The city was bleeding into night again — a slow exhale of neon and rain.

Rylan Cross sat alone in his car, engine off, wipers whispering against the windshield. The rain blurred the world outside into streaks of red and white, each passing taillight reflected like an echo of something he’d seen before.

He opened the case file on the passenger seat.

CASE 047-B: The Mirror Hour Murders.
Seven years cold. Same patterns — late-night victims, no struggle, a message scrawled nearby.
His former partner, Ellis, had chased that killer until the night he didn’t come home.

Rylan’s jaw tightened.
The Voice. The name written beside last night’s body — it wasn’t new. It had been scribbled across Ellis’s final report, too. Same phrasing, same deliberate neatness.

He rubbed his temple. “You again,” he muttered under his breath. “You never really stopped, did you?”

On the seat beside him, the old voice recorder blinked with a red light — a remnant from the Ellis investigation. He pressed play.
A distorted voice from years ago whispered:

“The city doesn’t sleep, Detective. Neither should you.”

Rylan exhaled. The similarities weren’t a coincidence.
Whoever The Voice was, he’d come back — and this time, he’d chosen a different audience.

The rain had deepened into a steady rhythm, tapping on the glass walls of the recording booth.
Aria’s voice flowed low and honeyed into the night air.

“You’re listening to The Nightline Hour. Tonight’s theme is about echoes — how some sounds linger long after the source is gone.”

She smiled faintly as she spoke, though it didn’t reach her eyes. Her heartbeat was uneven. Every ring of the studio phone made her flinch, though she hid it well beneath her practised tone.

Sam watched her from the control room, mouthing a silent question: You okay?
She nodded.

But her hand, curled around the mic stand, trembled.

She was halfway through reading a listener's letter when a shadow crossed the glass wall.
Tall. Composed. The faint outline of a man in a trench coat.

Her breath caught.

The door creaked open, letting in the scent of rain and cold air. Rylan Cross stepped inside, nodding politely toward Sam.

“Detective,” Aria said, removing her headset, “are you following me now, or is this part of police protocol?”

“Neither,” he said, scanning the room. “Just wanted to see your setup. You said this is where the call came from?”

“Everything in this room is old,” she muttered. “Half the systems barely work, but they record perfectly.”

Rylan’s eyes moved over the panels, the lights, the vintage microphone. “Old but consistent,” he said softly. “That’s rare.”

She arched an eyebrow. “Was that a compliment?”

“Observation,” he replied. But there was the faintest curve to his mouth — a shadow of a smile.

They stood in the quiet hum of the studio. Rain whispered on the glass. The ON AIR light glowed like a heartbeat above them.

“You don’t sleep much, do you?” he asked suddenly.

She looked up, caught off guard. “Excuse me?”

He gestured toward her thermos of cold coffee, the smudged eyeliner, the weariness beneath her calm. “You seem like someone who doesn’t stop talking because silence feels heavier.”

Her lips parted — a flicker of surprise, maybe recognition. “And you seem like someone who fills silence with work.”

He tilted his head. “Maybe that’s why we both ended up awake at 2 a.m.”

Their gazes held — steady, charged, fragile.

Then the moment shattered.

The switchboard lit up.

Line 3.
Unlabeled.
2:13 a.m.

Aria froze. Her hand hovered over the button.

Rylan straightened, every muscle sharpening into focus. “It’s him,” he said quietly. “Answer it. Keep him talking.”

Her throat was dry, but she nodded. She pressed the button.

“Nightline Hour,” she said, voice trembling just slightly. “You’re on air.”

Static filled the line — soft, deliberate, almost rhythmic. Then came the voice.

“You brought someone new tonight.”

Aria’s stomach dropped. “Who is this?”

“Don’t pretend you don’t remember me.”

Rylan motioned for her to keep going, stepping closer to the console, silent but alert.

“You sound different,” The Voice continued. “Tired. Afraid. It’s beautiful, the way fear changes a person’s tone.”

Aria forced her voice to steady. “If you’re trying to scare me, it’s not working.”

A low chuckle vibrated through the headset — not manic, not loud, just pleased.

“You sound just like her.”

Aria frowned. “Like who?”

“The one before.”

Rylan’s eyes snapped to hers.

Aria’s pulse thundered in her ears. “What do you mean by ‘the one before’? Who—”

“You’ll see soon enough.”

And then — click.

The line went dead.

The red ON AIR light blinked twice before turning black.
Silence fell — thick and trembling.

Aria slowly pulled off her headset. “The one before…?”

Rylan was already writing something in his notebook, jaw tight. “He’s escalating. He wanted us to hear that.”

She looked at him, searching his expression. “You knew something before you came here, didn’t you?”

He hesitated — just long enough to confirm it.

Finally, he said, “There was another case. Same time, same message, same kind of call. Only the woman didn’t live long enough to answer.”

Aria’s voice barely escaped a whisper. “You think he’s repeating his pattern?”

Rylan met her eyes — steel meeting storm.
“I think,” he said slowly, “he never stopped.”

The rain outside intensified, battering against the glass.
Inside, the studio lights flickered once.
And somewhere, faintly through the static of the speakers, a low sound came again.

A whisper.
Almost a laugh.