Episode 12 – The Voice Behind the Words
994 Words
2:11 a.m.
Nguyen An was halfway into a dream when a soft vibration nudged him awake. His phone, screen faintly glowing beside the pillow, buzzed with a single notification—an audio file, delivered by an old, barely-used email app.
No sender. No subject. No message.
Just a file titled: “voice_01.m4a”
He hesitated, thumb hovering over the play icon.
Then, he tapped it.
A gentle breeze. A long silence.
Then—a woman's voice, low and calm, echoed through his earbuds, like a whisper slipping between dreams and consciousness.
“If you’re hearing this...
Then maybe you’ve read what I once wrote.”
“I don’t need you to remember my name.
Just... listen.”
The sound was so familiar it stung. Not in memory, but in instinct.
Like he had heard it hundreds of times—not with his ears, but through the folds of his chest.
An checked the inbox again. No new mail. No contact.
Just a strange, unidentified email, sent from an anonymous address.
He played the recording again. A second time. A third.
On the fourth playthrough, he froze.
Near the end of the message, he heard a faint laugh—a soft, broken laugh.
Then: a whisper.
“Thank you... for not abandoning my memories.”
A man’s voice.
His own.
Nguyen An had never recorded anything like that.
Not that he could remember.
The next day, An arrived at the Literature Club’s meeting room.
No sign of Linh.
She wasn’t in class.
Not in the library.
Not at the usual café.
Her phone went straight to voicemail.
Her socials were inactive.
He rushed back to the clubroom. Her desk, the one always neatly arranged, sat cold and empty. On top lay a folded piece of paper. Familiar handwriting—delicate, slanted left.
“If I disappear...
Please don’t look for me in stories.
Try listening instead.”
“Some words cannot be written.
Only spoken—when no one’s left to hear.”
At the bottom, a final line:
“I’ve always been the quietest writer in your story.”
That night, 1:48 a.m.
A second file arrived.
“voice_02.m4a”
He pressed play, palms damp.
“I’ve watched you... from behind the curtain of words.”
“You wrote so much about others.
You preserved so many lives.
But you never realized... someone was writing about you too. Every single day.”
“I didn’t dare post it. I didn’t dare speak.
Because once I wrote your name, it would become too real.
And I was terrified of losing you to truth.”
The voice trembled slightly.
“Have you ever wondered... who remembered the light in your eyes when you read?
Who kept your quiet moments when you stared into the empty courtyard?”
“It was me.”
The next day, An combed through the library archives—where Linh used to sit, surrounded by piles of books and paper.
Inside drawer three, hidden behind a thick stack of “Creative Notetaking Techniques,” he found a small gray USB drive.
It contained five voice files, a folder labeled “drafts,” and one document:
“Only When I Am No Longer Here.docx”
He opened it.
The first line read:
“This is the notebook I never dared to send.
These are words I never had the voice to say.
These are things I only wrote when I’d given up on being remembered.”
Each paragraph captured a day—a small, quiet moment about An.
“Today you shared a draft and asked for edits.
But I had already read the original.
I saw the raw lines you deleted.
I know what you hide.”
“You pretended to be fine.
I wished I could say: You don’t have to be.”
“Once, you fell asleep in the clubroom.
I gently adjusted your blanket.
You murmured ‘Thank you’ without opening your eyes.
Maybe... you meant it for me. Even if you didn’t know.”
An sat frozen.
Toward the end of the file, Linh had written:
“I know I can’t stay forever.
But all I hope—just once—is to be remembered through my real voice.”
That night, An did something he’d never done.
He recorded his voice.
“Linh... I’ve heard it all.
I’ve read every word.
I remember everything.”
“Wherever you are...
Know this: I no longer write just to hold onto the forgotten.
Today, I write... to hold onto someone who hasn’t left yet.”
He sent the audio reply to the anonymous email address.
No expectations.
No demand.
Just a simple offering:
His voice—for the first time, not through letters or books, but through breath and sound.
Three days passed.
One morning, a package arrived at his dorm.
No sender.
Inside was a worn leather notebook.
Tucked inside the front flap: a photo.
Linh stood on a sunlit hill, holding a sign:
“I still write. Just... in a different place now.”
At the back of the notebook was one more line:
“If someday I disappear, my voice will still live in the lines you once read.”
“I was never just a keeper of words.
I was the one who kept you—in ways you never noticed.”
That night, An returned to the Literature Club’s empty room.
He placed his laptop gently on Linh’s desk, opened a new document.
The Voice Behind the Words.docx
And typed:
“I once wrote to hold onto those who had stopped writing.
But tonight, I write... for the one who dared to speak,
Even when no one was ready to hear.”
He paused.
Smiled.
For the first time, there was no one else writing his story.
And for the first time, he wanted to write about himself—
Not as a collector of voices,
But as someone finally being heard.
To be continued...
- Writer
