Chapter 1: A Call Never For Me.

I came to write my “will”. But it seems i'm writing “Not today.”’

Chapter 1: A Call Never Meant For Me.

The bus shook a little as it rolled over a pothole, but the boy didn’t flinch.

He stared at the passing streets, like they belonged to someone else’s life.

His phone buzzed.

Not a message. Just an app notification. One of those generic motivational quotes of the day.

He unlocked it anyways, out of habits rather than hope.

”You’ve come a long way. Be proud of yourself, even if no one else sees it.”

He stared at the screen for a second too long.

Then closed his phone.

”Proud?” He thought.

‘What for? Surviving? Repeating the same day, still messing something up until it forgets me?’

He used to believe people remembered small kindnesses, but lately, even names felt too heavy to hold.

He opened his cotton tote bag and tore off the corner of a receipt.

No one was watching, no one cared.

Perhaps a curious eye snuck a glance.

With the pen he always kept but rarely used, he scrawled something.

“The bench remembers you. Even if no one else does.”

He folded it into fourths. Placing in a small gap between the bench as he left.

Didn’t look back. Didn’t expect anything either. Didn’t know why he did it.

Maybe it was pettiness.

Maybe it was hope.

Maybe it was just… something to do that didn’t feel like nothing.

Or perhaps… to make himself feel better.

A few days passed.

Nothing changed. Or anything noticeable.

The bus still ran late.

And then, one morning, he woke up with something unfamiliar in his hand.

A phone.

He had reached into his bag for his phone as he awoke from a constant ringing.

It wasn’t his.

He could tell even without looking, the weight, the shape, the cracked case with no stickers.

Just plain black, cold in his palm.

He blinked.

For a moment, he thought maybe he was dreaming.

But no. He still had 5 fingers on each hand, sheets real, room felt real.

The phone was real. Right?

And it was ringing.

His eye twitched a little.

Unknown Caller

05:50 AM

Was he supposed to answer it? Or… carry? Or just remember?

Still groggy, and confused, he hesitated. But thought ‘Oh well, might as well answer it.’

He had no sense of stranger danger, but it wasn’t his phone anyways.

Who knows? He may very well win something or gain something from it.

”…Hello?”

No reply.

Only a recording of sorts.

A voice, raw and quiet. Gentle that you could fall asleep listening to it. But stung like regrets.

“I’m not even sure why.

Maybe to say what I didn’t back then.

Maybe to pretend I still can.”

“You always waited for me to speak first.

And I always thought there’d be a next.”

A pause.

Another breath.

”Maybe I was scared.. but I didn’t know either.

Not of you.

But maybe it is, of who I was, around you.”

“It’s laughable that I am still trying to justify myself.

But I still hope that it’ll… somehow get through to them.

That I wasn’t angry, just… afraid.”

Click.

The line went dead.

He stared at the phone.

There was no name.

No number

No recording file he could replay.

Just silence.

And his own reflection on the black screen.

A part of him wanted to laugh.

To delete whatever this was.

But most of him… just sat there.

Not knowing what he was waiting for.

Another ring? Another voice? Or another reason?

He placed the phone on his table.

Stepped away a little to the side.

Looking out through the window of cars and busy streets.

‘What?’ He thought to himself.

The phone just stayed there.

Plain. Silent. Cold.

He opened his notebook. Flipped to a blank page and wrote.

Without really knowing why.

A voice from a summer memory,

He looked at the words.

Didn’t know what they meant to him yet.

But he kept the page open anyway.

He could be racking his brain and thinking about what's happening. Or why.

But he didn’t.

He was scared that he may unintentionally set off traps.

He barely knew who the caller was anyways.

She just didn’t sound… out of breath? Or the usual rustling of layers of clothing in winter. Just… strangely calm.

It plagued him a little of the weirdness of the call.

‘Why was someone’s regrets told to him?’

Was a question that constantly attacked him that he didn’t even remember writing that line.

Only noticed when he flipped back the page two days later, while at the grocery store, looking to jot.

There it was, staring back at him in the same scratchy ink, rough but judgemental.

He tapped his pen twice.

Underlined it once.

Still didn’t know what it could hold.

That day, the phone didn’t ring.

Probably.

But it didn’t matter. He didn’t actively check. Just wake up, get himself together, and finish what he needs to do.

And yet, after seven days have passed… it buzzed.

05:50 AM

Unknown Caller

He answered. This time, without much hesitation.

The voice was of a young soul. Crisp. But wavered.

“I shouldn’t have said that.

I didn’t mean it. But I…still said it anyway.

I-I just thought that… silence would hurt more than a lie.”

a soft thud in the background. A sniff.

“Maybe I was trying to get noticed.

Maybe I just didn’t know how to ask for help.”

“Do you think they hated me?”

*Click*

Dead air.

“A voice from a summer memory.

But it’s the listener who decides if it ends in winter.”

He added that underneath.

Closed the notebook.

Still didn’t know what he was doing.

But for once, it felt… pointless?

He sat at his desk again.

Just to stare.

The city outside was buzzing, cars and people and lives he wasn’t part of.

He glanced at the notebook lying open beside him.

The last thing he wrote was still there, ink slightly smudged at the edges.

He tapped the edge of the notebook with his pen.

Then flipped to the next page.

Just to find a clean one.

Just to move on.

But the page wasn’t blank.

Not completely.

At the top — small, neat, deliberate — someone had already written.

“Listening won’t change anything.”

His hand froze. Eyes wide.

His fingers unconsciously rubbed the ink — as if a smudge could proof its real.

Is someone in my house?

He thought came too quiet to ignore..

He hadn’t written that.

At least, he didn’t think he had.

Not in that handwriting.

Not with that… certainty.

He tapped the page once.

Paused.

Then slowly closed the notebook, like sealing away something alive.

He didn’t speak.

He just listened.

And maybe… that was an answer in its own quiet way.