SCENE
Her phone rang, almost blending with the sound of the television. Emmeline had draped herself over the sofa, without much grace. While her parents were out of town, usually it would be someone’s first thought to party, but there was nothing exciting happening. So, like usual, she invited Amelia over and collected a list of horror films she knew her girlfriend loved.
Picking her phone up off the coffee table, she clicked accept and pushed it to her ear, “Hello?”
“Hello,” a voice replied, deeper than she’d ever heard before. “Who is this?”
“What number are you trying to reach?” She spoke with little interest, blinking slowly.
“Who is this,” the voice repeated.
“I think you may have the wrong number,” Emmeline retaliated.
“Do I?”
“It happens. Don’t worry about it.”
She hangs up the phone with a quick click and pulls the blanket up to her chin - what an odd experience. While reaching over for a sip of coffee, the phone rang again, with the same number as before.
“Wrong number,” she stated, hovering over the hang-up button, “Try again.”
Emmeline looks outside, it’s pitch black and all she can see are one or two garden lights reflecting onto the rain-covered porch. The storm is hitting hard while lightning shows a moving shadow in the corner, and that’s when she hears the voice retort, “Why don’t you want to talk to me?”
“Who is this?”
“Tell me your name, and I’ll tell you mine.”
She continues to stare out the window, wondering why Amelia is taking so long. She tucks her hair back behind her ear and begins to fiddle with her left earring;
“Nice try.”
“What’s that noise?”
“Its the television,” she mutters, disinterested and feeling like sleeping.
“Do you like scary movies?”
Emmeline gave a sound of acknowledgement. Was he flirting?
“What’s your favourite scary movie?” The voice breathes out.
“Totally killer.”
“The famous girl with the Back To The Future moment?”
“See, you get it.”
She smiled to herself, and began to fiddle with the ends of her hair. A long silence filled the line as she heard shallow breathing from the other end.
“What's your name?”
“You don’t give up, do you?” She murmured, “Why?”
“I want to know who I’m looking at.”
Before she could question it, the call stopped. Her eyes darted around and she shrugged it off, a sick prank call, and shitty weather. Her mind gnawed, and she pushed herself up, feeling stupid. While cursing to herself and checking everythings locked, her shoulder nudged the porch light and she turned to see Amelia.
Amelia, who she’d known for 7 years and dated for 3 of them, tied up, covered in blood, and sat directly in the centre of the porch.
Her breath hitched, her body ran cold and a silent gasp escaped her lips. Wide eyed, fearing for her life - she fiddled with the lock until she realised the key was on the outside.
Pausing to think, and to slow her breath, her mind went blank. She slammed her body into the glass doors with full force, failing to harm anything but herself. Before she could even finish her next thought, she directed her elbow straight through the middle.
The amount of glass was underwhelming, it shattered around her, falling like hail and forming a long cut along her forearm while still not forming a hole big enough to escape. The pain sent shivers through her entire body as her arm throbbed - What the fuck was she going to do?
The phone rang again.
“One question, One chance, can it save both of you?” The familiar voice stated bluntly,
She gave no response, due to a mix of being frozen in fear and overflowing with horror.
“Fine. Don’t respond. Jamie’s name is what, at the end?”
Her heart had probably beaten its way up her throat and out of her mouth, or at least that’s how it felt. She yelped out, knowing the exact answer.
“Corinne!” it was an attempted scream, but came out no better than a raspy whisper. Relief washed over her, banging at the glass to Amelia, the rain shielding her from seeing the extensive injuries she’d suffered.
“Oh,” a voice only hell personified could have whispered. A deafening laugh came from the phone,
“Incorrect…”