Riza Stevenson.

I look up, sure that I heard someone call my name.

Riza Stevenson.

I look around the empty store, but the only thing I see is the intricate maze of bookshelves leading to the front door.

Riza Stevenson.

I stand up. I am positive now that I did hear someone say my name. I scan the shop for any sign of life, but it is dreadfully quiet and worryingly empty. I notice that the radio that was playing my own playlist of easy going indie tunes for the empty store a  few minutes ago is now emitting only white noise. 

“Must have been some sort of a power surge,” I reason aloud as I try reconnecting my iPod with no desirable results.

Riza Stevenson.

    I jump back away from the stereo, dropping my iPod on the desk in surprise. So the voice was coming from the radio the whole time. I roll my eyes. Yeah, I think, that really makes sense. I must be dreaming, stuck in some strangely vivid, realistic dream world. I pinch myself, but I don’t wake up. The store looks the same as it did a moment ago, and the radio speaks again.

Riza Stevenson.

    “This is crazy,” I mutter to myself. “Radios can’t talk.”

Riza Stevenson.

    I jump again when I hear my name, spoken so clearly from the radio speakers placed all around the store. Is it a sign? Am I being tested? This whole scenario seems like a grossly overworked plot trope of mysterious voices that some teenage kid would use to write an “edgy” short story. Well, the reality of the trope is much more terrifying than some kid’s half-baked narrative could ever convey in five hundred words or fewer. I am shaking from head to toe and praying that I really was imagining the whole thing and the radio will go back to the predetermined Chvrches, Vance Joy, and Tove Lo resonating around the shelves.

Riza Stevenson.

    This time the voice is accompanied by a shrill scream. That sound wasn’t very worrying, though, because I knew I was the one who had made it. I try in vain to turn off the radio, to shut it down somehow.

Riza Stevenson.

    I unplug it.

Riza Stevenson.

    I shout at no one in particular. Radios can’t hear, to my knowledge. On second consideration, I really don’t want a concrete answer for that.

This is a warning.

    I turn to the radio in horror because this lump of junk has spoken some real words.

    “A warning? For what?” I am crying now. “What are you warning me about? I just want to be left alone!”

You are never alone, Riza.

    This is nine hundred times worse than any mediocre short story plot.

They are here for you now.

    Before I can get another word out, the whole front of the store explodes.