Emma's nerves were frayed. Three nights of strange occurrences—footsteps pacing behind closed doors, whispers crawling through the walls, objects vanishing and reappearing in impossible places—had left her on edge. Even daylight offered no comfort. The mansion felt alive, watching, waiting.
Now, she couldn't find her phone.
It had been sitting on the bedside table that morning, charging quietly. But now… nothing. Emma tore through the bedroom, tossing cushions, flipping over rugs, even peering under the bed. The device was gone. Panic clawed at her chest.
"Lucas," she called, her voice tight with fear. "Have you seen my phone?"
Lucas didn't lift his eyes from the newspaper he was pretending to read. "Calm down, Emma. You've had a lot on your mind. Between last night and all the… spooky stuff, maybe you just misplaced it."
"It's not misplaced!" Emma snapped. "It's gone!" She kicked the corner of the bed in frustration. "I need it!"
Lucas chuckled softly. "Relax. If it's not here, it's probably upstairs. Or in one of your bags."
Emma hesitated only a second before charging out of the room, retracing her steps through the halls that had become a labyrinth of shadows and creaking floorboards. Her eyes scanned every corner, every shelf, every darkened doorway. The house seemed unusually silent—almost holding its breath.
Step by step, she moved toward the living room. The Christmas tree loomed in the corner, lights twinkling faintly in the dim glow of the late afternoon. Gifts sat neatly beneath it, wrapped in cheerful paper, but the cheer felt out of place. She bent down, checking under the tree. Nothing.
Emma's stomach twisted. The air was colder here, almost biting. A whisper tickled her ear, soft and deliberate: "Looking… looking…"
Her heart leapt. She spun around, but the room was empty. Only the tree stood, its ornaments glittering like distant eyes. She knelt and searched again, brushing aside the larger packages. Still nothing.
"Lucas!" she shouted, her voice trembling. "I can't find it! Are you seriously not helping?"
He appeared at the doorway, still grinning despite the tension. "Emma, it's just a phone. Relax. Stop overthinking everything. You've had three nights of… well, weird stuff. Take a deep breath."
Emma glared at him. "It's not just a phone, Lucas! You don't understand. Things are happening—things that aren't normal! I need it!"
Lucas sighed and shook his head. "Fine. We'll help. But you're letting your imagination run wild."
They combed the room together, checking every nook and cranny. Emma's anxiety climbed higher with each passing minute. Her eyes darted around the room, catching shadows at the edges. She felt watched. Every movement of the lights, every flicker of the ornaments, felt deliberate, sinister.
"Have you checked behind the tree?" Lucas asked finally, nodding toward the corner.
Emma had already done it—or so she thought. But this time, she noticed something subtle: a faint blue glow between the branches, partially hidden by tinsel. Her pulse quickened. She reached carefully and felt the familiar smooth, cold shape of her phone.
Relief washed over her, fleeting and fragile. She picked it up, only to freeze. The screen was lit—and a ringtone pulsed across the room. A sound she had never chosen: a warped, distorted melody, like a music box playing underwater, twisted and broken, screeching notes that clawed at her ears.
Her hands shook as the phone vibrated violently. "No… no, no, no…"
Lucas leaned closer. "What is it?"
Before Emma could answer, the caller ID lit up. Lucas's name.
"What the hell?" she whispered. Her phone had never called itself. She stared at the screen, horror twisting her stomach into knots.
Lucas laughed nervously. "Okay… wait. I called you earlier to check if you were awake. Maybe—"
Emma cut him off. "You didn't! I was upstairs the whole time!"
He frowned, glancing at his own phone. It had been untouched. "Then… I don't know."
The phone rang again. The tone was louder, more distorted now, bending reality around it. It wasn't just music—it sounded like whispers, voices layered together: crying children, hushed warnings, faint growls. Emma stumbled backward, dropping to her knees.
"Turn it off! Turn it off!" she screamed.
Lucas reached for it, but as soon as his hand brushed the screen, the lights in the room flickered violently. Shadows leapt from the walls, stretching toward them, coiling around the tree and the furniture like black smoke. The room seemed to contract, pressing them together.
Emma screamed, and Lucas froze, realizing the danger. "It's not… it's not normal!"
A whisper crawled through the room, unmistakable this time: "Answer… or we answer for you…"
The phone stopped ringing abruptly. Silence fell, heavy and suffocating. But the calm was worse than the noise—the shadows lingered in corners, unmoving but palpable, as if biding their time.
Emma clutched the diary in one hand, the phone in the other. Her fingers trembled as she read aloud from the pages:
"The call awakens what waits. Beware the sound, for it calls not you, but them. The first strike will begin when the melody plays."
Lucas's face turned pale. "The diary… it's like last night. That thing, the shadow—maybe it's connected to the phone somehow."
Emma nodded, fear rooting her in place. "It's not just an ordinary haunting. It's… alive. It can manipulate sound, objects… maybe even time."
The phone vibrated again in her hand. The ringtone, twisted and monstrous, pulsed with energy, though no call was coming through this time. Emma's breath caught as the shadows seemed to inch closer.
She whispered, more to herself than Lucas, "The Christmas surprise… it's starting."
The mansion groaned around them. Outside, snow swirled violently against the windows, as though responding to the unseen presence. Emma realized with a chill that the entity was learning, adapting. It wasn't just haunting—they were playing a game. And the phone… the phone was its first move.
Lucas looked at her, eyes wide. "What do we do?"
Emma's hands tightened around the phone. The ringing started again, louder, more distorted than before. She forced herself to focus, flipping through the diary frantically.
"There has to be a way to stop it," she whispered. "Before midnight… before it claims anyone else."
And as the warped ringtone echoed through the mansion once more, the shadows surged forward, and Emma understood: the Christmas surprise was no longer coming—it was already here.