Echo Hunger Channel 103.7

Everhollow, Oregon – October 17, 1987

It began on a Saturday morning. The streets were damp from the first autumn rain, leaves stuck to bicycle tires, and the world seemed to be holding its breath. No one knew it at the time, but something had already been set in motion – something ancient that breathed through frequencies.

Aiden Blake was sixteen, thoughtful, slim, with dark brown hair and a red hooded jacket he wore almost like a shield. He loved old movies, horror comics, anything with synthesizer sounds, and the crackling of analog radios – preferably with headphones on while lying in bed as the fog outside swallowed the rooftops.

His best friends were Abel Hawthorne, a thin, blond guy with round glasses who commented on almost everything, as if he needed to provide the soundtrack to their lives. He was into Queen, Depeche Mode, and every kind of horror radio play.

And Zeke Thompson – actually Ezikiel – quiet, attentive, a tinkerer with a sense for radio waves, strange frequency phenomena, and technical self-builds. He didn’t speak much, but when he did, people listened. His dark blue cap was an heirloom from his father, and in his free time he listened to mixtapes with bass-heavy reggae and science fiction radio broadcasts that he recorded himself.

And then there was Elaine Carter – new to Everhollow. New to the class. Her blonde hair fell loosely across her face, and she had that look that could see right through people. Aiden had coincidentally accompanied her to the library on her first day of school – and although she could have just as easily befriended the popular girls, she stayed with them. Perhaps because she was just like them: a little quirky, a little quiet, but exactly right. Her music selection was a mix of dark New Wave and melancholic guitar ballads – “Just Like Heaven” by The Cure was her favorite soundtrack for thinking.

Aiden lived with his little sister Milana, ten years old, smart, loud, always questioning. His mother Winona, black-haired with angular glasses, worked at the hospital. His father William Blake – glasses with cut-out frames, full beard, shirt and tie – was often lost in thought, as if he were on a frequency only he understood.

On this Saturday, everything was still quiet. Yet all four had sensed something: Abel cursed when his Walkman suddenly produced static, even though no cassette was inserted. Zeke woke up at night because his radio flickered. Elaine said she had seen someone in the mirror – behind her. And Aiden? He heard the static. Again and again. Out of nowhere.

The rain drummed on the roof like a Morse code that only Aiden understood. He lay stretched out on his bed, his socks still damp from the day, and stared at the ceiling as if an answer were hidden there. Next to him on the desk, a silver radio crackled – old, heavy, with a worn frequency dial and a dull red light that flickered irregularly.

A flea market find, really just for decoration. But for two nights, the device had been acting strange: a pulsing, then static, then an echo, as if a long-lost radio message was wandering through time. Aiden had tried everything. New batteries. Opened the case. Checked the antenna. Again and again, he landed on the same frequency: 103.7. He couldn’t explain it, but something about that sound got under his skin. Maybe it was imagination, coincidence, some kind of interference. Maybe. But deep inside, he knew: It was something else.

Tonight, the static was different – more rhythmic, almost alive, as if it were breathing. He slowly sat up, pulled the device closer to himself, his fingers trembling slightly. He carefully turned the volume knob, listened. Crackling. Whistling. And then – a whisper. Barely audible, as if someone were calling his name from far away through a sea of static. “Aiden...” The voice was muffled, distorted, but unmistakable.

He froze. Stared at the device as if it had suddenly come alive. He jumped up as if the voice had grabbed him. His heart was pounding so loudly that it almost drowned out the static. The room suddenly felt smaller, the air thicker. Aiden took a step back, still keeping his eyes on the radio. No one else was there – just him, the soft flicker of the red LED, and the echo of his name in his head.

He reached for a pen, his hand unsteady, and scribbled the time in his notebook: 9:47 PM. “That wasn’t imagination,” he muttered. “That was my name.” He switched off the device, but the feeling remained – as if he had touched a wire that vibrated deep beneath his skin. The silence that spread through the room wasn’t peaceful. It was tense. Expectant.

He walked to the window, pulled the curtains aside. The street in front of the house lay still, wet from the rain, the asphalt reflecting like glass in the streetlight. No person in sight. No sound. It was as if someone had paused the world for a moment. Aiden shivered, although it wasn’t cold in the room. He pulled the curtains closed again, sat down at his desk, and opened his notebook.

On the first page, he wrote: 103.7 – Voice says my name. No response. No pattern. Just static. Then: Silence. He put the pen down, closed the book, but the feeling wouldn’t let go. This was no random interference. Not just a frequency. It was a sign. And something inside him knew: It was only the beginning.

He let his fingers glide over the pages of his notebook, flipping back to old entries – scribbles about signals, abandoned frequency ranges, radio stations that officially no longer existed. “103.7,” he murmured, barely audible, as if the mere pronunciation might trigger something. It was no coincidence. He felt it in his fingertips, in the back of his neck – as if something invisible was tensing there. This frequency had found him, not the other way around.

Perhaps it was a mistake to keep dwelling on it, but Aiden couldn’t help himself. He remembered the books in his uncle’s basement – about electromagnetic waves, paranormal phenomena, so-called “between-worlds.” Back then, he had laughed about it. Now it felt real. Personal. Like an answer to a question he had never asked aloud.

He wrote again in the notebook: “Second contact. Whisper – as if from the fog. Static remains.” Then he paused. His eyes fell on the note from the previous evening. Identical time. Same intensity. He underlined the time twice. Coincidence? No. Every detail meant something. Perhaps 103.7 wasn’t just a signal, but a transition. A threshold.

He reached for his Walkman, turned it in his hand, as if this relic of the 80s could also establish a connection. But it remained silent. Unlike the radio. It was like a pulse, an echo from the depths. And Aiden knew – he would turn it on again. No matter what it cost.

The next morning, everything seemed frighteningly normal – almost too smooth, too perfect. The sun penetrated through a gap in the clouds, as if trying to hide that something had happened in the night. Aiden sat silently at the kitchen table, the bowl of cereal untouched before him, while his little sister swung her legs on the opposite side, dipping her toast into hot chocolate.

A languid voice came from the radio: “Warm high-pressure area moving over the Northeast today...” But Aiden only heard the echoes of the radio in his head. The voice. The name. It hadn’t all disappeared – it had merely settled into an invisible layer, like a veil over reality. Even the humming of the refrigerator seemed strange to him, as if it were broadcasting on a different frequency.

He looked at his mother, who was just taking a cup from the cupboard. For her, this day was a Tuesday like any other. For him, it was a morning after a call. His thoughts circled. What if someone besides him had received the signal? Or worse – what if it wasn’t a signal at all, but a reflection? A mirror?

He took a sip of water, but the taste was dull, as if even his mouth wasn’t fully awake yet. His gaze wandered to the clock above the window. 7:03 AM. School starts in an hour. The moment when the facade would be tested again. Aiden knew: If something happened today, it wouldn’t be by chance. And certainly not without him.

Aiden stood at the window for a long time, unable to detach himself from the frozen scene outside. The street glistened from the rain, but it was as if someone had paused the world. No car drove by, no light flickered behind the windows, no movement in the front yards. He felt trapped in a moment that refused to end – like being caught between two heartbeats.

Only when a cold draft swept through the room did he turn away. He put on his jacket, grabbed his notebook, and stepped out of the room. The floorboards creaked under his steps, but otherwise the house was quiet. His sister had long since gone to school, and his mother had the early shift at the hospital. He was alone. Alone again.

In the hallway, he stopped, glanced briefly at the cellar door, as if something were waiting for him down there. Then he dismissed the thought and set off. Outside, a leaden silence greeted him, having settled over the street. Even the air seemed to breathe more heavily.

On the way to school, Aiden tried to forget about the radio, but he couldn’t. In his backpack lay the notebook – with that one sentence that wouldn’t leave his mind: “That was my name.” He pressed his lips together, as if trying to prevent the echo from catching up with him again. One more step. One more thought. Something had begun, and he knew: It was far from over.

The school seemed like a distant, insignificant place as Aiden entered the forecourt. Children stood in small groups, laughing, shouting, throwing balls to each other – but everything appeared to him as if filtered. Muted. Remote. He barely noticed Abel approaching.

“Hey, you okay?” his friend asked with a skeptical look. Aiden nodded automatically, but Abel frowned. “You’re kind of not really here today.” – “Bad night,” Aiden mumbled. “Because of the radio thing?” Aiden hesitated, then shrugged. “Maybe.”

Zeke appeared shortly after, as always with his self-built radio tucked under his arm. It was a strange relic of screws, cables, and a semi-transparent plastic case that hummed when he switched it on. “I recorded it,” he said. “Last night. The voice.” Aiden paused. “What voice?” – “You know, the one. From the static. I told you.” – “And what did it say?”

Zeke looked at him for a long time. “Just sounds. But... it felt like there was something there. Like... someone trying to get through.” Aiden felt a cold shiver run down his neck. “It said my name,” he thought, but didn’t say it out loud. Not here. Not now.

Abel snorted. “Maybe you guys are just too deep into nerd territory.” – “Maybe,” Aiden said quietly, but deep inside he knew that this wasn’t a movie. Not a game. Something was wrong. And it had long since begun.

The class dragged on like chewing gum, viscous and meaningless. Aiden stared out the window, but his thoughts continued to circle around the static, the voice, the radio. Mr. Dunham talked about American settlement history, while words like “colonial treaties” and “declaration of independence” passed by Aiden’s consciousness.

He unconsciously scribbled frequency numbers in the margin of his notebook: 103.7, 000.0, 42.3 – without knowing why. When he looked up, his eyes met Elaine’s. She had her head slightly tilted, as if she could see right through him. Aiden quickly looked away. Something about her made him nervous – not because of her appearance, but because of this peculiar calmness. Like an eye in the storm.

During the break, all three of them stood in the yard. Abel munched on a bag of chips while Zeke obsessively tinkered with his radio. “I analyzed the waveform,” he said suddenly. “The frequency from last night had a pattern. Repetitions.” – “Like a code?” Aiden asked. Zeke nodded. “Or a kind of language. Not human, but structured.”

Elaine joined them, pulling a folded sketch from her pocket. “I drew this yesterday. No idea why.” On the paper was a circle, crisscrossed by lines that condensed into a strange, distorted symbol – almost like an eye. Aiden shivered. “What is that?” – “I don’t know,” said Elaine. “But I saw it. In my dream.”

No one spoke anymore. They looked at each other, three teenagers, connected by a static that none of them understood – but all of them felt.

After school, Aiden didn’t immediately cycle home. Instead, he took a detour through the old streets of Everhollow – past the abandoned cinema, the rusty water tower, and the old railway line that had long since overgrown. The sun hung low, casting long shadows that stretched across the asphalt like black fingers.

In his backpack, the radio vibrated. It had turned on again, just like that, without him touching it. When he stopped briefly to listen, he heard nothing but the familiar static. And yet there was something underneath – a deeper tone, barely audible, but perceptible. Like the rumble of a distant storm.

Arriving home, he locked himself in his room, drew the curtains, and turned the radio to full volume. The static swelled, then that whispering tone again. This time it didn’t sound like his name. It was a sentence. “You’re already in.” Aiden held his breath. He wrote it in his notebook, each word carefully. In his stomach, a mixture of fear and fascination spread.

Then it crackled again – and the device shut off. No light. No sound. Just silence. Aiden looked at the device as if it were a living being. What was this? An experiment? A game? Or a call from somewhere beyond this world? And why him? The questions piled up, but the answers remained silent. Only the feeling that something had been set in motion – that remained.

In the evening, as darkness finally fell over Everhollow, the static was back – this time, however, not from the radio. It was coming from the walls. Aiden sat on his bed, knees drawn up, the device switched off in front of him, but he heard it anyway. A deep, pulsing flicker that seemed to be not in the room, but inside himself.

He got up, walked through the house, every light turned off, only the dull glow of street lamps penetrating through the windows. He stopped in the hallway. From the living room came a faint humming, like a stray radio station. Cautiously, he entered. The TV was off, the radio as well. And yet the air vibrated.

As he approached, a coldness swept through the room. Not like a draft – but an absurd, deep emptiness. Then: a soft cracking sound. From the wall. Aiden backed away. The wallpaper trembled. Just for a fraction of a second – but he saw it. Something was behind the wall. Something that didn’t belong there.

He ran back to his room, closed the door, and breathed heavily. In the dark, he groped for his notebook. “Not just over radio,” he wrote. And then, hesitantly, a new line: “It is here.” His pulse raced. The silence was now his enemy, filled with possibilities.

Outside, the trees rustled. And somewhere in the house, a switch clicked softly, although nobody had touched it.

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