[WP] A blocked number calls you each day and leaves a one-word message. You assumed it was a wrong number at first, but now you've begun to write down the words to find one shocking message.
...
Supervising Lars in his efforts to unhitch the camper took more energy then I really had to spare, so I'd one again taken to laying down, trying my best to ignore the loud shouts and yells of soldiers in the distance. That was more difficult than I'd expected.
From the tinted window along the trailer's far wall, I had a perfect view of the messy affair that had recently devolved from a relatively organized Crusading army. From stumbling boots slipping on black stone and sand, to flags whipping freely in the wind on long-shafted spears, hundreds of figures shuffled in organized rows going nowhere fast.
Standing proud in the distance, a giant and towering obelisk of stone was drenched in a glow of magic, large orbiting pieces of similar material floating along side its great height as lines of rope pulled taunt along its center. More than fifty lines now, but a rough count, and a parade of large and burly men screaming beneath as they went about tugging on those lengths with assistance of horses and a mid-sized SUV.
Far as I could tell, that stone relic wasn't coming down.
For all the effort being spent, they might as well be tying ropes to a mountain for all the good it would do them. The stone seemed stubbornly resistant to the small army attempting to bring about its demise. A rather anticlimactic hiccup on the Northern army's noble march to victory
None of that was any of my business though, not today. Under strict orders and a menacing shovel leaning outside my door I knew I should be resting, focused instead on recovery.
"Three hours of meditation a day, focus your inner strength and concentrate on healing. Eight Hours of sleep, stretch slowly at morning and at dusk." That's what the healer had told me, and I'd done my best to live up to it, but it was all easier said than done. Especially when trying to ignore the aching pain of three slowly recovering stab wounds.
Laying around with nothing to do might have once been a mastered skill in my life, but now it was nothing short of agony.
As it was, so much as I'd been recommended sleep and meditation, neither were coming along nicely, and my eyes were searching for anything that might hold my attention elsewhere than the bandaged portions of my midsection and thigh. From the cupboards, sealed and tied shut to avoid opening, to the calendar, now restarted for a second run through of the year as a rough guesstimate of my time spend abroad, so to speak. Finally, I found something of interest.
Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
On the small desk and shelf beside my bed, I watched the flickering glow of a green pulsing light. It seemed almost magical here in this place, and I supposed it was a kind of magic: A much more realistic kind. The kind of magic that happened without the spells and incantations or the flashy fire-balls and thunderbolts.
A cellphone, usually left charging in the SUV, taken back on occasion for the sake of occasionally replaying the same few mini-games I'd installed on it years ago. The phone itself was nothing special: If anything it was cheap, second class to the newest models for sale in any store whose parking-lot I'd taken to snoozing in on my road-trips, but the device wasn't what had captured my attention.
Instead it was the green pulsing light associated with an indication of a missed call:Something that shouldn't have been possible.
I could joke all day with offhand comments like "Can you hear me now?" or "It's a deadzone" but with honesty, I was fairly certain there wasn't a single cell tower within the entire plane of existence I now inhabited. There probably wasn't another cellphone to call me either.
It creeped me the hell out: A missed call in a place like this was like the last man on earth getting a knock at the door. Somehow though, there it was. Yet another blinking light; another impossible missed call. This would be the sixth time since my arrival, and I was no less unnerved by the occurrence.
From whatever process was letting the calls ring through (or at least flashed an indicator to tell me that they had) my own theories were abundant, but the calls always came with a voice-message and a text.
The messages I'd only been able to see mentions of on my phone, never listen to. Like I said, it's a dead zone- completely absent of Cell-Towers or satellites. No way to make a call to my inbox without some of those, but the text massages were different.
The date stamps made no sense. Neither did the duplication effect, multiples of each one that came through- but I could at least read those, partly. between all sorts of jumbled garbage and useless values, there was always one legible word: One tiny bit of information that made me confident that what was being sent had a purpose in mind.
Carefully, arm trembling at the length of its stretch, my hand felt around the cool plastic and glass, lifting the device into view as I flicked open the screen with a practiced touch.
> New Text Message.
>
> > @A@###$@!&@#)))%$((((##$@L&%%$I###$$$#@!@!$##(((#@&&%##(((&&&%$##$#$#$#$#$$#@!!!@@@##$$(((%&&&#@@#@@$$#@#@@@#@@#@#@@#$%$%$#@#@%@#%$#$#@#%#@#%@#%@#@%#@@@##@@$$%%$@#@#@$@#%#@#@$@%##$%@%@#%$#%$@%#@V@#$%@#@@#$%#@$&&&(())(@#$#%@#$$@@%@#%%$&&&&(((()))(($#@@@%E%
>
> Sender: Unknown.
>
> Type: Text Message
>
> To: ###-###-####
>
> From ###-###-####-###########
>
> Priority: Urgent
>
> Sent: Nov 29, 2:10 PM
>
> Cause Code: None
Slowly I pursed out the letters of interest, scrolling down the glass display with patience until the last piece was noted.
A-L-I-V-E
I already knew what the other words were. God only knew how many times I had looked them over late in the evening, trying to confirm if there was some deeper meaning in the months between. Carefully I took out the pen and notebook from its resting place beside the bed, flipping open the pages to the final entry.
Ceremoniously I added the final word, and stared at it for a long time.
> > PLEASE RESPOND IF YOU ARE ALIVE