The buzzing of my phone in the middle of the night jolted me awake.

On the other end of the line came a voice I could never forget.

It was my daughter!

However, she died three years ago!

When I received a call from my daughter, Aurora Wilken, I shot up in bed and stepped on the cold floor with my bare feet.

“Aurora, is that really you? It’s Mom.”

The line crackled with static before her voice grew clearer.

“Mom, didn’t we just pay the electric bill yesterday? The power went out. I’m so scared. Where are you, Mom? Please come home.”

It was my daughter’s voice!

There was no mistaking it!

Wait!

A power outage?

A sudden rush of fear seized me, and my breath quickened.

Three years ago, the power in our building mysteriously went out the day Aurora died.

She was murdered in our own home. Even in her final moments, she was waiting for me.

However, I was stuck at the office and occupied with an important project. I could not get back to her.

I told her to wait with a flashlight. Then, I called my husband, Sam Wilken, and asked him to go home instead.

Aurora was twelve, and she had just finished sixth grade. She was enjoying her first summer break without homework.

I had promised to take her to Disneyland, but all that awaited me was her cold body.

I pinched myself hard, and the pain was sharp.

I did not know what was happening, but I knew I was not dreaming.

Whoever it was on the other end of that call, I could not let her get hurt again.

“Aurora, lock the front door and enter my bedroom. Then, slip into the compartment under the bed. Do not open the door for anyone!”

The bed in the master bedroom was custom-made. I did not want an open space beneath it to collect dust and make cleaning a pain.

However, a fully solid base would have been a waste of materials and space too. So, I had a hidden storage compartment built right into the frame.

A panel was also installed to keep dust out. From the surface, it looked as if the bed sat flush against the floor.

I heard rustling on the line, followed by my daughter’s hushed voice. “What if it’s you or Daddy knocking?”

I could not take that risk and had to remove every possible danger.

“Your dad and I have keys. Don’t worry, honey. I’ll find a way home soon.”

“Okay, Mom. I’ll wait for you.”

My daughter told me it was 2:50 a.m. on her end.

I remembered that the coroner’s report stated her time of death was 3 a.m.

So, I told her not to make a sound and to dim the light on her phone.

Touching my forehead, I realized that I was burning up.

Yet, my palms and back were slick with cold sweat.

As I fumbled through the nightstand for fever medication and painkillers, my mind tried to come up with a way to get Aurora out of danger.

If she could call me from three years ago, could I also call my past self?

However, her smartwatch was set up to only make calls or send texts.

If I hung up and tried to call again, the ringtone would give us away.

Texting would be too slow.

So, I could only try texting myself and Sam from three years ago. I could urge us to rush home and save Aurora.

In the heavy silence, all I could hear was the sound of Aurora and I breathing in sync.

A minute passed, then another, before I received a notification.

I actually got a reply!

However, it was the same text I had sent out earlier.

Then, three WhatsApp messages from my husband arrived one after the other.

[Aurora’s been dead for three years!

[What’s wrong with you?

[Don’t go anywhere. Stay put. I’ll be home soon.]

The WhatsApp notifications echoed in my head.

I could feel a throbbing pain, and my skull felt like it was splitting.

What could I do? I could not reach myself or Sam from three years ago.

What could I do to save Aurora?

In my panic, I knocked over a pill bottle on the nightstand. I reached out instinctively to catch it, but I sent the glass of water tumbling instead.

The sound of shattering glass split the silence.

Shards scattered across the floor, and water dripped down the edge of the nightstand.

A jagged piece nicked the back of my hand, but I barely felt the sting.

I covered the phone’s receiver with my hand and prayed that the person on the other end did not hear it.

However, it was too late!

The chilling and triumphant laugh of a man echoed through the phone.

“Well, well, I’ve found you!”

It felt like a bomb had gone off inside my skull.

“No! Please! Please leave Aurora alone!” I screamed into the phone like a lunatic.

What followed drained every ounce of hope within me.

Aurora’s piercing screams mingled with the man’s sinister and giddy laughter.

Then all of a sudden, both voices were cut off.

All that remained was empty, crushing static.

I lost control and screamed like a lion caught in a steel trap.

I swept everything off the nightstand.

The warm yellow lamp flickered twice before it went out and left the room in a suffocating darkness.

Suddenly, there was heavy pounding on the door behind me.

“What the hell are you doing?”

My husband, Sam, was back.

He turned on the light, and I was gasping. Like someone who had almost drowned, I was desperate and praying for salvation.

Sam frowned as he rushed over and pulled me into his arms.

For a moment, I felt anchored again. I even had a feeling that maybe Aurora and I could be saved.

I told him everything that had just happened.

However, Sam just gripped my shoulders and shook me hard.

“Get a hold of yourself! Aurora is dead! Someone broke into our house and robbed us three years ago. They murdered her!”

“I know what happened, but it was her! Aurora just called me!”

I dialed the number again, as I was desperate to prove that I was telling the truth.

Even though Aurora was gone, I never threw out her smartwatch.

I had kept it hidden from Sam all this time. I had been paying the monthly bills and charging it.

However, the call did not connect. It said the number was no longer in service!

It was the same number. It was never disconnected, so how could it be out of service?

I broke down in sobs and mumbled repeatedly through tears, “No, this isn’t real. How is this possible?”

Sam held me tightly against his chest and gently patted my back. He tried his best to be patient and comfort me. “I’m sorry for losing my temper and yelling at you. Look at you. You’re burning up. That nightmare must’ve frightened you.”

After that, he helped me back onto the bed and handed me some pills as well as a glass of water.

“Here. Take the cold medicine and get some rest.”

For a moment, I could not tell if I had really dreamed it all.

Even so, my anxiety had not eased in the slightest.

Something felt wrong. My husband was not the type of man to apologize so easily.

Everything about it felt off, but I was still having a splitting headache. As such, I did not have the strength to argue and just obeyed.

“Get some sleep. I’ll be in the study preparing the files for work tomorrow,” Sam said.

He pressed a kiss to my forehead before shutting the door behind him.

I spat out the pills from under my tongue. Then, I wrapped them in a piece of tissue and tossed them into the trash.

I waited and listened until there was no movement outside.

Carefully, I opened the jewelry box and picked up Aurora’s smartwatch.

The battery was full, and the bill had been paid.

The number was right too. The first three digits were the same as mine, and the last eight consisted of her birthday.

I knew it by heart, and there was no way I could have gotten it wrong.

Ready to try again, I hurried to unlock my phone. However, I found that there were more than twenty missed calls!

They were all from Aurora’s number.

I quickly hit redial while I kept my eyes on the jewelry box.

The pink screen remained dark and silent.

The call connected!

Aurora’s faint and trembling voice came through the phone.

I could hear the sobs in every struggling breath.

“Mom, why didn’t you pick up? Help me, Mom. Please help me…”

The sound of heavy thuds followed.

It was the sound of something slamming into flesh.

Tears blurred my eyes as the horror of her death filled my mind.

She had been bludgeoned to death.

Her skull had been shattered, her neck had become twisted, and her spine had been snapped. Her chubby and adorable face had been smashed into an unrecognizable mask of blood.

I rushed to the study to find Sam.

The light was on, and the door was wide open, but the room was empty.

I took one quick sweep of the apartment and discovered that I was alone.

I did not take the pills, and I was not asleep, so this was not a dream!

This was real. Aurora was reaching out to me from another time and asking me for help!

What was I supposed to do? How could I save her?

If trading my life meant she could live, I would jump out of the window without a second thought.

From the twenty-seventh floor, there would be no chance of survival.

I sank my teeth into the back of my hand to stop myself from screaming.

However, the killer on the other end of the line had noticed me.

“This stupid witch has been on the phone the whole time!”

It was a voice I had never heard before.

It was the voice of a woman!

The realization hit me like ice water and made it hard to breathe. My heart was racing.

Two people had killed my daughter!

“I know who you are. If you spare my daughter, I won’t come after you!”

Of course I had no idea who they were. It was a desperate effort to stall; I would do anything to buy Aurora a little mercy.

However, the call abruptly cut off.

All I heard was my daughter’s last cry. “Mom…”

I quickly made another call since I had found a breakthrough in the case.

It was not to Sam, though. He would never believe me in a moment like this. He would just think that I had gone mad and had not moved on from Aurora’s death.

Instead, I called my brother, Jared Morgan. In the tense seconds that the phone rang, countless thoughts ran through my head.

I did not tell Jared what had happened earlier tonight. I just asked for the detailed case files on Aurora’s death.

Jared was a detective, and he had been assigned to her case back then.

To avoid unnecessary trouble, I could not tell him yet that Aurora had just called me for help from three years ago.

On the other end of the line, Jared remained silent for a while.

He was clearly hesitating.

However, soon enough, he sent me everything without asking any questions.

After skimming through the key details, I asked him how many killers there had been.

“One… No, hold on. The file says two. But I remember it being just one.”

His confusion sent a jolt of excitement through me.

I ended the call, and my eyes were brimming with hope.

We all remembered it the same way. There had only been one murderer in Aurora’s case.

The original forensic report even confirmed that the assailant was an adult male who stood around six feet tall.

However, the current case file said otherwise.

There were two murderers—a man and a woman. They were partners in crime.

That meant my call across time with Aurora had shifted the course of events.

So, could I take advantage of this and change her fate altogether?

Even if the odds were slim to none, I had to try for Aurora’s sake!

Overwhelmed with excitement, I gave Sam a call. I had to ask him if he remembered the number of Aurora’s murderers.

Surely, like Jared’s, his memory would say one.

However, the file claimed that there were two.

I would finally have proof that the calls across time with my daughter were real.

I called him five to six times, but there was no answer.

Just as I was about to give up and turn to Jared again, the seventh call finally went through.

“Hello? Who the hell is this? It’s the middle of the night! Weren’t the missed calls giving you enough hints? What’s wrong with you?”