It started like any other shift.
The hum of the fluorescent lights overhead, the faint aroma of burnt coffee wafting from the break room, and the low, steady beep of the monitors formed the backdrop of my evening at Station 42. I’d been a dispatcher for six years. Most nights were uneventful—noise complaints, fender benders, the occasional missing dog.
Tonight was supposed to be one of those nights.
At 6:47 p.m., the phone rang.
“Dispatch, what’s your emergency?” I said, tapping the headset mic.
A man’s voice came through—calm, almost too calm. “I’d like to report a break-in.”
“Can I get your location?” I asked.
A pause. “I’m not exactly sure.”
That was unusual. “Sir, are you inside the property right now?”
“I think so,” he replied. His tone was polite, almost apologetic. “But I don’t think it’s my property anymore.”
Goosebumps crawled up my neck. “Can you describe what you see?”
“There’s… furniture,” he said slowly, “but it’s all wrong. The pictures on the walls—they aren’t mine. The family in them isn’t me.”
Something about the way he said it made my stomach tighten. I started tracing the call through the system. The GPS locator pinged an address fifteen miles outside town.
“Sir, can you tell me your name?”
Another pause. “Ethan,” he said. “But… the people here don’t seem to know me.”
Before I could ask more, I heard muffled voices in the background—a woman’s voice, sharp and frightened: “Get out! I’m calling the police!”
The line went dead.
I dispatched officers to the location, heart thudding.
At 7:06 p.m., Officer Ramirez radioed in: “Dispatch, no sign of caller. Residents say they don’t know any Ethan. They reported a man matching his description, but he ran off before we arrived.”
“Copy,” I said, logging it as suspicious activity. But the unease didn’t leave me.
By 8:15 p.m., I’d almost convinced myself it was just another strange, lonely man messing with the system—until the second call came in.
Same voice. Same strange calm.
“Hello again,” Ethan said.
I straightened in my chair. “Ethan, where are you?”
“I’m at my house,” he said. “But it’s not my house anymore.”
The GPS this time showed an entirely different address, across town. Different street. Different family.
I tried to keep my voice steady. “Ethan, how did you get there?”
“I walked,” he said simply. “I keep trying to get home, but every time I do, someone else is living there. My keys don’t work. My pictures are gone. I don’t think I exist here.”
The hairs on my arms lifted. “Ethan, I’m going to send help.”
“No,” he said softly. “They won’t find me. They didn’t last time.”
“Why are you calling me?”
He hesitated. “Because… I think you’re the only one who can still hear me.”
Before I could respond, the line went dead again.
This time, when the officers checked the new address, they found nothing—no trace of Ethan, no signs of forced entry. But the family there mentioned something unsettling: a man had been standing at the edge of their lawn, staring at their house for nearly twenty minutes, before simply walking away into the dark.
By 10:00 p.m., I couldn’t focus on the other calls. My mind kept circling back to Ethan—his calm voice, the strange wrongness in his words.
At 11:23 p.m., the third call came.
This time, he was whispering. “They’re starting to notice me.”
“Who?” I asked.
“The people in these houses,” he said. “They see me now. But… I think they see something else too. Something behind me.”
A cold shiver ran through me. “Ethan, you need to find somewhere safe.”
“I don’t think I can,” he said. “It’s getting closer every time I move. I think it wants me to stop walking.”
I heard a strange sound through the line—like a low hum, vibrating in the air. My headset crackled, and for a moment, I swore I heard another voice layered under his.
A woman’s voice.
It said my name.
I ripped off the headset. My coworker glanced over, frowning. “You okay?”
But when I looked at my call log, the last three calls from Ethan weren’t there.
At 12:02 a.m., my personal cell phone rang. Unlisted number.
Against my better judgment, I answered.
“It’s here,” Ethan said, voice trembling now. “It’s not just coming for me anymore.”
“What do you mean?” I whispered.
“It knows you’ve been listening.”
The line went silent.
Then, in the faintest whisper, I heard the same woman’s voice from before.
She was closer this time.
And she said, “Turn around.”
I froze in my chair, unable to move. The hum of the fluorescent lights above suddenly seemed louder. I forced myself to glance over my shoulder.
Nothing. Just the empty doorway to the hall.
I turned back—
—and the headset on my desk was off the hook, the earpiece gently swinging, as if someone had just set it down.
The line was still open.
I didn’t hear from Ethan again that night. But when I clocked out at dawn and drove home, something felt wrong. My street looked the same—same trees, same driveways—yet my house…
It wasn’t mine.
Different curtains. Different car in the driveway.
And when the woman in the window saw me staring, she picked up her phone.
