The Signal

Chapter 7 — The Door

Malick followed the coordinates hidden in the signal.

They led him to an abandoned communications station on the outskirts of Nairobi. The building stood behind a rusted fence, surrounded by overgrown grass and trees that blocked most of the afternoon sunlight.

According to the public records he had found, the facility had been closed years earlier following an unexplained technical incident.

Nobody had mentioned Daniel Lee.

Malick parked his motorbike near the entrance and approached the fence. A section had been forced open, leaving enough room for him to squeeze through.

He immediately noticed something strange.

The grass around the building had been flattened, as though someone had visited recently.

He pushed the main door.

It opened without resistance.

Inside, dust covered the floor, and old computers lined the walls. Most had been stripped of their cables, leaving empty metal cases. A broken clock hung above the reception desk.

Its hands showed 3:17.

Malick took out his phone and switched on the flashlight.

“Hello?” he called.

His voice travelled down the corridor and returned as a faint echo.

Nobody answered.

He continued toward the control room. At the far end, one computer suddenly powered on.

The screen flickered before displaying two words.

WELCOME BACK.

Malick froze.

He had never visited the building before.

A second message appeared.

YOU CAME ALONE.

He looked behind him, suddenly aware of how isolated he was. The entrance remained open, but the darkness outside seemed strangely distant.

Then a recording began playing through the computer's speakers.

“If you're hearing this, the signal has found you too.”

Malick recognized the voice immediately.

Daniel Lee.

His father sounded older than he remembered from childhood recordings, but there was no mistaking the familiar tone.

“If you have reached this station,” Daniel continued, “you need to understand something. The signal is not a message in the ordinary sense. It is a response.”

A loud crackle interrupted the recording.

“What does that mean?” Malick whispered.

The recording continued.

“We believed we were transmitting information into deep space. We were wrong. Something was already listening.”

The screen went black.

Malick waited, hoping the recording would resume.

Instead, a new line appeared.

LEVEL TWO ACCESS REQUIRED.

Behind the control room, a metal door unlocked with a heavy click.

Malick approached it cautiously. The handle was cold beneath his fingers.

He pulled.

Beyond the door lay a narrow staircase descending into darkness.

A faint blue light pulsed somewhere below.

Then came the familiar sound.

Three short pulses.

Two long ones.

Silence.

Malick remembered the warning from the recording.

Don't let it wake up.

He should have left.

He knew that.

But his father had been missing for years, and now every clue seemed to lead deeper into this building.

Malick switched on his flashlight and stepped down.

At the bottom, he found another door bearing the strange symbol.

Beneath it, someone had scratched a sentence into the metal.

THE FIRST PERSON WHO OPENED THIS DOOR NEVER CAME BACK.

Before Malick could turn around, the door behind him slammed shut.

A voice emerged from the darkness ahead.

“Malick?”

He stopped breathing for a moment.

It sounded exactly like his father.

“Is that you?” Malick called.

The voice answered.

“Son, you shouldn't have come here.”

Then the blue light went out.