Anka, Marek, and Damian sneak into the abandoned Heather cinema to test the legend of screening room 5, where something is said to echo back in a voice that is not quite human.
Leaves skittered across the pavement in dry, nervous whispers as Anka, Marek, and Damian slipped through the rusted gate of the abandoned Heather cinema. Time had not been kind to the place. Its blackened walls stood like a warning, and the locals had spent years feeding it with stories: strange lights behind boarded windows, footsteps in empty corridors, a voice that repeated whatever you said, only later, and never in the same tone.
"This feels like we walked straight into a horror film," Anka muttered, tightening her grip on the torch.
"Ghosts aren’t real," Marek said at once, but the words came out thin, as if he had to push them past his teeth.
Damian said nothing. He was the first to cross the threshold, stepping over old ticket stubs and shards of glass that glittered faintly on the corridor floor. The beam of his light cut through the gloom, throwing broken shapes across faded posters and peeling walls. Every sound they made came back at them twice, then again, as if the building was listening too closely.
Screening room number 5 was at the end of the hall. That was the room people talked about most. According to the story, no one had stayed for the end of the last showing there. The projector had died, the lights had gone out, and then something had begun to echo through the dark - not just words, but voices, warped and delayed, as if the cinema itself were learning how to speak.
"Maybe we should go back," Marek whispered.
Anka was already reaching for the door.
It gave under her hand with a long, wet creak.
Inside, the air was colder. The torchlight found rows of red velvet seats, dulled by dust and time, and a screen hanging at the front like a pale scar. Cobwebs trembled in the corners. The room felt less empty than waiting.
Then a sound drifted out from the darkness near the back row - so soft Anka almost mistook it for breath.
She took one step forward. Then another.
Behind her, Marek froze. A cold draft brushed the back of his neck, sharp as a fingertip. He turned too quickly, certain he had felt someone standing there, close enough to whisper.
"Did you hear that?" he said.
Before anyone could answer, the dead speakers overhead crackled to life.
The noise that followed was distorted and low, but unmistakable: their own last words, dragged out and returned in a voice that sounded deeper than any of theirs. The volume climbed. The room seemed to shudder around them.
Then the door slammed shut.
The sound of their names rolled through the theatre, bounced off the screen, and came back changed. And from somewhere beyond the rows of seats, another voice began to speak - slow, unfamiliar, and far too close to be coming from the front of the room.