#paranormalterror

The bridge had been abandoned for years. Its rusted beams, crumbling concrete, and gnarled vines spoke of decades of neglect. Once, it had been a bustling thoroughfare, a symbol of progress spanning the yawning gorge below. Now it was a place of shadows and unsettling rumours—whispers of people disappearing, their bodies never found, their fates left to speculation. Wyatt didn't believe in ghost stories. He was practical, a man of reason, and the bridge was nothing more than a shortcut to his destination. It had been a long day, and taking the old path would shave a good twenty minutes off his walk home. So, despite the warnings, he stepped onto the bridge at dusk.

The wind was sharp, carrying the faint smell of mildew and decay. His boots clicked against the uneven surface, the sound echoing into the vast emptiness below. He pulled his coat tighter, glancing at the darkening sky. The last remnants of sunlight clung to the horizon, but night was winning.

Halfway across, Wyatt heard it.

A voice.

At first, it was barely more than a breath, a soft, almost inaudible murmur carried by the wind. He paused, frowning, straining to listen. Nothing. Just the wind whistling through the broken metal and rotting planks. He shook his head, scolding himself for letting old stories get under his skin, and kept walking.

Then he heard it again.

Clearer this time. A voice, but not just one—several. Faint and overlapping, like the low hum of a distant crowd. He stopped in his tracks, peering over the side of the bridge into the deep, black void below.

Nothing but shadow.

The voices grew louder, a chorus of whispers rising from beneath him. His heart began to race as the words became distinct, though they were spoken in hushed, urgent tones.

"Help... please..."

"Come back... we’re here..."

"We never left..."

Wyatt's breath caught in his throat. The air grew colder, and he felt a prickling sensation crawl up his spine. He stepped back from the edge, his pulse hammering in his ears. It wasn’t possible. It was just his mind playing tricks on him—wasn’t it?

Then the whispers changed. They were no longer pleading.

They were angry.

"Why did you leave us?"

"Come down…"

"You belong with us."

The voices hissed, overlapping, growing louder, more insistent. Wyatt's legs trembled as he turned to flee. But as soon as he took a step, the bridge beneath him groaned, a deep, sickening creak that reverberated through the bones of the structure.

He froze.

The air around him felt thick, oppressive. The wind had stopped. All that remained was the low, chilling murmur of voices, now so close they seemed to breathe against the back of his neck.

"Join us..."

His feet felt glued to the ground, and his chest tightened with dread. He glanced around, the sky now a blanket of inky blackness. There was no sound except the whispers, rising from the abyss below.

Then something moved.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw them—shadowy figures, just beneath the bridge, shifting and writhing as though trapped between this world and the next. Pale faces, their eyes wide and hollow, stared up at him from the dark. Their mouths moved, but the whispers echoed in his mind more than his ears.

Wyatt stumbled back, his breath coming in ragged gasps. His foot hit a loose plank, and it gave way with a snap, sending splinters into the air. He fell to his knees, his heart slamming against his ribs as the bridge groaned again, louder this time, as if it were waking from a long slumber.

Beneath him, the figures reached out with twisted, skeletal hands. He could feel their cold fingers brushing against his boots, tugging at him, pulling him closer to the edge.

"Stay with us..."

"Don’t leave…"

The whispers were relentless now, a cacophony of desperate voices pulling him into their nightmare. He scrambled to his feet, terror giving him strength, and ran. His footsteps pounded against the bridge, each step echoing louder than the last, as though the bridge itself was trying to hold him back.

The voices screamed after him, furious and hungry.

"Come back!"

"You can't escape us!"

Wyatt didn’t look back. His lungs burned, and his legs ached, but he pushed forward, the end of the bridge in sight. As he reached the last few steps, the air around him seemed to snap, and the whispers cut off abruptly, leaving only silence behind.

He stumbled off the bridge, collapsing onto the ground, gasping for breath. His hands shook, and his heart raced, but the voices were gone. He looked back at the bridge, its rusted skeleton looming in the darkness.

It was quiet now, the wind whispering through the trees as if nothing had happened.

But Wyatt knew better. He had heard them. Felt them. And as he staggered to his feet, he realized something that filled him with a new kind of dread.

The whispers hadn’t come from beneath the bridge.

They had come from within it.

The phone booth stood in the middle of nowhere, an ancient relic from a forgotten time. Its glass panes were cracked, the once-bright red paint now faded to a dull rust. A lonely road stretched in both directions, endless and desolate. No one came here. There was no reason to. Yet the phone booth remained, untouched by time or vandalism, waiting for something—or someone.

It was late one autumn evening when Xander found himself lost along that very road. His phone had died hours ago, and there hadn’t been another car in sight since he left the small town behind. The cold, bitter wind gnawed at him as he walked, and just when hope seemed to dwindle, he saw the phone booth up ahead.

Relief washed over him. It was bizarre—who kept a phone booth running these days? But he didn’t care. He just needed to call for help. As he approached, something about the booth unsettled him. It didn’t belong here, in the vast emptiness of the fields around it. But desperation overpowered any lingering doubt.

Xander pushed open the creaky door and stepped inside. The air within felt colder than it should, a damp chill clinging to him. The phone hung crookedly from its cradle, an old rotary model that hadn’t been in use for decades. The grime and cobwebs hinted it hadn’t been touched in years. But before he could reach for it, the phone rang.

The sharp, metallic ring echoed in the booth, startling him. Xander froze. His mind raced—who would call a phone like this? There was no one around for miles. Perhaps it was a coincidence, some automated system. But as the phone continued to ring, a strange compulsion overcame him. He reached out, hesitated, then lifted the receiver.

"Hello?" His voice was shaky.

At first, there was silence. Then, faintly, from the other end of the line, he heard it—whispering. It was low, indistinct, like a distant conversation just out of earshot. Xander strained to listen, but the words remained elusive. He should’ve hung up then, but something in those whispers tugged at him, drawing him closer.

“Hello? Who is this?” he repeated, but the whispers only grew louder, surrounding him, filling his ears with their unintelligible murmur. He couldn’t make out what they were saying, but the tone felt wrong—off, like voices that weren’t meant to be heard. A cold dread began to creep up his spine, but his hand wouldn’t let go of the receiver.

The whispering continued, insistent, crawling into his mind like insects burrowing deep. Xander tried to pull away, but he found himself rooted to the spot, paralyzed by some unseen force. His heart pounded as he realized the whispers weren’t just words—they were inside him now, writhing in his thoughts, unravelling them. The voices were no longer on the line; they were in his head, echoing from the corners of his mind, relentless and invasive.

The wind outside had picked up, rattling the booth, but Xander didn’t notice. The whispers were all he could hear, growing louder, drowning out everything else. They spoke in a language he couldn’t understand, yet somehow he knew what they wanted. They were telling him things—dark, terrible things—about himself, about the world, about everything that waited beyond.

He tried to scream, but his throat tightened, suffocated by their presence. His vision blurred as the world around him seemed to warp, bending and twisting in unnatural ways. The booth felt smaller, closing in on him, the glass distorting like a funhouse mirror. The whispers consumed him, tearing through his thoughts, leaving nothing but a hollow echo where his sanity had once been.

With a final gasp, Xander dropped the receiver. The phone swung limply, the dial tone buzzing faintly beneath the rising wind. He staggered out of the booth, his mind shattered, eyes wide with terror but unseeing. His legs buckled, and he collapsed to the ground, mumbling incoherently to himself, the whispers still echoing in the dark recesses of his mind.

Hours later, a passing truck driver found Xander wandering along the road, his clothes soaked from the evening rain. His eyes were glazed, and his lips moved, forming words that made no sense. He was taken to a nearby hospital, but no one could reach him. He spoke of voices, of the whispers that wouldn’t stop, of things that had no name. Days later, he vanished from his hospital room without a trace.

The phone booth remains there, silent and waiting.

Sometimes, on lonely nights, it rings. And if you answer, you’ll hear the whispers too.