The first ring sounded like it came from inside a dream.
Yumi froze in the dark hallway, her hand still on the light switch, listening as the old phone echoed again from the guest room upstairs — the room that had no phone line.
She lived with her mother in a small house on the coast of Japan. The house was quiet most nights, so quiet she could hear the waves touch the rocks below the hill. But lately, something had changed. The hallway felt colder. The floor creaked even when no one was walking. And now, the phone in the disconnected room rang for the second night in a row.
She climbed the stairs slowly. Her breath fogged in the air even though the rest of the house was warm. Each step felt louder than it should. When she reached the guest room door, the ringing stopped.
It always stopped right when she touched the handle.
Inside, moonlight painted the empty room silver. A small wooden desk stood against the wall, and on it sat the phone her grandmother had left behind. It was a pale, plastic thing from decades ago, its cord cut clean right under the base. Yumi stepped closer. Her skin prickled. The phone looked different tonight. It sat a little off-center, as if someone had nudged it.
She steadied her breathing and backed out of the room. She closed the door and pressed her palm against the cool wood.
Something shifted on the other side. Just a tiny scrape.
She walked away fast.
The next morning at school, she tried to act normal, but she felt tired and jumpy. Her best friend, Aiko, noticed right away.
“You look pale,” Aiko said. “Bad night?”
Yumi nodded. “The phone rang again.”
“The dead one?” Aiko whispered.
Yumi didn’t answer. She didn’t want anyone else at the table to hear. Rumors spread fast, and she didn’t want to become the strange girl with the haunted house.
That night, she waited in the living room with the TV on low. Her mother worked late shifts at a clinic, so the house was empty except for her. She kept glancing at the stairway. Every tick of the clock made her shoulders tense.
At 9:13, the phone rang.
It was sharper this time. Louder. Not a dream-sound. A real ring that bounced off the walls.
Her body reacted before her mind did. She stood, heart thudding, and forced her feet to move toward the stairs. Halfway up, she thought she heard soft footsteps above her, moving toward the guest room.
Her hands trembled as she reached for the doorknob. She felt warmth through the metal, as if someone had just held it.
The ringing stopped.
Slowly, she pushed the door open.
The phone lay in the center of the desk — but now the receiver was off the hook. It dangled by the cut cord, swaying gently as if someone had placed it there seconds before.
Her breath caught. She stepped back and shut the door, this time pressing her weight against it. She held it closed until her legs shook.
She didn’t sleep at all.
By the third night, she was too scared to wait inside. She wrapped herself in a coat and sat on the back steps near the yard, listening to the waves in the distance. Cold air stung her cheeks, but it felt better than being near that room.
At 9:13 on the dot, the house phone — the working one — rang from the kitchen behind her.
She jumped. For a moment, she thought about running to the neighbors, but something in her chest told her to answer. She stepped inside, each sound amplified by fear.
The phone sat on its hook like normal. She picked it up slowly.
“Hello?”
Static rushed through the speaker. It crackled like wind against an old mic.
“Yumi.”
A voice whispered her name, soft enough to make her doubt she heard it at all.
She gripped the phone tighter. “Who is this?”
The static grew louder. Behind it, she heard faint breathing. A slow inhale. A long exhale. The sound of someone trying to talk but struggling.
Then, a faint click. The call ended.
The kitchen felt smaller than before.
She backed away from the phone and didn’t touch it again that night.
The next morning, she found something strange: the guest room door was open. She never left it open. The phone on the desk sat neatly in place, but a single sheet of paper rested beside it. Her handwriting covered the page.
It was a note she didn’t remember writing.
Pick up. Please.
Her stomach turned cold. She dropped the paper and backed away so fast she bumped into the hallway wall.
She didn’t go to school. She waited for her mother to come home instead.
When she finally told her, her mother frowned. “Maybe it’s the wind. Or an old wiring issue. Phones can behave strangely.”
But the phone upstairs didn’t have wiring.
That night, Yumi sat with her mother in the living room. Her mother tried to stay awake, but she drifted off around nine. Yumi watched the clock tick closer to 9:13.
At 9:12, the guest room door upstairs creaked open.
A second later, the disconnected phone rang.
The sound cut through the quiet like a blade. Yumi’s mother jolted awake. “What was that?”
Yumi didn’t answer. She just stood, shaking.
Her mother grabbed a flashlight. “Stay behind me.”
They climbed the stairs together. Yumi’s breath hitched at each ring. When they reached the top, the phone fell silent.
Her mother pushed open the guest room door.
The room was empty, but the phone’s receiver sat on the floor this time, as if dropped mid-conversation.
“See?” her mother said softly. “Probably vibrations. The desk is old.”
Yumi knew it wasn’t vibrations. The receiver had fallen far from the desk, as if someone had thrown it.
Still, she nodded.
Her mother set the receiver back and turned to leave. Yumi followed, but before she stepped out of the room, she glanced one last time at the phone.
It rang.
Not loudly — just a tiny, single chirp, like the echo of a ring that never fully formed.
Her mother didn’t hear it. She was already in the hall.
Yumi stared at the phone, frozen.
Then she saw something new.
The cut cord wasn’t cut anymore.
It lay in one smooth line down the side of the desk, whole and unbroken.
She backed away slowly, her heartbeat buzzing in her ears. She didn’t speak. She didn’t touch the light switch. She just followed her mother downstairs, trying to act normal.
Much later, when the house was quiet and her mother slept, Yumi heard the faintest ring drift through the floorboards.
Just one soft note.
Almost gentle.
Almost patient.
And this time, it didn’t sound like it came from the guest room.
It sounded like it came from right next to her bed.
