The Sound of What Comes Next

I'm sitting at the kitchen table, staring at the basement door, and I can't stop thinking about the way my own voice sounded when I heard it three minutes ago.

"Don't go down there. Please. Don't go down there."

I was standing at the sink. Washing dishes. Hadn't said a word. The voice came from the basement, clear as anything, and it was mine but it was wrong. Desperate in a way I've never heard myself sound. Like begging.

I counted to thirty. Nothing happened. No real event followed.

Which means I haven't said it yet.

That's how it works here. Sound arrives early. Not much. Three, four, maybe five seconds. Just enough to fuck with you. You hear the echo first, then you wait for reality to catch up.

I've been here three weeks and I still can't get used to it.

It started with Henley. My daughter. Ten years old and too brave for her own good.

I was in the kitchen doorway with my coffee and I heard her scream. Sharp and sudden from the backyard. My body wanted to run but I'd learned the rules by then. When you hear the echo, you freeze. You count. You wait.

One. Two. Three.

Then her actual scream came, followed by the ladder crashing down.

She was fine. Scraped knee. Bruised ego. Trying to hang a bird feeder too high like I'd told her not to.

But here's what I can't stop thinking about. The echo scream was longer than the real one. By at least two seconds. Which means something else was supposed to happen. Something worse. And then...didn't.

I keep replaying those extra two seconds in my head. Trying to imagine what I didn't hear. What sound would have come next if something hadn't changed.

Elisa thinks I'm paranoid. "The brain plays tricks," she said last night, not looking up from her phone. "You're just stressed from the move."

Maybe. But that doesn't explain the car door.

Last Tuesday. 3:47 AM. I heard it slam in the driveway. Grabbed my phone, watched the time. Waited.

3:47:04. The real slam came.

I was downstairs in my boxers before Elisa could ask where I was going. Porch light. Empty driveway. Our car exactly where we left it. No footprints in the dew. Nothing.

But the echo slam had been angry. Metal on metal. Someone furious.

The real one was gentle. Careful. Quiet.

Like whoever was there had changed their mind about what they were going to do.

I stood there for ten minutes in the cold, trying to understand. If the echo shows what's coming, why was it so different from what actually happened?

Unless the echo shows what should have happened. What was supposed to happen.

And something changed it.

The basement door is still six feet away from me. I left it open this morning. Just a crack. Can't remember why now. Elisa hates when I do that. Says the basement smells musty.

I can hear the washing machine running down there. Started a load before I heard my voice. Before I froze at the sink and counted and waited and nothing came.

The machine is thumping through the spin cycle. The whole house vibrates with it.

Three days ago I heard Henley laughing in her room. The echo came first and I stopped in the hallway to listen, really listen.

It was her laugh. But it had this edge to it. Manic. Rising in pitch. Going on too long until it started to sound less like laughing and more like something breaking.

I counted. Five seconds this time. Longer than usual.

Then the real laugh came. Normal. Sweet. Just my daughter giggling at something on her tablet.

I stood outside her door with my hand on the frame and I thought about those five seconds. About the version of that laugh I heard first. The one that sounded wrong.

What had I heard? What didn't happen?

The day before that, I was in the garage and I heard Elisa say my name.

Not from the kitchen. Not calling from another room. Right behind me. Close enough I should have felt breath on my neck.

My name. Urgent. Scared.

I spun around. Nothing. Empty garage. Just me and concrete and motor oil smell.

I counted. One. Two. Three. Four. Five.

Then I heard her actual voice, distant, from the kitchen.

"Honey? What do you want for dinner?"

Same words. Same voice.

But the echo had sounded terrified.

The washing machine just stopped.

The silence is so loud I can hear my heartbeat. Can hear the clock ticking on the wall. Can hear the house settling around me.

I'm alone. Elisa's at work. Henley's at school. Just me and the kitchen table and that basement door six feet away with its crack of darkness.

I've been down there a hundred times. Washer and dryer. Old paint cans. Henley's bike with the flat tire. Boxes we haven't unpacked. Nothing scary. Nothing wrong.

But I heard my voice.

"Don't go down there. Please. Don't go down there."

And the way I said "please"...I've never sounded like that. Like I was begging someone I love. Like I already knew it was too late but I had to try anyway.

I keep thinking about the pattern. Henley's scream that was longer. The car door that was angrier. Her laugh that went wrong. Elisa's voice that was terrified.

The echoes keep showing me things that don't happen. Things that should happen but then don't.

Like reality keeps course-correcting at the last second.

Or like something keeps changing its mind.

My hands are shaking. I didn't notice until just now. They're flat on the table and they're shaking.

The basement door is still open. Still that crack of darkness. I should close it. Should get up and close it.

But I can't stop thinking about what I heard in my voice. That desperate "please."

The way it sounded like I already knew I was too late.

The house is so quiet now. Just the tick of the clock. Just my breathing.

I'm listening.

Waiting.

Because somewhere ahead of me - maybe minutes, maybe hours, maybe days - there's a moment coming. A second where I'm going to be standing somewhere and I'm going to look at that basement door and I'm going to say those words.

"Don't go down there. Please. Don't go down there."

And I'm terrified to find out who I'm going to be saying it to.

The clock ticks.

The basement door stays open.

And I'm waiting for the echo of what comes next.