Aarika started waking up at the same time every night—2:12 a.m.
No nightmares. Just a strange... pull. As if something invisible brushed her consciousness.
She stood by the crib she had set up prematurely in her apartment, a gift to herself and her child. It wasn't the finest furniture, but it was hers. Something normal. Grounded.
But at 2:12 a.m., the room was never normal.
It started as a flicker in the nightlight.
Then whispers.
Soft. Disjointed. Not from the walls—but from inside the crib.
"Help... her..."
The voice was faint. Female. Gentle.
Aarika turned on the lights. Nothing. The room was empty. Silent again.
She installed cameras and audio monitors, syncing everything to her personal server. The next night, the whisper returned.
"She doesn't know... yet."
The camera showed only Aarika standing there. No movement. No figures.
She ran the recording through a spectrogram analysis.
What she found chilled her.
The whisper had a voice match of 73% similarity to her own.
Twist: She isolates a second, hidden layer in the audio—her child responding: "I know, Mama. I won't let her forget."