Whispers in the Static

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I sat up, fully awake now, and stared at the radio. The voice came again, stronger.

"Daniel, we can see you."

I switched off the radio, my heart racing. A prank, I told myself. Someone broadcasting on a frequency that this old radio picked up. I unplugged it for good measure.

In the morning, I convinced myself I'd dreamed the whole thing. I plugged the radio back in, finding a news station this time. Normal. I continued packing up Grandpa's belongings, occasionally glancing at the radio with lingering unease.

Three days into the cleanup, I found a box of Grandpa's journals in the back of his closet. Most were mundane accounts of daily life, but one, dated 1976, caught my attention. In it, he described hearing voices through his radio, voices that knew things they shouldn't.

"They claim to be from what they call 'the other side,'" he wrote. "Not heaven or hell, but a parallel existence. They say the radio's vacuum tubes create a bridge between our worlds. I've started asking them questions only the dead would know the answers to. God help me, they answer correctly every time."

The entries continued for months, becoming increasingly disturbed. Grandpa wrote about the voices predicting future events, describing distant locations he'd never mentioned to anyone, revealing secrets about our family that proved true when he investigated.

The final entry simply read: "I'm sealing up the radio. Some doors shouldn't be opened. If you're reading this, put it back where you found it."

I looked at the radio, still playing innocuous news reports. Grandpa had been in his fifties when he wrote those journals—young, sound of mind. Not the type for elaborate fantasies.

That night, I waited until 3 AM—the time Grandpa noted the voices were strongest. I turned the dial to static and waited.

"Welcome back, Daniel." The voice was clearer now, almost as if someone was in the room with me.

"Who are you?" I asked.

"A friend of your grandfather's. He spoke with us for years."

"What do you want?"

"To connect. Your world and ours touch in certain places, through certain technologies. This radio is special—built with materials that thin the veil."

"Prove you're real," I challenged. "Tell me something you couldn't possibly know."

"Your childhood fear was drowning, after you fell through ice on a fishing trip with your father. You never told anyone, but you still can't take baths—only showers."

My blood ran cold. I'd never told anyone about that, not even Grandpa.

"Your girlfriend Melissa isn't working late on Thursdays. She's meeting someone named Christopher at the Westlake Hotel."

I switched off the radio, shaking. The next day, I followed Melissa after work. She went exactly where the voice said she would.

When I confronted her, she confessed to the affair immediately, shocked by my certainty. I couldn't tell her how I knew.

I returned to Grandpa's house and the radio. This time, I asked about my future.

"That's not how this works," the voice replied. "We don't see the future. We see the now—all versions of it."

"What does that mean?"

"Reality is a frequency, Daniel. Turn the dial slightly, and you get a different station—a different version of events. We exist in the static between stations."

Over the following weeks, I became obsessed with the radio and its voices. They told me things about friends and family that I confirmed were true. They described rooms in houses I'd never visited, conversations I wasn't present for.

I began to ask about other realities—versions of my life where I'd made different choices.

"There's one where you became a doctor instead of an engineer," the voice said. "One where you married your college girlfriend. One where you died at seventeen in a car accident."

"Can I... visit these other realities?"

A pause. "There's a way. But there's a cost."

"What cost?"

"To enter another frequency, you must allow something from that frequency to enter yours. An exchange."

I should have heeded Grandpa's warning. I should have sealed up the radio and walked away. Instead, I asked, "How?"

The static grew louder, forming a swirling pattern in the air above the radio. The voice instructed me to reach into the static, to feel for the frequency I wanted.

I thought of the reality where I'd become a doctor—successful, respected, doing meaningful work instead of designing shopping malls. I reached into the static.

It felt cold and thick, like gelatin. My fingers tingled, then my hand, then my arm. I could feel something on the other side, reaching back, grasping.

Our fingers touched.

The world lurched. Suddenly, I was standing in an operating room, gloved hands deep in a patient's chest cavity. Knowledge flooded my mind—medical procedures, anatomy, the patient's history. I knew exactly what to do, how to save this life.

For a moment, I exulted in this new reality. Then I felt something wrong. A presence in the back of my mind, watching. The other Daniel—the one who belonged here—was still conscious, trapped inside as I piloted his body.

I panicked and mentally reached for my own reality. Another lurch, and I was back in Grandpa's house, on my knees before the radio.

But I wasn't alone.

In the mirror across the room, my reflection smiled at me with an expression I'd never worn. When I raised my right hand, the reflection raised its left.

"An exchange," it said with my voice. "As promised."

I haven't been able to switch off the radio since that night. The static grows louder each day, and more voices join the chorus. They whisper constantly now, even when I'm not near the radio.

My reflection continues to move independently, watching me with patient amusement. Sometimes I catch glimpses of other figures in mirrors and windows—shadowy forms that vanish when I turn to look directly.

The boundaries between frequencies are breaking down. The static is spreading.

Last night, I found myself standing before the radio without remembering how I got there. My hands were reaching into the swirling static, pulling it outward, widening the gap between worlds.

And my reflection was gone from the mirror entirely.

In its place was a crowd of faces—versions of me from countless realities, all reaching toward the glass, all trying to get through.

I've locked myself in the bathroom, away from mirrors, away from the radio. I'm writing this as a warning.

If you find an old radio that picks up voices in the static, unplug it. Seal it away. Some frequencies were never meant to be tuned into.

And if you see your reflection behaving strangely, run. It's not your reflection anymore.

It's what came through from the other side.