Every night at exactly 1:13 a.m., if I tuned 97.3 FM just right, the voice would break through. Smooth. Steady. Like someone reading bedtime stories for insomniacs.

Tonight’s update: the next one will be found by the river.

Two nights later, they pulled Jason Cartwright’s body from the river.

The police called it a freak accident. Jason had been drinking. But I’d heard the warning before it happened. And when I told them? They looked at me like I’d just confessed to believing in ghosts.

I kept listening.

The broadcasts came every few nights. Always 1:13 a.m. Always naming someone and a location.

He won’t see the train coming.

The next day, Paul Dixon was hit by a train.

She’ll fall before she screams.

3 nights later, Marla Kent was found at the bottom of the quarry.

I thought I was slowly going insane. And then:

She’ll be wearing the red jacket.

Three days later, my sister Alice’s bike turned up by the river. She left home wearing a red jacket, but it was gone. So was she

I started recording the broadcasts on my phone. That’s when I noticed them, tiny, strange clicks buried under the voice. I ran them through a sound-editing app. They weren’t random. They were Morse code.

The messages were always coordinated.
Each set pointed to a public place in town: the train station, the school bleachers, the water tower.
And in each place, I found something small, almost insignificant: a button, a playing card, a plastic charm. Each had a number scratched into it.

I needed to find out where my sister was.

I made a list of people who might have taken her.

1. Mr. Clarke – My history teacher and head of “Media Club.” Knows more about broadcast equipment than anyone.

2. Ellen Graves – Works at the library; the last person seen speaking to Jason before his death.

3. Trevor Shaw – Local conspiracy nut with a ham radio in his basement.

4. Me? – If you believe the rumours in school, I “predict” deaths now. People cross the hall to avoid

The coordinates eventually formed a circle on a map, and at the centre was the abandoned Birch Street Community Radio Station.
Boarded-up windows. Rusted antenna. Supposedly shut down in 2009.

One night, I broke in with bolt cutters.

The air inside was stale, humming faintly. In the main studio, there was a desk, a microphone, and a dusty mixing board. A laptop sat open, its screen glowing.

There was a playlist of audio files. Dozens of them, each labelled with a date, name, and location.
Some were dated months ago.
Some… were scheduled for the future.

Tomorrow’s file had my name on it. “She’ll be wearing headphones. She’ll think she’s safe.”

I spun around — and there was Mr. Clarke in the doorway, hands in his coat pockets.

“You’re clever,” he said. “Clever enough to find the signal. That’s why I picked you.”

He explained it like it was a game — the broadcasts, the codes, the trinkets. He’d been testing me, seeing if I could keep up.

“But why the deaths?” I demanded.

“Not all of them were me,” he said. “Some were… inevitable. People make mistakes. I just broadcast the truth before it happens. And you…” He smiled. “You’ll be my successor.”

He hit record. The red light glowed.

“Tonight’s update is our final one,” he said into the mic. “Our girl is ready to take over.”

I didn’t run. I smiled back at him. Because what he didn’t know was that I’d been recording him.

When the police came, they found Clarke’s fingerprints all over the equipment. The files. The trinkets. The codes. Case closed.

Only… here’s the thing.

When I got home, my radio switched on by itself. 1:13 a.m.
And I heard my voice.

“Tonight’s update: He thought he was setting me up. But I set him up first.”

The file wasn’t on my phone. I hadn’t recorded it.
And in the background, under my voice, the Morse code clicked again.

Coordinates.

When I traced them, they pointed to my own house. My closet

I went to check, my phone shaking in my hand. In the back of my closet, Buried under a box of winter clothes was Alice’s red jacket.

It smelled faintly of river water.

I don’t remember putting it there.
I don’t remember touching it since the night she disappeared.

But lately… I’ve been dreaming of water.
Cold, dark water.
And in the dreams, I’m not trying to save her.

I’m pushing her under.

She stepped out of the bookstore on Elm Street, arms full of poetry volumes. Their spines were cracked, their covers soft with years of love. In her other hand, a paper cup steamed, the scent of bitter coffee cutting through the city's noise. She moved with calm assurance, not hurried but purposeful, as if the world had agreed to move at her pace. Her eyes, dark and unwavering, carried a quiet gravity. And her mouth—God, that mouth—tilted into a smile that stopped me mid-step. She offered it to an old man feeding pigeons, and it felt like the sun breaking through clouds. Warm, unguarded, and entirely disarming.

I stood across the street, my journal a weight in my coat pocket, my heart stuttering in a way it hadn’t in years.

I wasn’t obsessed. I was captivated. Drawn to her like a moth to a flame, not to possess, but to understand.

The first time I felt this way was at seventeen. Emily. She used to sit by the library window, sketching flowers into the margins of her notebook. She had this way of tilting her head when she laughed, like she was sharing a secret with the sky. I never spoke to her. I just watched from across the room, trying to sketch her expression when the sunlight touched her cheek. That summer, she moved away. I never saw her again, but I kept the sketches. I kept the echo of her smile.

This one, though, became a ritual.

Each afternoon, she left the bookstore and wandered the city. She paused at the corner of Fifth and Maple to listen to street performers, ordered black coffee with no sugar at the café on Rose Avenue. She always sat by the window, her posture straight, her neck tilted slightly like a painting in motion. I would sit in the back corner, sketching her from memory. Always memory. Never photos.

I learned the curve of her lips, the way her fingers danced across the edges of her books. One evening, I lingered too long outside her building and memorized her door code. Four, seven, two, nine. I memorized her smile.

At night, I lay awake replaying the way she walked, the way her hair shifted when she turned. I imagined sitting across from her, laughing over shared lines of poetry, her eyes meeting mine, her voice filled with recognition.

When I was twenty-two, there was Clara. A barista near my apartment. Always humming softly while she worked. Her smile was shy, like an apology for being noticed. I sat at the counter sketching her hands, her quiet rhythm. We spoke sometimes, about the weather or music. Then one day, she was gone. A new job, they said. But her smile stayed in my journal, a souvenir of almost.

This one was different. Her smile wasn’t just warm. It was alive, like a spark behind glass. I drew her constantly. Her eyes, her hands, the way her hair curled near her jaw. I followed her sometimes, from a distance. Just enough to feel tethered. I told myself it wasn’t stalking. I was an artist. She was my muse.

One evening, I found myself outside her building. Her windows glowed with soft light. I imagined her inside, curled up with a book, barefoot, peaceful. My fingers brushed the journal in my coat. I imagined knocking. Saying her name. Hearing it on her lips.

There was Daniel too, when I was twenty-five. A guitarist outside the subway. That crooked smile, full of secrets. I sketched his hands, the glint in his eyes when he played. We talked once. Twice. Then one winter, he vanished. Maybe he moved. But I kept his joy in graphite and ink.

I followed her for weeks. Careful. Distant. Thursdays meant poetry readings. Fridays, tea instead of coffee. Saturdays, a walk through the park at dusk. Her coat swung gently at her knees. I filled my journal with her. Notes, sketches, shadows. I told myself it was harmless. Reverence. Art.

I began dreaming of her. Not in romantic ways, exactly, but in quiet moments. Sitting beside me. Smiling. Eyes full of understanding. I would wake with my heart hammering, my hands reaching for charcoal.

The last one before her was Lily, the librarian. Quiet and patient. Her smile was like a promise kept. I spent afternoons in the library, pretending to browse while sketching her movements. The way her hand hovered over spines before making a choice. One day, she transferred to another branch. But I had her still, captured in lines and shading.

The night I chose was moonless. The sky above the city stretched black and wide. She took her usual path home. I followed, my journal in one pocket, a blade in the other. Not for her. Just a habit. Protection. The streets were quiet. The air thick with the weight of coming rain. She turned down an alley. A shortcut she sometimes used.

I stepped closer.

My hand brushed the blade. Not out of malice, but instinct. I was going to speak. To reach out.

“I was hoping it’d be you,” she said.

I froze.

Her voice was low. Smooth. Deliberate. She turned, eyes locking with mine. Calm. Knowing. Something in her gaze cut through me like ice.

“You’ve been watching me,” she said, stepping closer. “But I’ve been waiting for you.”

My breath caught. My hand tightened. Not to hurt her. Just to hold on to something.

And suddenly, I knew.

I wasn’t here to know her.

I was here to take her.

Emily hadn’t moved away. I followed her one night. My hands trembled as I pressed the blade to her throat. Her smile was soft. Forgiving.

Clara didn’t get a new job. I found her behind the coffee shop, her shy smile still lingering.

Daniel, in the subway tunnel. Lily, in the library basement.

Thirty-two smiles.

All mine.

I raised the blade.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered. Not to her. To myself. To the version of me that thought it was love.

She moved first.

Pain lanced through my gut. I looked down. A sliver of black obsidian was buried to the hilt. She twisted it once, clean and cruel. My knees gave way. The knife fell from my hand.

“You think you’re a collector,” she said. Her voice was soft. “But you’re just part of the shelf.”

She pulled a book from her coat. It was thick, bound in dark leather. She opened it. My face stared back at me, sketched in charcoal, beside dozens of others. Names. Dates. Smiles.

The world blurred, but I could still see her. I could still hear her.

“Do you want to see the first smile?” she asked. “The one the universe made when it was born?”

I collapsed.

When I opened my eyes, I wasn’t in the alley.

I was in a mirror. My reflection wasn’t mine.

I tried to scream. No sound came. I smiled, but it was her smile now, wearing my face like a mask.

She walked away. Her steps light. Her shadow disappearing into the dark.

And I remained. Trapped behind glass. A ghost. A sketch. A smile.

I see the others now. Emily. Clara. Daniel. Lily. All lined up beside me. All grinning.

She let me follow her.

She knew I would come.

And now she is out there again. Poetry books in her arms. Coffee steaming in her hand. Waiting for the next one.

Waiting for the next smile.

Saige lived in a weathered old house with walls so thin she could hear everything—every muffled argument, every stifled sob, every silent scream. She was a ghost in her own life, a quiet girl forgotten by teachers, classmates, even her parents.

She used to have a best friend, Natalia. They dreamed together beneath the ancient oak tree about a city alive with laughter and light. But Natalia disappeared—moved away in the night without a word. Since then, Saige’s world had grown colder, her silence growing louder.

Her parents, weary and distant, often said, “You’re too quiet, Saige.”
“Make your destiny.”

But how? How do you make a destiny when every step feels like tracing lines in a sketchbook you can’t erase? Saige felt like a puppet, her life drawn by a hand she couldn’t see. The house groaned with secrets. At night, Saige heard the creaking from the attic. Weeks of faint whispers—wood shifting, maybe. Or something else.

One night, after another explosion of anger downstairs, she couldn’t block it out anymore. Heart pounding, she crept up the narrow stairs and pushed open the heavy attic door.

Dust hung in the air like a fog. In the corner stood an old chest, locked tight. Her fingers trembled as she pried it open.

Inside lay a golden quill, shimmering with an otherworldly light, resting on brittle pages yellowed with age.

A voice, barely a whisper, drifted through the shadows:
“Saige…”

She reached out and touched the quill. Sparks burst forth, dancing like fireflies trapped in the dark.

“Draw wisely,” the voice said. “Each line seals a new destiny.” Saige hesitated, then sketched herself—the pale, quiet girl with chestnut hair. But this time, something was different.

The next day, Aria, a girl who had always ignored her, smiled and waved. Then others noticed her. Compliments followed. For once, she felt seen.

But the quill’s power came with a sinister edge.

She drew a new job for her mother, who had struggled for years. A week later, it happened. But when her mother smiled, it didn’t reach her eyes. A shadow lurked beneath the surface.

Her parents’ fights diminished, but the silence between them grew heavy, suffocating. Years passed. Saige rose to the top of her class, moved to the city, and became a museum curator. The quill was tucked away, forgotten — or so she thought.

Then, Jasper.

They met by accident in a florist’s shop—his books tumbled, crushing her flowers.

“Sorry, my books are always trying to escape,” he said, laughing.

Their connection was instant, magnetic. Jasper was different—genuine, kind, with dreams of opening a bookstore.

But then Isabella appeared—Jasper’s girlfriend.

Saige’s fragile hope was shattered. Desperate, Saige took the quill again. She drew herself beside Jasper, with a shadowy figure named Matteo at her side—someone to guard her, to protect her desires.

The next day, Isabella left.

Saige and Jasper’s relationship blossomed. They married. Life was perfect—or so it seemed. Everything was perfect. until one evening, Jasper found the quill glowing on the kitchen table.

“Why is this glowing?” he asked.

Saige didnt want to lie to jasper but there was no way he would believe her. she told him anyway. “its a magic quill, whatever i draw with it comes true.” she confessed “i…i used it to make isabella go away,” she could feel her throat swallowing itself. she never realised how wrong this was until now. Jasper laughed. “Very funny”, he said “Now, tell me what this actually is”, he added. “I'm not lying, I'll prove it” She took out a piece of paper and drew a hundred-dollar bill laying on the ground. the world shifted a little and once jasper moved his foot, there was, in fact a note. his face turned red. “You can’t control fate,” Jasper said bitterly. “If we were meant to be, it would have happened without magic.”

He left.

Saige was alone again. It all happened so quickly. She felt a wave of regret. all those drawings she made. She took them out of a box where she safely stored every drawing she created, desperate to undo the damage. But the quill pulsed with life in her hands, as if mocking her.

Suddenly, everything twisted.

She was back in Lyra’s market, clutching roses—trapped in a loop she couldn’t escape. suddenly, someone bumped into her, she fell down and the roses fell with her.

“Sorry, my books are always trying to escape,” a familiar voice said.

Jasper stood before her—but his eyes held something dark, something not human. The world shattered. The market dissolved into a sterile white room lined with mirrors reflecting infinite versions of Saige—each more fractured than the last.

A cold, mechanical voice echoed:

“You have completed the simulation.”

Saige’s knees buckled.

Simulation?

Behind one mirror, she saw another self—the cold, cruel Saige clutching the glowing quill, eyes empty and lifeless.

A screen flickered to life, showing a technician’s face.

“Lyra is a constructed environment—a test bed. The quill controls the variables. Your memories, your friends—they are AI constructs, programmed to observe emotional responses. Your parents, your best friend, even Jasper—they were never real.” Saige screamed silently inside.

Her entire life—fabricated. The love, the pain, the magic—all algorithms and code. Not even her parents were real

The quill was no tool of fate but a control device.

“You were never free. Your choices were simulations. The quill lets us test the illusion of choice.”

A message flashed:

“Draw wisely. Each line seals a destiny. But who holds the quill?” Saige’s mind spiraled.

If her life was scripted, was she even real? Or just another character in a cosmic story written by a cruel author?

And if someone else held the quill, what did that mean for free will?

She looked down. The quill pulsed in her hand—not just code, but something alive. Something watching.

The mirrors around her cracked, reflections multiplying, fracturing her identity.

Her whispered plea echoed through the sterile chamber:

“Let me choose.”

But the voice responded:

“Choice is the greatest illusion of all.”

and somewhere, far beyond the glass walls and endless mirrors, the quill waits. waiting for the next hand to grasp it, to draw the next life.