I never expected anything unusual when I went in for my routine MRI. Just a dull ache behind my right ear that wouldn’t go away, and my doctor thought it might be a sinus issue or a pinched nerve. Standard stuff. I even brought a book to pass the time.

The MRI room was cold, sterile, humming with that faint mechanical buzz that seemed to settle in your bones. I lay still on the narrow bed as the machine slid me in, feeling a little ridiculous for being nervous. I’d done this before. Twenty minutes, tops.

When it was over, I followed the technician down the white hallway to wait for the radiologist to review the scans. I didn’t catch her name when she entered — just that she was young, with sharp eyes and a calm, practiced demeanor.

But when she saw the screen, her expression changed.

Her lips tightened. Her hand hovered above the mouse, motionless for several seconds. Then she adjusted the contrast and leaned closer. The color drained from her face.

“Is… something wrong?” I asked, sitting straighter.

She didn’t answer at first. Instead, she clicked through several images, zooming in and out, flipping between slices of my brain like a slideshow she wasn’t quite prepared to present.

Then she turned to me and asked, quietly, “Do you hear anything when you sleep?”

I blinked. “Excuse me?”

“Any voices? Music? Rhythmic sounds?” she said slowly, carefully. “Anything you might have assumed was dreaming, or imagination?”

The question was so strange it didn’t register at first. But I remembered — once or twice, over the past few months, I’d woken up convinced someone had whispered my name. Or that I’d heard soft, echoing music, like a lullaby. But I’d brushed it off. Everyone has weird dreams.

“Sometimes,” I said. “Why?”

She didn’t reply. Instead, she turned the monitor so I could see.

“There,” she said, pointing.

At first, I didn’t see anything unusual. Just gray and white tissue, the unmistakable topography of a brain scan. But then she adjusted the brightness — and something else came into view.

It looked like a structure. No — more like a cavity. A small, dark space nestled deep near my auditory cortex, surrounded by what looked like faint, spiral ridges. Almost… architectural.

“What is that?” I asked, my voice suddenly dry.

“We’re… not sure,” she replied.

I turned to her, startled. “What do you mean, you’re not sure?”

She hesitated, then said, “This isn’t the first time we’ve seen something like this. A few cases. Rare. The others had similar symptoms — a sense of sound without source, occasional nosebleeds, dizziness. Some even claimed they heard voices. But what’s inside… doesn’t behave like a normal cyst or tumor. It doesn’t grow. It doesn’t shrink. It’s just… there.”

I stared at the screen, chilled. “So what do you do about it?”

“That’s the problem,” she said. “We don’t do anything. The few who tried surgical removal—well, let’s just say they didn’t respond well.”

I swallowed hard.

“Most of the time,” she added gently, “we monitor it. Track if it changes. If symptoms worsen. But I suggest you start keeping a journal. Write down anything unusual — sounds, sensations, dreams. Anything at all.”

“Dreams?” I echoed. “This is something… conscious?”

“We don’t know,” she said again. But her eyes told me she feared otherwise.

That night, I barely slept. I kept the lamp on and my notebook next to me, just in case.

Around 2 a.m., I must’ve dozed off. When I woke up — or thought I did — my room was completely silent. But the silence felt unnatural. Pressurized. Like everything was holding its breath.

And then I heard it.

A soft clicking sound, like tapping glass. Slow at first. Then faster, like code. My eyes scanned the dark ceiling, my ears straining to locate it. And then — beneath the clicks — a hum. A low, layered tone that vibrated in my chest rather than my ears. It wasn’t music. It was more like… language. I couldn’t understand it, but something in it felt aware.

I reached for my notebook but froze when I saw the mirror across the room.

There was something in the reflection.

Not in the room. Just in the glass.

A shape, vaguely humanoid, but thin and impossibly tall. It moved without moving — like it unfolded through dimensions I couldn’t see. And its face — or what passed for a face — had ridges.

Spirals.

Exactly like the scan.

I tried to scream, but my mouth wouldn’t open. My body wouldn’t move. I was paralyzed, eyes locked on the reflection, the hum growing louder — almost comforting now, like it was syncing with my heartbeat.

Then I woke up.

Soaked in sweat. Heart pounding. The notebook was on the floor.

When I picked it up, my hands were shaking so badly I almost dropped it again.

There was writing inside.

But not mine.

Three lines, scrawled in jagged ink:

“You are the chamber.
We speak in silence.
Do not open the door.”

I didn’t go back to sleep.

The next day, I called the radiologist. Asked if she’d ever had patients mention anything like this. Her voice was tight.

“Some. Not all. But… enough.”

“Do any of them get better?”

“Some stop hearing it,” she said. “But usually… only after it speaks clearly for the first time.”

“And then?”

There was a pause.

“They disappear. Quit jobs. Move. One walked into the sea.”

I stared at the phone.

“I’ll schedule your follow-up in three months,” she said gently. “Unless something changes.”

I didn’t tell her about the reflection. Or the writing.

I didn’t tell anyone.

But now, every night, I hear it a little more clearly. The hum becoming words. And behind them, the clicking