Member-only story
A Mysterious Voicemail
Amali’s life as a successful businesswoman gets turned upside down when she receives a voicemail
Amali’s driver opened the car door and she ducked inside. She shifted the coffee in her hands to buckle her seatbelt. Just then, her phone chimed. A voicemail, but it hadn’t rang.
“What the hell?”
She replayed the voicemail again. It was her mother’s voice, raspy from decades of cigarettes.
“Your uncle’s cabin in North Carolina. You remember? Inside the utility closet.”
Amali’s mind spun. That day in the hospital, five years ago. She had been there. The cacophony of the ER room as she watched the doctors tried to save her.
Was this real?
That weekend, she went for a drive. Ancient pines loomed over the dilapidated cabin. Inside, Amali stood before the closet door. She reached for the handle, hesitated, then opened it.
A dark portal swirled and the cosmos stared back at her. A persistent tug, like gravity, pulled her toward it. She braced herself in the doorway as a familiar silhouette began to emerge — cigarette smoke curling upward.
“Well, well, well,” her mother said.
