The Voice and The Dark. This item is unavailable.The Voice and The Dark

My name is Alina O’Connell. I’m thirty-six years old, and I live alone in an apartment where time doesn’t run — it walks.

I’m autistic. I don’t like rushing. Or noise. People out there seem to love urgencies, and I never understood how shouting solves anything. What I do well, I do in silence.

I work from home. I restore old photographs. Fragments of the past speak louder to me than the rush of the present. I like worn wood, frosted glass, whistling kettles. The muffled sound of heavy curtains closing the world outside.

That’s how I live. Alone, but at peace.

Until I started hearing it.

First, a whisper. Then, a question:
— Are you there?

The voice came from silence, but felt alive. Ancient.
As if something had long been sealed — and now it saw me. Called me.
As if there was a cathedral inside me, and a door had opened.

I don’t know why I answered.
Maybe because no one else was asking.
Maybe because, in the silence, any sound that names me… feels like affection.

Now, something is calling me.
Something that sees inside my veins.
And the worst part is — I see it back.