Fear-1996- Review

The phone stopped ringing. The computer screen went black. Not a screensaver black. A dead, absolute black. The green power light on the monitor went out. The hard drive fell silent.

it’s not a game, mara.

The phone rang.

Mariana’s fingers, nails bitten to the quick, hovered over the keyboard. Fear-1996-

Not a human eye. The pupil was a perfect, inky void, and the iris was the color of an old bruise. It was looking at the camera. Looking at her.

One ring.

Not the computer’s speaker. The actual, physical, beige rotary phone on the end table next to the couch. It shattered the silence like a gunshot. Mariana jerked back in her chair, her spine hitting the hard plastic. The phone stopped ringing

Her parents didn’t wake up. They never did. The phone was for her. It was always for her.

Two rings.

She turned back to the screen.

It said her name. Not Mara_Luna . Her real name. The one her mother used when she was angry, the one written on her birth certificate.

Mariana turned her head, just a fraction. The living room was dark. The grandfather clock ticked. The front door was locked, chain on. The window curtains were drawn. Nothing.

And through the crack, an eye.