Chapter 4: Echoes of the Past
The air in the studio grew steadily colder, breath pluming in white wisps under the erratic flashing of the red warning light. Maya forced herself to look away from the window and examine the mixing board more closely. Faded labels taped above the sliders read "MAIN ARCHIVE," "EMERGENCY BROADCAST," and "SUB-BASEMENT FEED." Her grandfather had been the chief engineer of this very station before it was shut down following the mysterious disappearance of three teenage interns back in 1994. Everyone in town whispered about the cold cases, but nobody ever talked about the technical logs.
She pushed the slider labeled "SUB-BASEMENT FEED" upward by a millimeter. A faint hiss of analog tape played through the headphones resting on the console. She picked them up, her hands shaking, and placed them over her ears.
Static gave way to the sound of muffled voices arguing in the background of an old tape recording.
"We shouldn't be down here, the master switch is locked," a young male voice pleaded, sounding panicked and young.
"Shut up and keep filming," another voice snapped back, a voice that bore an uncanny, terrifying resemblance to Tyler's grandfather.
Maya gasped and dropped the headphones as if they were burning hot. The history of this building wasn't just local folklore; it was a repeating cycle. Every thirty years, kids locked other kids in this exact room. But the people from 1994 had never come out. She looked back at the heavy wooden door, noticing for the first time deep, frantic scratch marks gouged into the wood near the bottom hinge—marks that were too old to have been made today, yet too fresh to be from fifty years ago.
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A sharp rap on the glass made her jump nearly out of her skin.
Tyler was back. But through the glass, his face wasn't twisted in a teasing smirk anymore; it was pale, distorted with absolute horror, and he was violently mouthing words she couldn't hear over the humming of the speaker.
