DÉJA VU CALLS

𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐏𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝟭𝟲: 𝐃𝐄́𝐉𝐀 𝐕𝐔 𝐂𝐀𝐋𝐋𝐒

Eric stood up in a panic, his smartphone left on his work desk was ringing from a call once again.

And from the distance between him and his office desk he could see that the caller was indeed Unknown with his unique blue highlighted caller ID.

He rushed up to answer the call but before he could grasp the phone, he stopped himself, and thought, "Wait... If it is Unknown, is that necessarily a good thing?"

The phone kept on vibrating, ringing and urging Eric to answer it. But Eric resisted the urge, biding his time, hoping that with the end of the call all his problems would just go away like that.

He was sorely mistaken.

Unknown answered the call from the other side, "Did you just ignore my call?" There was a menacing rage coming from Unknown's voice.

Eric gulped, "I-I didn't mean-"

"-I'll ask you again. Did. You. Ignore. My. Call?" Unknown interrupted, a cold tone was heard from his voice, the voice sent a chill through Eric's spine.

Eric was still a good distance from the answered smartphone, trembling in his shoes...

"I-I didn't mean to, I just... I just...wanted it to be over."

"..." Unknown fell silent, there was an aura of rage that could be felt through the phone, and Eric was on the receiving end of it.

With a sigh and a saddened voice Unknown said, "...Very well."

The phone call ended with recurring beeps. Even with the downpour that was raining down outside, all Eric could hear was the end call beeps that echoed through the entire office, ringing viciously through Eric's mind.

He took a few breaths to calm his mind and soul. A lot of those were shaken this night.

"He ended the call? Is it over now?" Eric thought as he slowly approached his smartphone. The power was off, just as a battery-less smartphone should be. On seeing that the smartphone had gone back to normal, Eric let out a sigh of relief, proceeded to put his battery back into his smartphone, and powered it on again.

"I guess it really is over now!" Eric said with a relieved expression. He left his smartphone on his desk, had a tipsy spin, and fell to the floor with an estranged smirk on his face.

It took him a minute but he finally collected himself and stood up. He proceeded to make a call, quickly. He typed in '999' and typed the call button. It was a call to the police and it was answered immediately...

"Emergency. Which service?" the female operator promptly asked.

Before Eric could answer there was a sharp pain that stuck to his forehead then a mild vision, he also heard a glitch-like sound before, hearing two different distinct male voices that said, "Which service do you require?" "Help! It's an emergency! She's won't stop bleeding!" the latter voice sounded like Eric but softer.

"What...? What was that? Urgh..." he staggered backwards whilst gripping his smartphone by his ear.

The headache took him by surprise with another jolt to the back of his head.

"Hello, sir! Which service?" the female operator sharply exclaimed into his ear via his phone and brought him back to his senses.

Eric was a bit sluggish but still said, "Oh sorry about that. Err... Police."

"Ok Sir, patching you to our police department service." the female operator said before switching Eric's call to the police.

"Hello, what's the emergency?" without a second to spare, the male police operator answered sharply with his deep and rough voice.

"Argh..." There it was again, the sharp throbbing pain in Eric's forehead. He staggered even more now, his right hand rubbing his forehead intensely and his still holding onto his phone. And as if those were not enough he heard another glitch-like sound followed by a male's voice, it was his own voice, "Hello, is this the police!? Well you see, I'm in a bit of a bind here and I'd like your help with a certain threat call on my life!"

The conversation of the voices continued in his head, "So you're saying that there's someone out to get you?" a different male's voice spoke. This voice was oddly similar to the one he heard from the police operator just now, it was also deep and rough.

The voices continued, "Well, I can't be sure but I think it's just a prank though." the Eric-like voice said.

"You're sure you haven't had any drinks throughout the day? Maybe you hallucinated the whole thing!?" the police operator's voice said. The voices started to sound out of order and echoed in his mind.

"But, I'm in real danger. The caller, he's-"

"Enough! You've been giving us fake claims and unrealistic information!"

"But I sent you the call logs, don't you see the name Unknown in blue right there?"

"No, your call log is completely blank! Just a f#cking white screen!"

The voices began to fade from his mind, leaving some of the words incomplete, and with each voice that faded, his head began to feel lighter.

"Is this a joke to you, Mr. Brander? Is the law enforce——————" the voices were getting vaguer and vaguer as some of them faded before even finishing a sentence.

"Wait... What did you just ———————?"

"'Do not prank the–––––––––––––'?"

Suddenly, the sharp pain abruptly stopped like it was never there or to put it into perspective like it never happened in the face place. Pain that was going for minutes and the same pain that Eric felt would linger for hours, ended so quickly. Eric was very surprised. There wasn't even a slight throbbing or ache left, he was completely fine with no remnants of pain in his head whatsoever.

"It has stopped, I don't feel anything, what...just happened?" Eric thought.

"HEY!" His thoughts were interrupted by the loud yell from his phone, it was from the police operator.

"Umm... Hello." Eric replied calmly.

"Don't 'Umm... Hello.' me! What was that sound!?" the police operator asked in an annoyed manner.

"I'm sorry, I just had a bit of a...migraine," Eric answered jokingly.

"Yeah, I heard your little grunt of pain just now but that's not the sound I was talking about, I was talking about the sound after that." The police operator's statement intrigued Eric, his eyes widened with curiosity as to what sound he was talking about.

"W-What sound?" Eric asked, anxiously.

With a few sound impressions, the police operator attempted to describe the sound, "Well, I can't exactly describe it was like a 'shzzz' then a 'gzzzt' sound, like from a prolonged static to a glitchy sound."

"Wait... There was a static sound?"

"Yeah, but to be honest, I won't say it stayed too long in that sound, I think it was the glitchy sound that did the most damage even if it was just for a few seconds."

"Wait, wait, what do you mean by damage? And seconds? I

It was at least a few minutes, right?"

The police operator was silent for a while before saying, "....What are you talking about!? That whole debacle lasted for 10 seconds tops. And if we're talking about damage, that sound that came from your call, made all our systems here switch off!"

Eric gasped, "What!?"

𝐓𝐨 𝐁𝐞 𝐂𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐮𝐞𝐝...