Signal‑Lost Night and the Arriving Friend

The rain lashed hard against Eva’s roof and large windows from early evening deep into the night. The sky was pitch‑black, not a single moonbeam or star to be seen — only flashes of lightning that lit up the grey downpour pouring down like a waterfall.

Eva huddled on the sofa in her dim living‑room. She had left the television on just for background noise, paying little attention to what was showing; she only hated how quiet the house could be. When she looked out the window, she saw trees swaying wildly in the wind — yet her home remained safe, no leaks, no fallen power lines, nothing to worry over too much.

She thought of her phone lying on the side‑table and reached for it. The screen lit up, showing missed calls from Janice — her dearest friend, whom she spoke to almost every day. There had been two calls earlier, but she had not heard them, drowned out by the rain and wind.

Eva dialled back straight away, yet the screen showed no signal. She shifted her phone around, trying to find a better spot, but nothing changed. “It must be the storm,” she thought to herself. “Some power or signal tower must have gone down somewhere.”

She was about to set the phone down when it rang again — an unfamiliar number she had never seen before. Eva answered, but all she heard was static… crackling non‑stop, like a broken radio wave. Her head ached from the noise, so she hung up and muttered softly, “What a racket — it’s ringing my ears.”

She put the phone back where it had been and turned to the television again, only for its screen to start flickering black‑and‑white static, the same crackling sound as the phone. Eva rolled her eyes and sighed wearily. “This storm is really bad — can’t watch TV, can’t get phone service either.”

Thinking there was nothing more she could do, she decided to turn off the lights and head to bed — when suddenly… there came a knock‑knock at the front door.

Eva gave a small start. The storm had not eased at all — who would come visiting at a time like this? She walked to the door, pulled it slightly open to peer outside, and gasped in surprise — it was Janice, her best friend, standing there soaked through, her long hair dripping down her face and clothes.

“Janice! How did you get here?” Eva quickly pulled her friend inside and shut the door tight against the wind and rain. She fetched a towel for Janice to dry her hair and face, then went to the kitchen to boil water and make two cups of hot tea for them.

“I was worried about you, so I drove over,” Janice said quietly, holding her tea cup.

Eva tried her phone and the TV remote again — by chance, the signal had come back strong, and the television worked normally. She and Janice sat side‑by‑side on the sofa, watching a comedy show, eating snacks she had prepared, chatting and laughing as if nothing strange had happened at all.

Before long, Eva’s phone rang once more — another unfamiliar number. She answered, yet there was only static again. “Not this again? This noise really sets off my migraine,” she complained, hanging up quickly before going back to talk with Janice.

Time passed slowly; the rain and wind grew gentler, the storm beginning to die down, and the sky lightened a little. Then the phone rang again — the same unknown number as before. This time Eva answered reluctantly, yet instead of static, a serious man’s voice came from the other end.

“Good evening, this is the rescue team. We have been trying to reach you for some time, but signal was very poor during the storm.”

Eva jumped a little. “Is something wrong?”

“Last night, a woman was in a car accident in the middle of the storm — she lost control on the slippery road and crashed into a large tree, which then fell onto her car too. She passed away at the scene. We found no ID on her, but her call log shows she dialled your number shortly before — we would like you to come to the site to help identify her.”

Eva froze at once. She turned to look at Janice sitting right beside her. “Which friend? Janice is already here with me,” she said, her voice trembling. “Maybe it was another friend I don’t see much? I can’t think who it could be.”

Janice only looked back at her silently, saying nothing.

After thinking it over, Eva decided she should go as the rescue team had asked. She and Janice stood up, grabbed the car keys, and drove off toward the place they had been told to go.

The roads outside were still damp, puddles lining the verges, broken twigs scattered everywhere after the storm had raged all night. Sunlight had not broken through the thick clouds; the whole sky hung a somber grey. Eva drove carefully, following the coordinates sent by the rescue team. Beside her, Janice sat far quieter than usual — she had not spoken a single word since leaving home, only stared out the window.

A faint unease crept over Eva, yet she tried to tell herself it was just her friend still shaken from last night’s storm. She turned toward her. “Don’t worry — we’re only going to check and make sure everything’s all right.”

Janice merely blinked slowly, giving no reply.

As they neared the scene, yellow rescue vehicles came into sight, parked along the road with tape marking‑off the area, officers walking back and forth at work. Eva pulled over, then she and Janice walked toward them.

One male officer stepped forward. “You must be Eva? Thank you for coming so quickly.” He led her to where the damaged car stood.

When Eva looked, she could hardly believe her eyes — the dark‑blue car, Janice’s favourite, the one they had taken on so many trips together — now half‑crushed beneath a large fallen tree, windows shattered, metal twisted all over. The officer gestured toward a white sheet covering a figure beside it. “We found a phone still switched‑on inside the bag. The last number it dialled was yours.”

Eva’s heart pounded wildly. The rescue worker lifted the sheet, and there lay her friend — Janice.

Stunned as if struck by lightning, Eva spun around to where she thought Janice stood beside her — yet there was no‑one there at all.

“Janice… where are you? You were just with me a moment ago!” Eva called out, glancing around in panic. The officer looked at her with concern. “You must be very shaken… this happened at around eight o’clock last night, when the storm was at its worst. We got the alert straight away, but it took us time to get through because the roads were blocked.”

Eight o’clock… that was when Janice had called her, when she had heard the knock at the door, and found Janice soaked through stepping inside the house.

Pieces of memory began to fall into place one by one for Eva — the static on the phone, the television’s crackling noise, how Janice had never spoken of the drive over, how there had been no wet footprints on the floor even after the storm had died down… she simply had not noticed at the time.

She could no longer be certain what had stayed with her all through that night — was it Janice’s spirit, unwilling to leave yet? Or merely her own hallucination, unable to accept the truth that she had missed the chance to answer the call and save her dearest friend?

Or perhaps… she herself had never woken up from that storm‑torn night at all?

The sky grew slowly brighter, yet a cold chill wrapped around Eva’s heart. She picked up her phone and checked the call log — three incoming calls from Janice during the height of the storm, and no record of her ever calling back. She had never dialled back, not as she had remembered doing.

The remaining storm‑wind brushed past her ears, like someone whispering her name out of the dark.