CHAPTER 4 PART I
No one said its name.
That was the first rule we didn't agree on but followed anyway. Mostly the fact, we hadn't come up with the one thing we'd always call it..
When we finally met up again—really met up, not just passing each other in hallways or exchanging half-sentences at lunch—it was at Sia's place. Her mom worked late, which meant the living room was quiet except for the hum of the heater and the occasional car passing outside.
We sat in a loose circle. Shoes kicked off. Phones face-down on the coffee table, like they could hear us if we weren't careful.
For a while, no one spoke.
I could feel it in my chest—that pressure you get when you're about to say something important and your body's trying to stop you. Like it knows better.
Neems broke first.
"So," she said, stretching the word thin, like she didn't want it to snap. "We're not gonna pretend that didn't happen, right?"
Hashim let out a quiet laugh. It came out wrong. Too sharp. "Pretend what didn't happen?"
Samiya shot him a look. "Don't do that."
"I'm serious," Hashim said, hands up. "Like, what exactly are we talking about here? Because if we're talking about a cave that apparently never existed, then—"
"It existed," Samiya cut in.
Her voice was steady, but her knee was bouncing so fast the couch cushion trembled.
Sia noticed. She always noticed. "Okay," she said calmly. "Let's slow this down. Nobody's saying everything at once."
I swallowed. My throat felt dry. "We heard something," I said. "In the cave."
Everyone looked at me.
Not the something itself. Just the admission.
Neems nodded slowly. "A voice."
Hashim shifted in his seat. "More like an echo, right? Like… sound bouncing around?"
Samiya's head snapped toward him. "No."
The room tightened.
"It wasn't an echo," she said. "It knew what it was saying."
I didn't look at her. I already knew what she was thinking. I was thinking it too.
Sia leaned forward. "What did it sound like?"
I hesitated. This was the moment. The line we hadn't crossed yet.
"My voice," I said quietly.
Hashim frowned. "Your voice like… similar? Or—"
"No," Samiya said again, sharper this time. "Exactly his."
Silence.
The heater clicked. Somewhere upstairs, a pipe knocked.
Neems hugged her arms. "Okay. That's… not great."
Hashim tried to smile. It didn't land. "I mean, voices bouncing off walls can do weird stuff. Acoustics are crazy."
"Then why didn't it sound like me?" Samiya asked.
He didn't have an answer for that.
I stared at the carpet, tracing patterns that weren't there. "It said my name."
That did it.
Neems sucked in a breath. Sia's jaw tightened. Hashim stopped fidgeting altogether.
"When?" Sia asked.
"In the cave," I said. "Right before everything went dark."
Samiya's voice dropped. "It said it more than once."
Hashim stood up, pacing now. "Okay, okay—let's say, hypothetically, something weird happened. Stress, adrenaline, whatever. That doesn't mean—"
"Did you hear it?" Sia interrupted.
Hashim froze.
"…No," he admitted. "I was outside."
That mattered more than it should have.
Samiya caught it instantly. "You stayed up top longer."
"Yeah. To call the cops."
"And you didn't hear anything?"
He shook his head.
Neems looked between us. "I didn't either. Not until after. Like… later that night."
My chest tightened. "What do you mean later?"
She hesitated. "I thought it was my TV. But it wasn't on."
Sia exhaled slowly. "So it's not just the cave."
Nobody liked that.
Samiya's voice cracked. "It hasn't stopped."
The words hung there, fragile.
"It whispers," she said. "Not all the time. Just enough to make me turn my head."
I felt cold.
I thought about my window. The end of the street. The shape I pretended I hadn't seen.
"Does it say anything new?" I asked.
She shook her head. "No. Just… familiar things. Stuff it shouldn't know."
Hashim ran a hand through his hair. "This is insane."
"Yeah," Neems muttered. "Welcome to the club."
Sia stood, walking to the window. She didn't open it. Just looked out. "We need to be careful," she said. "Whatever this is—it reacts."
"To what?" Hashim asked.
"To us," I said before I could stop myself.
Everyone turned.
I felt exposed, like I'd just admitted something I wasn't ready to explain.
"I've been paying attention," I said slowly. "Too much, maybe. And every time we talk about it, every time we replay it, it feels closer."
Neems frowned. "That's… not how things work."
"Maybe it is," Samiya said.
I stopped for a second and realized how Samiya felt. Because for the first time, I saw relief there.
Someone else believed her.
Sia nodded once. "Then we don't name it," she said. "We don't define it. Not yet."
Hashim scoffed weakly. "So what, we just call it… that thing?"
Samiya swallowed. "That thing from the cave."
No one argued.
Sia straightened. "Here's what we do. We stop spiraling. We go home. We sleep. Tomorrow, we regroup."
"Yeah let me just collect my thoughts first, then i'll be out your hair." I said.
Sia understood. "Samiya, Neems, theres actually something I want to talk to you two about, could you two come upstairs."
At that point, I didn't bother to care about what their conversation was going to be about.
When I seen all 3 of them go upstairs it made me think what would happen to us in the end.
⸻
THIS SATURDAY:
CHAPTER 5(CHAPTER 4 Part II) – "The Listener"