The call I shouldn't have answered

I only went back to that house because I had nowhere else to go. It was a cold, rotting dump where my father had died in a fire back in 1999. I’d spent twenty years blaming my mother for that night, convinced her carelessness killed him. Since I’d lost my phone on the move, I was stuck using an old landline I found tucked in a basement crawlspace.

When it rang, the voice was frantic. Her name was Ruby. After a few terrifying calls, the truth hit me: Ruby was calling from the same house, but it was November 1999. We were both twenty-eight, standing in the same kitchen twenty-one years apart.

At first, it was a miracle. I told her how to save my father. After a while, my reality shifted. The house turned into a mansion, and my dad was suddenly standing there, alive and smiling. I was so happy I started ignoring Ruby’s calls.

That was my mistake. In 1999, Ruby was being tortured by her religious stepmother, who claimed Ruby was "tainted." Jealous of the life she’d given me, Ruby snapped. I found an old news report and realized Ruby was supposed to be killed by her stepmother that night. Out of pity, I warned her. I told her to strike first.

Ruby didn't just escape; she murdered her stepmother and realized she liked it. The victim died, and a serial killer was born. My 2020 reality warped again. My father vanished, and the house turned back into a wreck. Ruby started killing people in the past just to watch my world crumble.

"I can see your younger self right now," she whispered from 1999. "Should I let you grow up, Abigail?"

It ended on a blood-soaked night. In 2020, an older, scarred Ruby hunted me through the house. Simultaneously, in 1999, my mother arrived at the house to pick me up. I screamed into the phone, warning my mom. In the past, she tackled Ruby, and they both plummeted over the balcony. In 2020, the older Ruby vanished. I thought I’d won. I found myself in a sunny graveyard, standing by my mother’s headstone, finally at peace.

But then, the world flickered. My mother’s hand went cold. The sun disappeared, replaced by a suffocating grey.

In 1999, Ruby hadn't died. The phone had rung—a warning from her future self—allowing her to survive the fall. She got up and murdered my mother instead.

The graveyard vanished. I wasn't free. I was in the basement, chained to a pipe in the dark. The door creaked open, and I saw her. Ruby had spent twenty years waiting for me to come home. I wasn't the owner of the house anymore; I was just a prisoner in a timeline she had conquered. I never should have answered that phone.