The attic was a shrine to dust and forgotten things. Isla sneezed as she pushed aside a box of yellowed photographs, her flashlight casting long shadows across the rafters. She wasn’t sure what she was looking for—closure, maybe. It had been two months since her grandmother passed, leaving Isla as the last living member of their small family. The house, with its creaking floors and musty air, had felt hollow ever since.

In the corner of the attic, something caught her eye. A black rotary telephone sat atop a rickety wooden table, its coiled cord snaking into the shadows. She frowned. No one in her lifetime had used landlines, let alone something this ancient.

Curiosity drew her closer. She reached out hesitantly and picked up the receiver. The phone gave a faint static hum, though it wasn’t plugged in. Her heart skipped as a voice—soft and familiar—spoke on the other end.

“Isla, darling. You finally found me.”

Her breath caught. “Grandma?”

The voice chuckled warmly, a sound Isla hadn’t realized she’d been aching to hear. “I knew you’d come up here eventually. Always so curious, just like your mother.”

“This... this can’t be real.” Isla gripped the receiver tighter. “You’re gone. How am I hearing you?”

“Real?” Her grandmother’s voice softened. “Real is such a slippery thing these days, isn’t it? You tell me—am I real?”

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Isla pulled the phone away and stared at it as though it might bite. Her NeuroNet implant buzzed faintly at the back of her skull, ready to flood her with notifications, but she silenced it. She put the receiver back to her ear. “How is this possible?”

“Some things don’t need to be plugged in to connect,” her grandmother said cryptically. “Do you remember the nights we’d sit in the garden and talk about the stars? No devices, just us.”

“I do,” Isla whispered. The memory came back in a rush—the smell of lavender, the hum of crickets, her grandmother’s voice weaving stories about constellations.

“This phone,” her grandmother continued, “is a little like those nights. A thread tying us to a quieter time. A time when we listened.”

The attic seemed to close in around Isla. “Why now? Why talk to me through this?”

“Because you’re losing something, Isla. All of you are. The world’s so loud now, always connected, but no one really hears. I’m here to remind you to stop and listen.”

A lump rose in Isla’s throat. “I don’t know if I can, Grandma. Everything runs through the NeuroNet. My job, my friends—my life. If I disconnect…”

“You’ll find yourself,” the voice said gently. “And maybe, you’ll hear the world again.”

The line went quiet, and Isla’s heart sank. “Grandma? Are you still there?”

Silence.

She set the receiver down, her hands trembling. The hum of the NeuroNet crept back in, her implant urging her to rejoin the constant stream of messages and updates. But something in her hesitated.

She glanced at the phone. Dust swirled in the beam of her flashlight, settling on the rotary dial like a shroud. A choice lay before her—a world of endless connections or the fragile, fleeting beauty of solitude.

Slowly, deliberately, Isla reached to her neck, fingers brushing the NeuroNet port. With a deep breath, she switched it off.

For the first time in years, the world was quiet. And for the first time in her life, Isla felt truly connected.