Page 25 of White Noise

Speaker. Router. Laptop charger. Anything within reach.

“You want everything off?” I shout into the empty condo. “Fine. Everything is fucking off.”

Silence falls so fast it feels wrong.

For a few seconds, nothing happens, and I almost manage to convince myself I’ve done something useful.

Then my powered-off phone lights up on the island.

I don’t touch it.

The speaker upstairs is unplugged.

His voice comes through it anyway.

“Keep pulling plugs, Saga. You think every screen you kill puts distance between us. It doesn’t.”

His voice sounds closer now, less distorted.

Almost like he’s standing upstairs instead of speaking through something.

A quiet laugh follows.

“Every time you panic, every time you run, every time that pulse jumps because you think I’m getting closer…”

The speaker crackles.

“I am.”

I stand in the middle of the kitchen gripping the knife so hard my fingers hurt.

His voice drops lower.

“Run again, little echo.”

Then everything goes silent.

This time, I don’t check the Wi-Fi.

I don’t look for another explanation.

I just stare toward the stairs and finally understand what I should’ve realized sooner.

Silas isn’t trying to get into my devices anymore.

He’s learning how to get out.

4

SAGA

OUT OF THE STATIC

Istand in the middle of my kitchen long after Silas’s voice disappears, staring toward the stairs like I’m waiting for him to prove me right.

Nothing happens.

My phone stays dark on the island, the speaker upstairs doesn’t make another sound, and the condo settles into the kind of silence I would’ve appreciated yesterday. Now it just feels like something holding its breath.