The evening stretched before Luca like a vast, empty canvas, yawning with boredom. The usual Friday night shenanigans with friends had been canceled, leaving him alone with his thoughts and a growing sense of restlessness. The flickering light of the screen cast an eerie glow on his face, the silence punctuated by the gentle hum of the internet.

Luca reached for his phone, a familiar comfort in the quiet of his room. A mischievous idea sparked, a simple prank to break the monotony.

He dialed his own number, a silly act of self-amusement. The dial tone buzzed in his ears, each ringing a tick of the clock, counting down to a predictable, empty voicemail. But this time, something unexpected happened. The call connected. A voice eerily similar to his own answered, but with a subtle, unsettling distortion.

“Why are you calling me?”

The words hit Luca like a cold wind; the familiar sound twisted and warped into a chilling echo. He froze, the phone clutched in his hand, his heart hammering in his chest. His breath hitched, a silent gasp in the quiet room. Was this a prank call? An elaborate trick by a friend? But the voice, the uncanny resemblance to his own, sent shivers down his spine.

Luca stared at the phone, the screen illuminating the room with an unnatural green glow. The voice, faint but distinct, spoke again, its tone laced with a strange mixture of curiosity and annoyance.

“I know it’s you, Luca. Don’t play games with me.”

The words were a punch to the gut, a confirmation of his deepest fears. It wasn’t a prank. It wasn’t a glitch. This was something else, something sinister, something that knew them.

A wave of nausea washed over Luca, his fingers trembling as he tried to explain, to deny, to rationalize. But the voice continued, its tone growing more insistent, more demanding.

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“Why are you calling me, Luca? What do you want?”

Luca, paralyzed by fear, could only manage a shakey, “I… I don’t know.”

The voice chuckled, a low, unsettling sound that sent chills through his body.

“You’ll find out, Luca. You’ll find out.”

The call abruptly ended, leaving Luca staring at the dead screen, the silence in the room now suffocating. His heart pounded in his chest, a frantic drumbeat that mirrored the tremor in his hands. He had to tell someone, but who would believe them? Who would understand?

For the rest of the evening, Luca was haunted by the voice, its chilling question echoing in his mind. He tossed and turned in his bed, unable to escape the unsettling feeling of being watched, of being hunted. The familiar comfort of his room had transformed into a prison of fear, each creak of the floorboards a potential sign of the unseen caller.

As the first rays of dawn peeked through his window, Luca forced themselves to push away the fear. It was a prank, a

glitch, a figment of his imagination. He had to tell themselves such and had to convince himself that to keep his sanity intact. He had to believe that the voice, the unsettling call, was a mere echo of his own anxiety, a phantom of the night.

But as the days turned into weeks, the voice didn’t fade. Instead, it became more persistent, more intrusive, weaving its way into the fabric of Luca’s everyday life. Missed calls from his own number, his screen flashing with a number he recognized as his own, haunted them, a constant reminder of the unseen presence. The phantom call had become a nightmare that wouldn’t end.

The voice, like a persistent whisper, began to appear in the most unexpected places. It was there during conversations with friends—a barely audible echo in the background, a strange distortion that made his words seem like the pronouncements of a stranger. It was there in the messages on his phone—cryptic pronouncements, a voice that seemed to know things about them—things that only he should know.

Luca began to feel like he was losing control, like he was being watched, like his very existence was being slowly eroded by an unseen force. He tried to ignore the calls, to block the number, to dismiss the unsettling occurrences as mere coincidences. But the voice persisted, its presence a chilling reminder that something sinister was lurking in the shadows.

The fear gnawed at Luca, a relentless hunger that threatened to consume them. He retreated into themselves, withdrawing from his friends, unable to confide in anyone. His laughter died, replaced by a constant sense of unease.

The once vibrant energy of his spirit was slowly being drained, leaving behind a hollow shell of his former self.

Luca was trapped in a chilling reality, a world where the lines between the real and the supernatural blurred, where the voice from his own phone was a sinister presence that refused to be ignored. The fear that had begun as a mere whisper was now a deafening roar, a storm that threatened to engulf them completely.