You tell yourself it was a dream. A glitch. The phone is three years old; the battery swells; the audio jack spits white noise. You delete the app from the app list—hold your finger on the tile, tap the little trash can. Uninstalled.
At first, you hear nothing. Then the soft squeak of a desk shifting. A cough. The rain against the window. The Sound Recorder -Windows Phone-
The year is 2014. You’re seventeen, sitting in the back of a geometry class you’ve already failed once. Outside, the November rain slicks the windows of your high school, turning the parking lot into a blur of brake lights and sighs. You tell yourself it was a dream
And then—a voice. Not yours. Not Mr. Hendricks’. It comes from the empty chair two rows behind you. The one no one sits in because the kid who used it transferred last spring. You delete the app from the app list—hold
In your pocket, your Windows Phone vibrates. Not a call. Not a text. The alarm you set for 2:17 PM. You don’t remember setting it.
The chair is empty. The rain is still falling. But the waveform on your phone spikes—loud, violent, redlining into distortion—and you hear the sound of running footsteps, getting closer, from inside the recording, even though the classroom is perfectly still.
You hit .