The Voices in the Static

Alistair Graves

Good evening, my dear listeners. Tonight, I invite you to join me for a story that threads its way through the whispers of the airwaves—where fractured voices echo and the thin boundary between the living and the unknown begins to waver.

Alistair Graves

Picture this, if you will: a small, rural radio station sitting forgotten on the edge of a sleeping town. The kind of place where darkened fields press against fogged-up studio windows, and only the blue glow of a lone broadcasting light cuts through the murk. Here, a DJ sits, night after night, spinning songs for an audience he hopes is out there... somewhere.

Alistair Graves

But then, on a quiet evening—a little too quiet—he begins to receive calls that were, perhaps, better left unanswered. Calls where the line crackles faintly, before dropping into an oppressive silence. And then the faintest traces of a voice seep through the void—a whisper so fragmented it's almost lost within the hiss of the static. Almost.

Alistair Graves

At first, he brushes it off as interference. A glitch. He assures himself it’s technical, predictable, ordinary. But his mind can't shake one peculiarity: the voice sounds like his own. Words he doesn’t recall speaking, swirling back to him as if the static had learned to talk.

Alistair Graves

It started with something innocent—or so it seemed. Some question or fragment that coaxed him to lean in a little closer. And as the nights dragged on, the calls grew bolder, stranger. The voice in the static was becoming clearer, repeating fragments of thoughts and sentences from the DJ's private musings. You might even say... it knew him.

Alistair Graves

Eventually, as all tales with the paranormal tend to, it reached a tipping point. Terrified, sleepless, and clutching at his sanity with trembling fingers, the DJ abandoned his post, leaving the lonely studio to gather dust. And for decades, the story faded away with him.

Alistair Graves

Until it returned.

Alistair Graves

Our DJ, seasoned as he was in the rhythms of the nocturnal airwaves, couldn’t shake the peculiarities. Not when the calls persisted. Not when the voice lingering in the static began to... morph. It wasn’t just an echo anymore. It was him. His own voice, speaking in tones he didn’t remember, uttering words he had never said. Yet, undeniably his.

Alistair Graves

He began, in the smallest of ways, to question his grip on reality. Was this a prank? Some elaborate technical error? Or—and here’s the thought that gnawed at the back of his mind—was the equipment simply picking up something it shouldn’t?

Alistair Graves

One night, he decided to confront the mystery directly. Perhaps foolishly. He kept the line open, set the recorder running. And when the call came, as he knew it would, he listened. Hanging in that gossamer balance between dread and denial, he strained to catch every syllable.

Alistair Graves

His voice spilled out of the static. Broken and disjointed, yet familiar enough to chill him to the bone. It murmured fragments of sentences—forgotten remarks from shows he’d broadcast months ago. Yet, beneath it, there was... something else. A faint, almost imperceptible resonance, threading itself through his own words. Like a whisper beneath a whisper.

Alistair Graves

But here’s the thing. When he played back the recording? Nothing. No voice. No hiss. Just an endless, yawning void of silence. The absence was more damning than any evidence could have been. It left him shaken, certain of one truth—

Alistair Graves

Whatever was happening, it wasn’t natural. And worse still... it wasn’t finished.

Alistair Graves

What began as unease soon spiraled into outright fear. Our DJ, once assured and steady behind the mic, became a shadow of himself. Night after night, the voice persisted—fragmented at first, but growing more coherent. And with coherence came purpose.

Alistair Graves

He stopped sleeping. How could he, when every creak of his tiny studio, every whisper of static seemed alive with intent? He began to see shapes, fleeting at the edges of the dim red glow of the control panels. A trick of exhaustion, he told himself. But exhaustion doesn’t explain the other things. The sensation... no, the certainty... that he wasn’t alone in that booth.

Alistair Graves

One night, as he huddled beneath the flickering lights of his equipment, trembling fingers poised over the soundboard, the voice interrupted again. Clearer than it had ever been. And this time, it wasn’t a mere fragment. It wasn’t a question.

Alistair Graves

It said, simply, chillingly: *‘It’s time.’*

Alistair Graves

The words struck him like a dagger, a command so cold, so absolute, that he felt his breath hitch. Even the static seemed to hold its breath. He stumbled back from the console, his gaze darting across the silent booth. That overwhelming sense of presence... it was suffocating. He wasn’t alone. Not anymore.

Alistair Graves

The studio sat quiet for decades after the night he vanished, collecting dust and rumors in equal measure. No one dared to pick up where he left off. It was as though the very building held its breath, waiting.

Alistair Graves

When a new DJ finally took the seat—young, ambitious, eager to resurrect the forgotten station—they had no knowledge of the whispers that came before. It seemed, for a time, as though silence had been the cure. No calls. No voices. Only the music drifting into a peaceful void. Until, one night, it happened again.

Alistair Graves

At first, the new DJ chalked it up to nerves—the faint interruptions in the static, the almost-imperceptible swell of sound that didn’t quite belong. But it didn’t take long for the pattern to emerge. The calls returned. The same fragmented whispers. The same oppressive silence.

Alistair Graves

It’s said that time washes strange happenings clean. That the presence haunting that booth should have faded like smoke after their predecessor fled. But instead, it appeared sharper, more deliberate. And then came the night the voice spoke his name.

Alistair Graves

In just two syllables, every fiber of defiance drained from the DJ. He said it felt like being recognized by something ancient, something that had been waiting just for him. He pleaded for answers, but no reply came—only an unnatural hiss that seemed to curl around his words, smothering them before they could reach the air.

Alistair Graves

In the days that followed, his coworkers noticed the changes. Best described as a man unravelling, he stopped finding comfort in sleep or sunlight. He spoke less, paused more, as though whatever lingered in the static now lived in the spaces between his words.

Alistair Graves

And then, as if the story needed symmetry, he disappeared too. The final broadcast—his last words on air—remain unarchived. Officially? A technical error wiped the recording. But... some claim to have heard it live. The static creeping in, swallowing his trembling voice with a single bone-chilling phrase:

Alistair Graves

*‘Welcome back.’*

Alistair Graves

That broadcast was the last anyone heard of him. He walked out of the booth that night—or so the logs say—and vanished into the fog, leaving nothing behind but a dead signal and a studio that still listens.

Alistair Graves

And so, my friends, the voices in the static still linger, long after the DJs who dared to sit in that haunted booth have faded into obscurity. What are we to make of their harrowing tales? Echoes of a restless mind, perhaps, or something... deeper, something hungry, that listens and learns from its prey with every passing broadcast.

Alistair Graves

I have found, through my own experiences, that the airwaves possess a certain... energy. Something intangible yet undeniably alive. You see, even here in my own quiet corner of England, I have, on occasion, heard things in my recordings that I cannot explain. Fragments of whispers, soft and fleeting, stitched into the silence of my monologues. And while I’d like to dismiss it as interference... well...

Alistair Graves

Once, late at night, as the candlelight danced on these walls and Professor Snuffles sat staring... staring into a darkened corner of the room, I was interrupted mid-sentence by a voice that wasn’t mine. Not entirely. To this day, I’ve convinced myself it was merely distortion, a glitch born of the old equipment I stubbornly cling to. But it sounded so much like me, so much like someone trying to speak through the fog, using my voice as a vessel.

Alistair Graves

And then there’s the question of intention. These voices—be they mere fragments or deliberate echoes—seem to hold a purpose we’re not quite meant to understand. Like something brushing against the edges of our awareness, just enough to draw us closer, to make us listen... as though, in listening, we play some part in whatever lies beyond the static.

Alistair Graves

Do you feel it now? That faint shiver at the nape of your neck, the sense that somewhere, something might be listening even as you listen to me? I find it’s best not to dwell too long on such thoughts—but then again, isn’t it hard not to?

Alistair Graves

And with that, we close this tale of the voices in the static, lingering on the edges of airwaves and sanity. I hope tonight's story has left its mark—just as the voices left theirs on those who dared to listen a little too closely.

Alistair Graves

Next week, we’ll explore a mystery that bends time itself—a vanished hotel room that, to this day, denies ever having existed. But let’s not rush into that. After all, the fog doesn’t part easily for those who chase it too eagerly.

Alistair Graves

For now, I’d like to hear something from you, dear listeners. If you’ve encountered whispers in the dark, glimpsed a shadow that shouldn’t have moved, or heard a voice that wasn’t there... send me your stories. Perhaps, in sharing, we can make sense of the unnatural threads that weave through our lives—or at least, we can try.

Alistair Graves

The lines are always open, as you know, and you may just find that your voice joins these airwaves someday, adding to the echoes that persist long after the stories end.

Alistair Graves

Until then, may you find peace in the silence and solace in the static. And if the faint whispers ever find you... well, remember this: some presences were never meant to be understood.

Alistair Graves

Goodnight.