It began with the phones.
Not calls. Not texts.
Just… voices.
At 4:03 p.m., every landline in Blackwater Falls rang at once.
Those who answered heard their own voice—calm, familiar, intimate—saying:
"It's time to come home."
Some hung up, shaken. Others wept. A few simply nodded, as if they'd been waiting for this summons all their lives.
Then the radios.
Car stereos flickered to life on dead frequencies. Kitchen speakers hummed. Even the old emergency broadcast system atop the water tower crackled awake, pouring a single phrase over the town like rain:
"We are together now."
By dusk, it wasn't just recordings.
People began to speak—in unison.
Standing on porches, in driveways, in the middle of Main Street, they turned toward the woods and spoke the same words, same pitch, same breath:
"We remember you. We welcome you. We are ready."
Their eyes were clear. Their faces calm. But their mouths moved in perfect sync, as if pulled by invisible strings.
Ben saw it from his cruiser, parked at the edge of the woods. He'd been watching the tree line for hours, radio smashed, heart pounding. When the first voice rose from the town behind him, he thought it was a trick.
Then he saw Mrs. Henley—sweet, church-going Mrs. Henley—standing in her yard, repeating the phrase while her husband stood beside her, tears streaming down his face… but his mouth moving right along with hers.
He tried to call out. To shake them.
But when he opened his car door, his own voice caught in his throat.
Because deep in his chest, beneath his ribs, something itched.
A whisper.
Faint. Familiar.
His father's voice—the man who'd died when Ben was twelve, choking on smoke in a house fire Ben had accidentally started with a lit match.
"You should've saved me, son."
Ben slammed the door shut, hands shaking.
He wasn't immune.
No one was.
Back in the chamber beneath the stone circle, Elena felt the shift like a pressure wave.
The humming of the Cage faltered.
The faces in the walls stopped screaming.
Instead, they smiled.
All at once.
And from the tunnel above, the synchronized chant began to seep down:
"We remember you. We welcome you. We are ready."
Over and over.
Not angry. Not threatening.
Inviting.
The doppelgänger—still hovering near the entrance—tilted its head, listening. Then it smiled.
"They're joining us," it said softly. "One by one. Voice by voice. Soon, there'll be no one left to miss you."
Elena's hands clenched around the Cage. She had to speak her sentence. Now. Before the chorus grew too loud, too strong.
She opened her mouth—
—but froze.
Because the whisper inside her own skull wasn't just guilt anymore.
It was words.
Her mother's voice, soft and warm:
"Say my name, Ellie. Just once. I'm so lonely."
Maya's voice, trembling:
"I forgive you. Please come find me."
Ben's voice, desperate:
"Don't leave me alone with it."
They weren't outside.
They were inside.
The Whisperer wasn't just mimicking voices anymore.
It was weaving them into her thoughts, making her want to speak.
Making silence feel like betrayal.
Tears blurred her vision. Her jaw ached from clenching it shut. Every fiber of her being screamed to answer—to say Mom, to say Maya, to say I'm here.
But she knew: the moment she did, the Cage would fail.
And the hollow would be complete.
Above, the chanting grew louder.
Closer.
Feet crunched on leaves.
Dozens of them.
Marching toward the stone circle.
Coming for her.
To bring her home.
To make her part of the chorus.
Elena closed her eyes.
Pressed her palms flat against the Cage.
And prepared to speak her one true sentence—
—but the words wouldn't come.
Because the truth was too terrible to say aloud:
"I am already gone."
And if she said it…
she might mean it.
End of Chapter 15