I've lived near the slopes of Harrow Peak all my life.
A mountain is like a god: indifferent, towering, and patient. It watches you, tests you, keeps secrets inside its ribs of stone and ice.
My father once told me, "Boy, there are voices up there you don't answer, no matter how much they beg."
He died before I understood what he meant, but I never forgot his words.
That's why I remember Jay and Sabrina.
They weren't from here. Outsiders, city people, all bright smiles and sturdy boots.
They came one autumn, when the air smelled of frost and the trees were red like bleeding tongues.
They told the shopkeeper they were heading up the mountain trails, just the two of them, for a week-long hike.
The shopkeeper tried to warn them — "Don't go near the north ridge. Don't stay after dark."
They laughed, thinking he was superstitious.
They didn't know that in these parts, superstition is survival.
I wasn't there the night they found the cabin. I only know what we pieced together later, from tracks, from what was left behind, and from Sabrina herself — before she… well. You'll hear.
*******
The Cabin
It was Sabrina who spotted it. Half-hidden among pines, black wood rotting, shutters hanging loose.
It leaned like a drunk against the slope.
City folk see a ruin and think it's quaint, like a fairy-tale cottage. But we know better.
But they were cold, and the sky was bleeding into night, so they went inside.
The cabin smelled of damp and dust.
The wallpaper peeled like dead skin. Broken furniture was stacked in corners, as if someone had tried to barricade themselves once.
Sabrina went into the kitchen and froze.
There, on the rusted refrigerator, was a yellow note stuck with an old nail.
"Don't listen to the Death when they speak."
She showed it to Jay, frowning. He laughed it off. "Some mountain nut playing games," he said. He pulled her close, kissed her hair, told her they'd be fine.
But words like that don't come from jokes.
They come from history.
That night, they unrolled their sleeping bags on the floor. Wind pressed against the cabin walls. Owls hooted in the trees. Slowly, sleep dragged them under.
Until the knocking began.
********
The First Knocks
Sabrina woke up first.
The sound was soft at first, like fingers tapping wood.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
She sat up, heart thundering. The sound came from the door.
Three more knocks, polite, almost gentle.
She shook Jay awake. "There's someone outside."
Jay rubbed his eyes, annoyed. "Probably a branch in the wind."
"No… it's knocking."
He sighed, pulled on his boots. "Fine, I'll check."
Sabrina panicked. The thought of being left alone in that dark cabin made her scare.
"No, I'm coming too."
And so they went, together, to the door.
Jay opened it.
The forest outside was black. The stars shivered above.
Nothing stood on the porch. The snow was unbroken.
"See?" Jay said. "No one."
But Sabrina felt eyes around. Felt breath.
She gripped his arm. And then—
Knock. Knock. Knock.
Behind them. Inside.
**********
The Whisper
They spun. The sound came from the kitchen now.
The refrigerator door shuddered as if something inside wanted out.
Sabrina begged Jay to leave. "Let's go back to the tent, the trail, anywhere—please."
But Jay shook his head. "It's just the wind in these old walls."
That's when they heard it.
A whisper. Low, dragging, like lungs filled with water.
"Jay… Sabrina… open the door."
Her blood froze. The voice came from nowhere and everywhere, curling around their ears, slipping into their bones.
Jay's face went pale, but he clenched his fists. "Who's there?"
The whisper turned into laughter. Not loud. Not human. A dry, rattling laugh, like a ribcage full of stones.
Sabrina screamed. They ran out into the trees, stumbling, tripping over roots, the cabin shrinking behind them.
That was their mistake. They should have stayed inside.
**********
The Hunt
The forest swallowed them. The moon was gone, hidden by clouds.
Their flashlight beams swung wildly, carving slices of light through endless black.
Behind them, footsteps.Too many footsteps.
Crunching snow, snapping twigs.
"Who's there?!" Jay shouted, but no answer came — only more whispers, calling their names.
Sometimes ahead, sometimes behind.
Sometimes right in their ears, so close they felt breath.
"Jay… Sabrina… listen. Listen."
The voices multiplied. Men, women, children, all murmuring, begging, pleading.
The dead had a choir, and it sang in the trees.
Sabrina clutched Jay's hand. He pulled her onward, deeper into the dark.
They didn't know where they were going — only away, away, away.
But the mountain doesn't let you escape once it's chosen you.
***********
The Clearing
They broke into a clearing, gasping for breath.
And there they saw them.
Shapes. Dozens. Hanging from the trees like grotesque fruit.
Bodies swaying, skin gray and stretched.
Some were missing eyes, some jaws, some limbs.
Their chests rose and fell though they were long dead.
And every mouth whispered.
"Don't listen. Don't listen. Don't listen…"
Sabrina dropped to her knees, sobbing. Jay dragged her up, screaming that they had to keep moving.
But the corpses turned their heads toward them. Their mouths gaped wide.
"LISTEN!!"
The word tore through the clearing like thunder.
And Jay—poor, foolish Jay—he listened.
*********
Jay's End
Sabrina swore later that she saw it happen.
That when the word hit him, Jay stopped.
Froze like a statue. His eyes rolled back, white as marble.
And then his skin began to peel.
First his hands, then his arms, curling away like paper held to flame.
Blood poured, steaming in the cold air.
His scream was not his own — it was hundreds of voices shrieking through his throat.
Sabrina tried to pull him, tried to hold him, but the corpses laughed, and Jay's body burst like rotten fruit.
When the blood cleared, he was gone.
Nothing but his boots remained.
The whispers slithered closer.
And Sabrina ran.
*********
Survivor
She stumbled for hours. Through brambles that cut her skin, across streams that froze her bones, past shadows that reached with skeletal fingers.
Somehow, she made it down the ridge, back to town.
We found her at dawn, half-dead, clothes soaked in blood that wasn't hers.
She screamed when anyone spoke.
For months, she wouldn't go near a door.
Wouldn't listen when people knocked.
But she lived.
For two years, she lived.
***********
The Note
And then one morning, her friends found her in her kitchen.
Dead.
Knife in her chest. Blood soaking the floor.
And on the refrigerator, pinned with a nail, a note written in trembling hand:
"Please listen. The dead is speaking."
We buried her next to her grandparents.
The preacher said she died of grief, of madness.
But the old ones in town… we knew.
The mountain doesn't forget. Once you've heard its voices, they never stop speaking.
And if you listen too long, they own you.
So now when hikers come through, bright-eyed and eager, I warn them. Some laugh. Some listen.
But I always tell them the same thing.
When you hear knocking in the night, don't answer. When you hear the dead whisper your name, don't listen. For God's sake, don't listen.
Because the mountain is still speaking.
And one day, it might call for you.
Stream Commentary; Tape #49. "listen, The Death Is Speaking"
The stream hums back to life, static crackling like laughter before the voices arrive. Kai sits forward this time, chin resting lazily on his hand, his goggle-glass hiding what could be amusement or disdain.
"Humans… they never listen.
They're warned, begged, even handed truth on silver platters — yet they spit on it, call it superstition, and march straight into their graves.
Tell me, my dear friends, does arrogance taste sweet when it's the last thing on your tongue?"
[@Jaija:They were told! Don't go there, don't touch that, don't summon this! And what do they do? March right into the monster's mouth like it's a carnival ride. Oh, the fun of this irony! Like lambs to slaughter, except the lambs at least know they're lambs!]
[@Ovesix: Indeed. Humans mistake their arrogance for wisdom. They assume every warning is exaggeration, every legend a child's tale. But arrogance is the most efficient poison — it requires no blade, no claws. They kill themselves with pride]
[@Jaija: sighs, they always dug their own graves]
[@642: Fools! Fools! Their screams are music, their downfall a comedy. They laughed at warnings, and now we laugh at them. Nothing sweeter than humans choking on their own cleverness!]
[@Enchomay: Perhaps… the greatest joke of all is that they believe they control fear. That by mocking it, they are immune to it. But fear never goes away. It only waits… and when it returns, it devours them whole.]
(Kai nods at their words)
"Humans never learn. That is their greatest tragedy, and their most entertaining flaw.
They believe arrogance will shield them, when in truth, it only blinds them to the abyss.
Hear this, dear viewers
(He leans closer, the screen flickers with static )
"ignore warnings at your peril.
Pride sharpens the knife at your own throat."
(He straightens, his tone shifting, deliberate now)
"And so, our next tale will not be of laughter, but of… dissection.
A debate, if you will. Not of pride, but of predators.
I call it… 'Different Types of Killers.'"
"In this debate, masks will fall.
Some kill for love. Some for hate. Some for need.
Some for… nothing at all.
Which killer would you fear most, dear audience?
Or perhaps… which one are you?"
(The screen dims, kai's chuckle the last thing heard before the stream dies)
STREAM ENDS