The Self-Dialed Call

My name is Arjun, and I am in the eighth grade. Every weekday, after school, I come home to an empty apartment. My mother, Meera, works as a junior architect at a firm downtown, and she doesn’t get back until around seven in the evening. So I have the place to myself for a few hours. The silence is a familiar presence, but sometimes it feels too heavy, as if it’s pressing in on me.

This particular night, my father, who works in a different city, called us in the evening. He always does, just to check in. After dinner, my mother and I watched some television, and then she insisted I sleep in her room, as she does when my father is away. She says it’s for company, but I think it’s because she gets lonely too. I lay on the bed, my phone on the nightstand beside me, while her phone was left charging in the living room. I drifted off to sleep around eleven, the soft hum of the city outside lulling me.

I don’t know what time it was when I woke up—probably three or four in the morning. The room was dark, and the only illumination came from the faint glow of my phone screen. It was ringing. I picked it up groggily, and the caller ID made my blood run cold: ‘Maa.’ It was from my mother’s phone. But that was impossible. Her phone was in the living room, and she was lying right next to me, fast asleep.

I shook her awake. ‘Maa, wake up. Your phone is calling me.’ She blinked, disoriented, and reached for my phone. She stared at the screen, then answered. The call was silent—no breathing, no static, just a hollow emptiness. She said ‘Hello?’ twice, but there was no response. She ended the call and put the phone down. ‘It’s probably a network glitch,’ she said, her voice not entirely steady. She told me to go back to sleep, and we didn’t discuss it further. But I could feel her tension in the way she held onto me.

In the morning, while she was getting ready for work, I checked both phones. The call log on my mother’s phone showed the call to my number at 3:42 AM. But that couldn’t be. Her phone had been on the charger in the hall all night. I brought it to her, my hands trembling. ‘Look at this, Maa.’ She glanced at it and said in a calm but firm tone, ‘I told you not to discuss this. It’s nothing.’ But I saw the worry in her eyes.

She left for work at eight, and I’ve been alone since. The apartment feels different now. Every creak of the floorboards makes me jump. At noon, I was in my room doing homework on my computer. The room was bright with sunlight, but then I saw it: a brilliant, blinding light on my computer table, right in front of me. It was so intense that I couldn’t look at it directly, and it seemed to pulse with a life of its own. It lasted for a few seconds and then vanished, leaving me breathless.

I don’t know what’s happening. I’m too scared to stay here alone. I’ve tried calling my mother, but her phone goes straight to voicemail. I’ve tried to find logical explanations, but everything points to something unexplainable. The call from her phone while it was in the other room, the light on my desk—these are not coincidences. I’m writing this down because I need to make sense of it, even if no one else believes me.

A thought keeps nagging at me: what if the call wasn’t from her phone, but from something else that mimics it? And what if the light is a warning? I’m afraid to look behind me. I just heard a sound from the hallway. It sounded like a soft breath. I know I should go check, but my legs are shaking.

I need help. I don’t know who to turn to. I’m only thirteen, and I’m alone in this house. My mother said not to discuss it, but how can I not? The light was so bright, and it felt like it was trying to tell me something. Maybe it was a message. Maybe it’s the same message as the call: something is here, and it wants to be noticed.

I’ve decided to stay in my room, with the door locked. The light was on that table, but I don’t want to be near it. I’ve pulled the curtains shut, but even now, I can see a faint flicker from the corner of my eye. I’m not sure if it’s real or my imagination.

If you’re reading this, please, I need a solution. I can’t spend another night like this. There has to be an explanation, a rational one, but every logical answer slips through my fingers like smoke.

I just heard a thud from the kitchen. It was loud, like a door closing by itself. I’m going to call my mother again. Maybe she’ll answer this time.

I hope she does.