It got worse after that.
The whispering didn't stop, it just shifted. Some nights it sounded like Noah, while other nights, like breath pressed against glass. Once the voice said something that sent a chill down my spine:
"You shouldn't fallen instead"
I didn't tell Mom. She was barely hanging on, moving through the house like she is a ghost. I didn't want to hand her more weight to carry. So I kept it inside me, not uttering a word. It felt like trying to keep something rotten inside a cardboard box and expecting it to not smell.
The Ridge kept finding it's way into my sleep. It felt like I was standing on the edge, looking down towards the steep ready to fall. Sometimes I'd blink during the day-in class, or brushing my teeth-and the Ridge would flash behind my eyes like a film reel skipped out of sync.
My notebook changed too.
One morning I opened it and found sketches I didn't remember drawing. The charcoal under my nails said otherwise. Something I noticed was, it was always that fucking Ridge. And always the same two figures: one falling, and one watching silently.
I showed Mom one of these drawings. It was not because I thought it would help-I just wanted to know if she saw what I saw.
She looked at the page for too long. I felt she didn't understand-maybe she didn't saw the figures like I did?
"Mom, What happened?" I whispered.
She shook her head and folded the paper at once, and then slid it into her coat pocket like something she needed to hide from the light.
"Nothing sweetheart, the drawing is beautiful! Now go in your room and play, ok?" She said softly. All I could do was obey her and go to my room with questions filled in my mind. Beautiful? Heck that was a creepy drawing!
That night, I heard her talking behind her bedroom door.
"John, they're both still here. I can feel them." she whispered.
Dad? She was talking to him? What was both of them?
The word shouldn't have mattered to me but it did. It hit something i'd been trying not to name.
I didn't sleep that night. I sat on the floor of my room with the lights on, heart twitching like it was trying to run away from me
I started keeping a journal. Just notes at first, things I saw, I heard and felt. The way the mirror started to feel...off. It was like my reflection was thinking by itself.
Of course the journal helped a little. Until the morning I unzipped my school backpack and found the journal inside.
"What the heck is it doing here!" I talked to myself.
I removed the journal and started to flip through it. Everything was good except the last entry. It wasn't mine.
It was in Noah's handwriting.
The entry said:
"At the Ridge, 5:30 pm. On 2 May 1999. No excuses are entertained, be present I would be waiting."
"5:30pm? Who is this crazy fella!" I yelled at myself in a low voice.
I didn't plan to go to the Ridge again, but I just ended up here.
I barely remember the walk. Just a blur fenceposts and thorns and the low drons of cicadas. The air felt off-too still and sharp. It was as if the world has paused.
The boulder waited at the top. Same as before, but everything around it slightly wrong-like someone had moved the piece while I wasn't looking.
I climbed up anyway.
I don't know what I was expecting. Maybe a voice or a sign. Something that would make all of this sense.
But all I got was silence.
"Why did I even came here in the first place!" I was furious by now. This place is a living nightmare and after the incident I hated it to the core of my heart.
While I was muttering utter nonsense under my breath I heard something- not quite a voice but something like it, curling in the back of my head:
"You came because you left me."
The ground tilted. My stomach turned cold and my face became pale. For a second-just a second-I wasn't me anymore.
I was looking at the boulder.
I saw myself-standing there and staring down-not moving just staring.
I couldn't speak, couldn't scream or even blink.
At the side was Noah. He was looking at my soul with his cold eyes. It was as if he was threatening me to jump off the cliff...just like him.
"Come on, just jump" Noah said, laughing like he used too.
I looked down, and the ridge below wasn't steep anymore. It was soft, like mist or memory. He was there, laughing at me, eyes shining like he'd never left at all. Without thinking-without fear-I jumped.
And woke up gasping.
Except this time, I was standing-right in the middle of the geography class-my chaie toppled behind me, my hands shaking and everyone staring.
Mrs.Healy looked like she'd just bitten into something sour.
"Mr.Brown,"she said, slowly and carefully like I was holding a knife, "are you alright?"
I blinked. My face was wet. My heart thundered in my ears. The open textbook on my desk stared back like nothing had happened.
Someone giggled. Someone whispered, "Is he crying?"
"I-I think I fell asleep." I said, though I wasn't sure if it was true.
She stepped towards me and lowered her voice. "You were shouting, sweetie. Something about jumping."
I looked at her, then at my classmates-half were scared like I was a monster, half were curious-and that's when I saw it.
Scrawled across the inside cover of my textbook, in handwriting that wasn't mine:
"You said you will jump too, cheater!"
I let out a long sight before answering to Mrs.Healy.
"My apologies ma'am. I won't sleep in the class again, I promise you."
She just nodded her head slowly and patted my shoulders before continuing with the class.
It was too quiet when I got home. Still in the way that makes you want to check your closet.
When I got home, it was too quite. Quite in a way that makes you want to check your closet.
Mom was gone.
Her bed was made. The window was wide open. The curtains breathe slowly in the wind. Her perfume lingered, faint and sour, like a smile that had been held too long.
I noticed there was a note.
"Honey, I will be out for some time. Be careful, he's not who you think he is."
I closed my eyes and sighted.
I placed the paper on the table and was about to go to my room, but then I noticed something. There was something written on the back as well.
"You're not either"
No name. No context. Just that. It was in a jagged handwriting that don't look like hers.