The old lighthouse on the edge of Blackmoor Bay had stood for over a century, its red and white stripes faded to a ghostly gray. No one lived there anymore, but every year on the first night of April, the light would flicker to life, even though no one had touched the switch. Locals whispered about it, but no one dared to investigate. The wind howled through the broken windows like a mournful song, and the waves crashed against the rocks with a rhythm that seemed almost deliberate. Eliot Morgan, a quiet man in his thirties who worked as a freelance journalist, had always been drawn to the strange. He had read about the lighthouse in a dusty journal found in the back of a secondhand bookstore, its pages yellowed and brittle. The entry was brief, but it described the eerie phenomenon in detail. That was enough for him. He packed his bag, grabbed his notebook, and set out toward the bay, where the lighthouse loomed like a forgotten sentinel. The path to the lighthouse was overgrown, the grass tangled and thick, as if nature itself tried to hide the place from the world. When he reached the base, the structure was more imposing than he had imagined. The tower was tall, its walls covered in ivy and salt stains. The door creaked open without a sound, as if it had been waiting for him. Inside, the air was cold and still. Dust motes swirled in the faint light that filtered through the cracks in the roof. Eliot climbed the spiral staircase, each step groaning beneath his weight. At the top, the control room was intact, though the equipment had long since rusted away. A single desk sat in the center, covered in papers that were not his. They were written in a looping, elegant script, and the dates on them stretched back decades—some even before the lighthouse had been built. He picked up a page at random and read: "April 1st, 1923. The light is responding to something I cannot see. It pulses when I speak, as if it understands me." Another note said, "I hear voices in the fog. They are not mine." Eliot’s breath caught. He flipped through more pages, each one more unsettling than the last. Some described strange occurrences—lights moving on their own, shadows that didn’t match the source of the light, and a voice that called his name in the dead of night. One entry was dated just yesterday. His hand trembled as he reached for the switch. The moment he touched it, the light flared to life, casting long, jagged shadows across the walls. The beam swept through the room, illuminating the dust and the cracks in the floor. Then, as suddenly as it had come, the light went out. A low hum filled the space, vibrating in his bones. Eliot turned around, but the room was empty. The door behind him was still open, and the wind howled through the corridors, carrying with it a whisper that wasn’t quite a voice. He ran down the stairs, his heart pounding. As he stepped outside, the sky was clear, the stars blinking above the dark sea. But when he looked back at the lighthouse, the light was still on. It pulsed slowly, like a heartbeat. He tried to convince himself it was a trick of the eye, but deep down, he knew better. That night, Eliot wrote everything down. He sent the notes to his editor, unsure if they would ever be published. He returned to the city, but the lighthouse never left his mind. Every morning, he checked the news, hoping to find something—any clue—that might explain what he had seen. But nothing came. One week later, he received an anonymous letter. It contained a single sentence: "You heard the voice, didn't you?" Eliot stared at it, his hands shaking. He didn't know if it was a prank or something else. He decided to go back. This time, he brought a camera and a recorder, determined to prove to himself that it was all in his head. But when he arrived, the lighthouse was gone. Not destroyed, not abandoned—just gone. Where it once stood, there was only a field of tall grass, as if it had never existed. And in the silence, he heard it again. A whisper, soft and familiar, calling his name.