by garages and warehouses full of building materials. The two-story building, erected back in the mid-20th century, looked like it needed repairs itself: peeling paint on the walls, creaky wooden steps, and an old coffee machine that dispensed drinks with a rusty aftertaste. Time moved especially slowly in this office, and even the air seemed steeped in decades of history.
Behind a desk cluttered with papers and yellowed blueprints sat their senior site manager, Matteo – a heavyset, gruff man in his fifties with a bald spot and a perpetually displeased expression. He rarely showed emotions beyond irritation and preferred short, direct conversations. When Dan and Martin walked in, he lazily looked up, noting the younger worker’s anxious appearance.
“What’s wrong with you two?” he grumbled, furrowing his brow.
Martin silently placed the box on the desk.
“We found this in the basement of that old house on Park,” he said briefly. “Tapes. We played one of them…”
Matteo grunted, eyeing the box with suspicion, then opened it. Inside, along with the tapes, were several yellowed sheets of paper with handwritten notes, some smudged by moisture. The paper looked like it had been sitting there for decades.
“What’s on them?” he asked, taking out one of the tapes.
Dan swallowed, unsure how to find the right words. That voice still echoed in his mind.
“There’s… a voice on the recording. Someone asking for help. And… sounds, like someone’s trapped inside.”
Matteo raised his left eyebrow, then glanced at the tape recorder that Martin had placed beside the box. For a moment, a heavy silence settled over the room, broken only by the soft buzzing of a fly at the window. He considered their words, realizing that if they were right, this might delay the scheduled demolition.
“So, you decided to play detective?” he muttered, scratching his head. “Now what?”
Martin looked him straight in the eye.
“We thought it’d be best to put the demolition on hold,” he said. “These tapes might be important. If there really is something strange going on… better let the police handle it.”
Matteo thought for a moment, then slowly nodded. He didn’t believe in the supernatural, but years on the job had taught him one thing – if something feels off, it’s better not to ignore it.
“All right,” he said at last, leaning back in his chair. “I’ll call the police. Let them figure it out.”
A few hours later, the box of tapes had been delivered to the local police station. The officer at the front desk, an older man with a tired look in his eyes, reluctantly logged the item into the evidence register. It seemed like a pointless formality to him – after all, who would care about some old tapes from a crumbling house?
“Put it in storage,” he muttered to a younger officer, who yawned as he picked up the box and carried it into a back room. There, among dusty folders, forgotten evidence, and long-abandoned case files, the box found its place on one of the lower shelves.
“Just more junk,” the junior officer mumbled, lazily entering the data into the computer.
The room was quiet – so quiet that he thought he heard a faint noise in the depths of the archive, something between a rustle and a barely audible sigh. He paused, listened, then shook his head and walked out, dismissing it.
Chapter 2
Selena André, a local independent journalist, had long been drawn to stories that others dismissed as myths or rumors. She was fascinated by mysteries, especially those involving missing people, unsolved crimes from the past, and strange discoveries. She believed that every legend held a kernel of truth – something real, just forgotten or deliberately hidden from public view.
At 32, Selena was used to being on her own. She wasn’t married, had no children, and her parents lived in another town, so she saw them rarely, settling for phone calls or video chats. It wasn’t due to any bad blood – life simply had a way of pulling her along, leaving little time for family visits. Her work wasn’t just a job, it was her purpose, a way to uncover secrets and shine a light on things others preferred to ignore.
She had once been in a serious relationship, with a man she truly loved. But over time, it became clear they wanted different things. He longed for stability, family life, and a steady routine,