I didn't sleep.
Not because I didn't try. I lay on that sagging couch with a blanket over my chest, breathing like someone trying to calm a war. But that song kept playing in my head — not looping like a chorus. No, it kept changing. Every time I closed my eyes, I heard a new line. A new word. A new breath.
I thought maybe I was losing it.
Then I remembered the message.
> "Check your email. You have seven days. Tell her story before someone else does."
And just like that, I was sitting up again, staring at the dusty laptop I hadn't touched in a year.
---
I opened my inbox.
There it was. One email.
Sender: [email protected]
Subject: Day 1 received. This is Day 2.
Attachment: StudioGhost.wav
No body text. No explanation. Just a second file.
I clicked play, hands shaking.
---
It wasn't her voice this time.
It was… the studio.
My old studio.
Every detail came rushing back — the soft hum of the monitors, the buzz of the amp she never let me throw away, the creak of the stool she always spun around on like a kid.
Then: static.
Then: her laugh.
God, I had forgotten her laugh. Not the one she gave to friends or cameras — no, this was the real one. The deep, nose-wrinkling kind that only happened when I said something stupid by accident.
But it wasn't just a laugh.
It was layered under something.
A whisper. Very faint.
I grabbed my headphones. Played the track again. Cranked the volume.
There it was.
> "I left something behind, Ez. Go back. It's still there."
I paused the track.
"Go back," she said.
Go back where?
And then it hit me. The studio.
My real studio. The one I locked seven years ago, never sold, never visited again. I had the keys. I just never had the courage.
Until now.
---
The drive took forty minutes. My chest hurt the entire way — not from panic, but from memory. Every street I passed reminded me of her. Every song on the radio sounded like something we used to play in the car together, barefoot, singing like we owned the world.
I pulled up to the old warehouse. The door was still chained. Dust covered the handle. I had to force the key.
It smelled like loss.
The air inside was still. No spiderwebs. No new furniture. Just frozen time.
Her scarf was still draped over the piano chair. A cracked vinyl record of Donny Hathaway leaned against the wall where she left it.
And on the main table, next to the headphones she always used, was a note.
Not digital. Not typed.
A real paper note. Folded. Written in her handwriting.
I opened it.
> "Day 2: You're braver than you think."
"Tomorrow, listen for the song without a voice. You'll know it by heart."
— E.
---
I dropped to the floor.
For the first time in years, I cried like a man does when he knows no one's watching.
Tears don't fix the past. I know that. But sometimes they open it wide enough for light to come through again.
She had left me a path. A story. A trail through the pain I buried.
And somehow… she knew I'd follow it.
---
But I wasn't the only one listening.
That night, a new video went viral.
> 🎵 "GUYS. I found this hidden track in the original file. It's not the same as Day 1. She's… talking to someone. And she says a name again. Ezra."
🧠 Comment: "This is deeper than music. This is a digital ghost."
There were already 300,000 likes. 40,000 comments.
I checked the account. It was called @StudioGhost.
And the bio?
> "This isn't AI. This is love trying to finish what time couldn't."