Lost Echoes

Amelia Winters, with an odd mixture of nostalgia and dread, stepped back into the creaky wooden floors of her grandmother's old house in Elmhurst. She hadn't been there since she was eight. A part of her had always wanted to forget it existed. "Got work to do," she muttered, forcing herself to focus as she climbed the narrow stairs to the attic. Cobwebs brushed against her face as she pushed open the heavy trapdoor. Dust motes danced like little ghosts in the beam of her flashlight. She started sorting through old boxes and albums, each crumbling photo streaked with memories she couldn't quite piece together. Then she found it—the old radio she remembered seeing her grandmother fiddle with, squinting into its tiny screen. Out of idle curiosity, Amelia twisted the tuning knob. The radio roared to life, surprisingly loud for its size, crackling with static before settling on a clear frequency. Her ears perked up. It was playing a local news announcement from the 1970s, announcing the disappearance of local children—a scare she vaguely recalled from her childhood. "Why's this thing playing ancient broadcasts?" She frowned, considering throwing it out. As she placed it back down, the solemn voice continued, "Another child reported missing near Maple Lane, prompting questions about the history…" Amelia froze. Maple Lane was just blocks from her grandmother’s house. Shivers ran down her spine. Driven by a mix of fright and curiosity, she listened further each night. The broadcasts never repeated. Sometimes they played single tales of joy—birthdays, weddings—and sometimes, stories that made Amelia clutch her own arms protectively. Then things got stranger. Places mentioned in the broadcasts felt eerily familiar. The more she listened, the more she remembered scenes flashing from her own childhood—the neighborhood color-coded bicycles, Mrs. Tilly’s dog that never stopped barking. One evening, the broadcast didn’t just tell her a story. It asked her one—a jarring question from a local witch-hunt trial once held in Elmhurst, "Where were you when the lights went out, Amelia?" Curling with unease, she switched off the radio. But reality wormed its way in. The next day, walking by the local grocery, she heard a rumor about Mrs. Boswell's cat going missing—the same day, same story she had heard through the radio. "Can't be," she muttered. Still, the radio forced Blake's missing bicycle to mind. How had it all happened right under everyone’s noses? By now, the broadcasts had become more persistent, more personal, and disturbingly accurate. She jotted down old names—Sarah, Julian, little Blake—and felt a tug of truth she couldn't shake. She upended boxes frantically looking for clues, but found nothing substantial. Until one night, the voice over the airwaves recounted in chilling detail her last day in Elmhurst—the day her grandma warned her, "There's a world of echoes we don’t mention." Tears firming in her eyes, she knew what she had to do. "It's the last time. Just a last time," she whispered. And with trembling hands, she switched the radio back on. It announced, "If you want the rest, Amelia Winters, turn the dial." Through knots of dread, she obeyed. The frequency shifted. Fading voices wove a story of children vanished but alive still—'kept voices' they called them—hidden by a secretive resolve of those wanting quiet years. Old echoes were memories untold, penned in invisible ink in the confines of smoky parlor rooms. Amelia understood now—why all had been forgotten, and what was taken from waiting minds. "It's your truth, Amelia. You’ve brought echoes back." The voice fell quiet, no static to replace it. Her heart eased as though freed from chains. Years later, overwhelmed with the strange but freeing knowledge, she returned to the attic, dropping flowers in a small keepsake box—the box of untold echoes. Her soul felt less burdened. Her mind, weightless.