Nothing. Just the hollow shush of dead air. Then the noise started—a low, grainy growl, like gravel being ground between molars. It swelled and receded, layered beneath the familiar chirps and squawks of the police band.

The figure in the mirror took one step forward. The radio screamed—not static, but a harmonic of screams, dozens of them, layered like a choir of the forgotten. Then silence. Absolute. The kind that rings.

Then it came.