My father warned me never to go back to that mountain.
He refused to explain why.
But yesterday, while cleaning the attic, I found an old cassette tape hidden inside a box.
It was labeled with my brother’s name.
The same brother who disappeared there 12 years ago.
I almost stopped listening when I heard the heavy breathing in the recording.
Then my brother whispered something that made my blood turn cold:
“If you find this… don’t let Dad go back up there.”
I replayed the tape three times before I could move again.
My brother Adam’s voice sounded weak… terrified.
Underneath the static, I could hear wind howling violently around him.
Then another sound.
Footsteps.
Not his.
The recording suddenly cut off after a loud scream.
My father walked into the room just as the tape stopped spinning.
The second he heard Adam’s voice, his face lost all color.
“Where did you find that?” he whispered.
I demanded answers.
For years, everyone believed Adam had fallen during a climbing trip on Gray Hollow Mountain.
But my father sat down trembling and finally told me the truth.
Adam didn’t go alone.
My father had been with him that night.
They weren’t climbing.
They were searching for something hidden deep in the mountain — an abandoned research station shut down decades earlier after several unexplained deaths.
My father claimed they heard voices inside the tunnels.
Voices calling their names.
Then Adam disappeared in the dark.
My father ran and never went back.
I wanted to believe he was lying.
But that night, another cassette appeared outside our front door.
Wet from snow.
No footprints nearby.
I slowly pressed play.
At first there was only static.
Then I heard my brother’s voice again.
Older this time.
Broken.
“He lied to you,” Adam whispered.
“Dad left me there.”
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