Mara worked the late shift at the city emergency control centre. The room was usually full of quiet radio chatter, but tonight the air felt heavy. Only four operators were on duty, and the building seemed to hum with a strange, low vibration.

At 23:14, a call came through on Channel 7, a channel that was normally silent. Mara frowned. Channel 7 was used only for field teams working on the old underground cables, and no one had been assigned there for years.

She pressed the button.
“Control to Channel 7. Please identify.”

The reply was a burst of static, followed by a thin voice, like someone speaking from far away.
“Help… trapped… need light…”

Mara stiffened. The voice sounded weak, frightened, and strange, as if it came from a deep tunnel.

“Where are you?” she asked.

A long pause. Then: “Under the city… cold… dark… please…”

She turned to her colleague, Tom. “Are any engineers working underground tonight?”

Tom shook his head. “No. That whole section was closed in 1998. No one should be there.”

Mara tried again. “Please confirm your name.”

The answer came sharper this time. “We cannot see… we hear you… please send light.”

Mara felt a chill run through her arms. “We?”

Static hissed, then several voices whispered at once: “Send light.”

Tom stepped closer. “Cut the channel. Something is wrong.”

But Mara could not bring herself to do it. The voices sounded desperate.

She asked, “How did you get underground?”

A scraping sound came through the speakers, like stone shifting. Then a new voice whispered, “We never left.”

The lights in the control room flickered. Tom swore under his breath. “The power grid is acting up.”

Before Mara could answer, Channel 7 burst to life again. This time the voices were louder, overlapping, as if many mouths spoke through the same broken radio.

“Cold. Hungry. Lost. Send light. We see you.”

Mara froze. “What do you mean, you see us?”

The speakers groaned. A slow, rhythmic knocking came through the line, like someone tapping on metal from the other side of a long, hollow tunnel.

Then the voices whispered, “Closer.”

The room suddenly felt tighter. The vibration in the building grew stronger, like something was moving deep beneath them.

Tom grabbed Mara’s arm. “Stop talking to it. End the transmission.”

But before she could, the radio panel lit up bright red. All channels opened, screaming the same message in different distorted tones.

“WE SEE YOU.”

At that exact moment, the floor rumbled. A low cracking sound came from beneath the control centre, rising like a wave through the building.

Mara and Tom backed toward the exit, but the doors locked automatically with a loud click.

The radios crackled again.
“Send light. Or we come for it.”

Tom shouted, “We do not have any lights to send!”

Silence.

Then a soft, wet breathing sound filled the room.

Mara looked down. A black, shifting puddle seeped through the cracks in the tiles, shining like oil but somehow alive. It pulsed, stretching toward their feet.

Tom tried to pull Mara away, but the doors would not open. He grabbed a chair and smashed it against the glass, but it did nothing.

The puddle rose, forming a long shadow that spread across the floor like fingers.

Then Channel 7 whispered, slow and satisfied,
“Found you.”

The shadow lunged.

Mara felt a cold pressure wrap around her ankle. She screamed as the darkness pulled her down, the tiles cracking under the force. Tom grabbed her hands and tried to pull her back, but more shadows rose and coiled around him too.

The radios shrieked with a thousand voices.

“WE NEVER LEFT.”

In a single pull, the shadows dragged them both down through the floor, into the darkness below.

When the morning shift arrived, the control centre was empty. The radios were silent. Only one thing remained on the desk where Mara had worked: her headset, still warm, with Channel 7 faintly glowing.

And from deep beneath the building, just for a moment, came a soft tapping.

---

Vocabulary Notes

Static
Meaning: A crackling or hissing noise that comes from a weak or interrupted radio or telephone signal.
Example: The reply was a burst of static, followed by a thin voice.
Similar words: interference, noise, crackle, hiss.

Flicker
Meaning: To shine unsteadily or to go on and off quickly. Lights often flicker when there is a power problem.
Example: The lights in the control room flickered.
Similar words: blink, flash, shimmer, quiver.

Desperate
Meaning: Feeling or showing great need or hopelessness; willing to do anything because the situation is so bad.
Example: The voices sounded desperate.
Similar words: hopeless, urgent, distressed, frantic.

Shift
Meaning: A period of time when a person works, often in jobs that run day and night.
Example: Mara worked the late shift at the city emergency control centre.
Similar words: duty period, work hours, session, rota.

Puddle
Meaning: A small pool of liquid on the ground; usually water, but in the story it describes a dark, unnatural liquid.
Example: A black, shifting puddle seeped through the cracks in the tiles.
Similar words: pool, patch, splash, pool of liquid.

Story written by ChatGPT.

Image created by ChatGPT.

CC Music: Drifting at 432 Hz – Unicorn Heads.

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