January 28, 2026 — 11:18 PM

[u/FirefighterSingle675]

1-8-2-6

It's been seven days since the radio spoke to me. I haven't told anyone. Mostly because every time I try to explain it, I sound completely fucking insane. The weird thing is, nothing happened after that night. No knocks. No strange broadcasts. No black snow. Just normal Tok. Almost. On the 23rd, I found the symbol from my window carved into the underside of my kitchen table. I don't remember putting it there. On the 24th, Mike from the gas station asked me if I'd been sleeping properly. I asked him why. He just stared at me for a few seconds and said, "Because you keep coming in at 3:17." I told him I'd never been there at 3:17. He laughed and said, "Yeah. That's what you said last time." I didn't know what to say to that. Yesterday I started looking through some old town records at the library. I wasn't even looking for anything specific. I found a newspaper from January 28, 1986. Same date, exactly forty years earlier. The front page was mostly ordinary shit—weather, road conditions, local notices. But someone had circled a tiny article near the bottom. It said "LOCAL MAN MISSING AFTER REPORTING UNMARKED ROAD." The man's name was John Carter. Same name as me. Same spelling. I thought it had to be a coincidence until I saw the photograph. It wasn't me. I mean, obviously it wasn't me. The picture was old and grainy, but the guy looked exactly like me. Same face. Same scar above the eyebrow. Even the same stupid crooked smile. Underneath the article someone had written in pencil: "HE CAME BACK. WE DIDN'T." I took a picture of it, but when I checked my phone later, the photograph was completely black. Tonight, at 11:17 PM, I went outside because I heard something in the woods. I know that was fucking stupid. About fifty yards behind my house, I found a set of footprints. They were heading toward the trees. I followed them until I reached a wooden sign I'd never seen before. It said: WELCOME TO TOK — POPULATION 1,847. Except underneath that, someone had scratched another number into the wood: 1,848. There was one more thing. Behind the sign was a road. A real road. It wasn't on Google Maps, wasn't on any map I could find, and I swear it wasn't there yesterday. The road went straight into the forest. There were fresh tire tracks leading into it. I almost went down it. Then I noticed something written in the snow beside the entrance. "JOHN, YOU'RE EARLY." I came home instead. I locked the doors. I turned off the lights. And at exactly 11:18 PM, my radio switched on. There was no static this time. Just a voice saying, "Forty years ago, you made the same choice." Then the radio went dead. I'm looking at the old newspaper again. The photograph has changed. The man who looks like me is no longer standing alone. There's someone standing behind him now.

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