Whispers in the Static: Part 10

Part 10 – The Hollow Vessel

Arthur staggered back from the nightstand, the radio still crackling in its red glow. The chorus thundered through the room, voices layered and broken, no longer pretending.

“You said yes… you invited us… let us in.”

“No!” His shout cracked the silence of the house, but the static swallowed it whole. “I didn’t mean— I didn’t know what I was saying!”

The voices surged, mocking, overlapping.

“…yes… yes… you said yes…”

Arthur clutched his ears, but the sound burrowed inside, vibrating through his skull, rattling in his teeth. He stumbled toward the plug, desperate to tear the cord from the wall. His hands shook as he yanked it free.

The glow died.
The radio fell silent.

For a moment, the house was still. Arthur gasped, chest heaving, heart hammering in relief.

Then, softly, from the corner of the room, came Helen’s voice.

“…Arthur…”

His stomach lurched. He turned toward the darkness. The radio was dead, but the voice was there, unmistakable.

Another voice followed. His father.

“…son…”

Then Michael’s laughter, sharp and close, far too close.

Arthur backed against the wall, his breath tearing from him in shallow bursts. “No… no, you can’t be here. You’re gone. You’re gone!”

The whispers swelled from every corner, from the floorboards, from the ceiling, from within the walls themselves. His mother, his cousin, his father, his wife — all together, louder and louder, until the words blurred into one guttural roar.

The room itself shuddered. Picture frames toppled from the shelves, books slid to the floor, the lamp on the nightstand flickered wildly before bursting in a spray of sparks and glass. Arthur staggered, clutching at the dresser for balance as though the voices themselves were a storm hammering into his body. His chest seized, his breath dragged raggedly from his lungs, and in the next instant he was slammed to his knees by an unseen force.

And then—silence.

The room went still. The fallen objects lay quiet in the dust, the shadows steady again. Nothing stirred, nothing breathed.

Except Arthur.

He knelt there, head bowed, shoulders quaking with ragged breath. Slowly, as if pulled by unseen strings, his head lifted. His face emerged from the shadow — lips curled back, teeth bared, foam gleaming at the corners of his mouth. His eyes were wide and empty, staring through the room with a hollow light.

And then the voices came.

Not from the walls.
Not from the radio.

From Arthur.

His mouth opened, stretching unnaturally wide, and the sound poured out — a chorus of many voices at once, layered and discordant, Helen and his father and his mother and Michael, all braided into a single monstrous cry. The words ripped through the air, not spoken but exhaled, wet and animal.

Arthur’s body trembled, his head thrown back, foam flecking his chin. And through the roar came the words, broken and terrible, rising from his throat like fire:

“We are here.
We are yours.
And you are ours.”

The voices howled through him, and the room went black.

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(This is the End of our story. What will happen to Arthur now?)