“I think I’m dying. Or maybe . . . I’m being erased.”

Chapter 9 of Echoes In The Walls

_____

Jett Vale wasn’t sure if it was still Wednesday. The clocks had started to lie. Or maybe he just stopped trusting them.

Time had softened, unspooled like old tape left too long in the sun. He’d wake up at 4 p.m., convinced it was morning. He’d eat breakfast in the dark. He’d hear the same line of a song, over and over, looping in a room with no speakers.

He had stopped listening to Avery. He had stopped talking to Maria.

Kenneth kept his distance, standing farther back than usual, like a man watching blood circle the drain.

It didn’t matter. Jett knew what he had to do.

He just didn’t know where to find the version of himself who could still do it.

*     *     *

That night, he returned to the studio.

The real studio, his inner sanctum. Soundproofed, climate-controlled, untouched by anyone but him. Maria wasn’t allowed to clean in there. Avery had only seen it once. It was his last sanctuary.

Now it felt like a tomb.

Dust had settled on the console. The racks were cold. The leather swivel chair creaked like it remembered a time when it held a younger man with steadier hands.

He powered on the board, and the computers came alive, slowly. Green and amber lights blinked to life across the interface. The machines still worked, even if he didn’t.

He loaded a blank session. And pressed “Record.”

Then he sat in silence. Waiting.

He could feel it again — that presence. Just beyond the door. Or behind the walls. Or inside him, curling like smoke through the folds of memory.

He spoke softly into the mic.

“This is Jett Vale,” he began. “Real name: Kenneth Doyle, Memphis, Tennessee. Drummer’s son. Sang backup before lead. Snake Choir. Solo career after. Married twice. No kids. Still dreaming.”

A pause.

“I think I’m dying.”

Then:

“Or maybe . . . I’m being erased.”

He paused. The room buzzed faintly in his headphones.

“I don’t know who’s in this house. But I think he’s me.”

*     *     *

Later, in bed, he played the recording back.

There was static.

But not ordinary static.

Underneath it was . . . something moving.

It wasn’t his voice. Not exactly. It was close. Like a second vocal track just behind the first, whispering in harmony.

The whisper said:

“You left the door open.”

Then:

“You let me in.”

Jett dropped the recorder.

The sound stopped instantly.

*     *     *

He dreamed of the Snake Choir again.

Not the glory years. Not the sold-out arenas or platinum plaques.

He dreamed of the studio in Laurel Canyon, in the early days, when they were still trying to find themselves. When the walls were padded with egg cartons and the air smelled like stale beer, new sweat and raw ambition.

In the dream, he stood at the mic. But he wasn’t singing.

He was staring at the glass. Because someone was on the other side. Not the producer. Not Frankie. Not anyone from the band.

Just himself, watching through the booth. Older. Waiting. And hollow.

The man mouthed something Jett couldn’t hear.

Jett leaned closer.

The glass turned to a sheet of water.

And the man on the other side reached through it.

And Jett woke up screaming.

*     *     *

Avery came the next morning, laptop in hand.

She found him in the living room, hunched over the coffee table, scribbling symbols and arrows on sheets of staff paper. The TV was just a blue screen. Not static, not snow, just blue.

“You called me last night,” she said gently.

“I don’t remember.”

“You said you were trapped.”

He looked up at her. His eyes were bloodshot. Haunted.

“I think I am.”

Avery sat on the edge of the couch, slowly. “Where?”

“In here.” He tapped the side of his head. “But not just here. In this house. In . . . In the walls.”

He pulled out the note again. The one signed “ — K.” He handed it to her.

She read it.

“This is your handwriting.”

“I think it is.”

“You wrote it to yourself?”

“I think he wrote it to me.”

“Who?”

Jett stood abruptly. “He is not a ghost. He’s a memory. A version. One I left behind. He’s everything I forgot, everything I drank away, everything I buried in songs.”

She stood too. “Jett — ”

“I let him in.”

She reached for his arm. She didn’t smell alcohol. And though his eyes were bloodshot, he seemed sober. “Please. Just let me take you to someone. Just talk to someone.”

He shook his head.

“I’m not crazy,” he said again, quietly. But even he sounded tired of hearing it.

“I didn’t say you were.”

“I can prove it.”

“How?”

“I’ll find him.”

Avery looked around the room — the dust, the candles, the closed curtains, the mirrors turned to the walls.

“You already have,” she whispered.

*     *     *

That night, Jett heard a new sound. Not humming. Not singing.

Laughter.

Faint. Dry. Echoing through the air vent above his bed.

He stood beneath it, listening.

The voice laughed again. Then said:

“You’re almost there.”

He looked in the mirror.

And this time, the other him didn’t disappear.

He stepped forward. So did the reflection.

But it wasn’t mirroring anymore.

It was following.

_____

(c) Secret Agent Man
info@secretagentman.net