(A chair squeaks. We can hear someone shallow breathing before inhaling deeply. A soft, low whistle as they exhale.)

If you're listening to this audio, this is Saskia Jones, podcaster, social media... God, I was going to say influencer but that just seems so... so... I don't know, irrelevant now. How things have changed, huh? Just a few days ago, that felt important to me, you know? In fact, it felt like everything. Hey everyone, look at me, the social media star with 2.2 million followers and people sending me free shit to promote all the time. Yup. Pretty cool, yeah?

(Saskia sighs.)

It feels like I haven't slept in forever. Every time I try to close my eyes, I see that face. That... that... thing – I want to say ghost, but I don't know what to think now – just whatever the Hell it was. And her. I see her. Amelia. I see her fear. Her desperation. It's as if the look in her eyes is burned onto my frontal lobe, you know? I'm not sure I'll ever stop thinking about it.

I can't stop thinking about it.

The more I think about it, the more I believe she needs my help. Wherever she is. If she is even still alive.

Okay, okay, I need to back up.

You see, this audio isn't for the podcast or anything like that. It's... well, it's for anyone who might get hold of my phone. Like, my folks, or Gabs and Myles. Maybe not Jakey. I don't think I want him to hear this. I don't even want my parents to hear this, but if they do and I'm gone... well, then they'll know what to do. Or maybe they won't, I don't know, because who the Hell would know what to do in a situation like this?

(There is a ping of an email in the background. Saskia pauses, the chair squeaks again and there is the clicking of the mouse.)

Sorry, I just needed to... I've been waiting on an email. Wasn't sure I'd get a reply to be honest, but...yup... got it.

Okay, sorry. I'm jumping around here, I know, but it's like my thoughts are going at a million miles per hour and everything feels so screwed up right now.

So, here's the thing. It's been four days since I got that email from Amelia. I'm saying Amelia, but I have doubts that it's her. It could be, I don't know, a family member. Someone who knows her. Hell, it could even be a prankster. It wouldn't be the first time someone tried to prank me. Comes with the territory. Social media star. Podcaster. All these followers. Let's bring her down a peg or two, you know?

I don't think it's someone trying to trick me.

I mean, I would think that, but it's that photograph.

(There's a pause. Saskia exhales again.)

Okay, I need to explain why I'm doing this. Why I'm recording this message. Everything feels like it's moving too fast. I'm on this rollercoaster and it just keeps going round and round the track, never stopping, just getting faster each time. And it's like, I want it to stop, you know? There's this huge part of me that's saying Saskia, stop this now, leave it be, it's safer that way. But then I see Amelia's face again and I remember how people just buried this – people that knew her, loved her – and they just buried it. Buried her.

And then I know I can't stop.

She deserves more than to be forgotten. God, I didn't even know her that well. She was in the year below at school and I used to see her, clutching onto her camera around campus – she was never without it – and we'd smile and say hi, and that was it. Literally no more than that. But I don't get how someone can be there one second and gone the next and nobody bats an eyelid. She was real. I saw her. Real flesh and blood and bone and now she's...? I don't know. I don't know what she is now.

But I need to do this. Despite everything. Despite them.

And after yesterday, well...

(Saskia sighs again, exhausted. Her voice is muffled as if she is rubbing a hand over her mouth.)

...yesterday changed everything.

You see, the photo got me, right? It got me. But I was wrong about it. I was wrong about what it showed. I was wrong about what Amelia was trying to tell me. Sorry, us. What she was trying to tell us. I was wrong. At least, that's what he told me.

You want the truth?

I'm scared.

I'm jumping at everything. Every little sound. Everywhere I go. I'm looking, you know? I'm listening.

I'm waiting.

For them, maybe. I just don't know. All I know is that I am scared. It's crazy because I'm talking about them now like they're real. My head is telling me that what she experienced – what she said was happening to her – just can't be real. It just can't.

And yet Amelia believed it. And then there's the photo. I mean, that's evidence, right? It's proof?

But proof of what?

The great John Lennon once said 'I believe in everything until it's disproved. So I believe in fairies, the myths, dragons. It all exists, even if it's in your mind. Who's to say that dreams and nightmares aren't as real as the here and now?'

God, that's terrifying. Not the fairies and dragons thing, because that's just bullshit, but just the concept that Amelia's nightmare can be real. That they can be real. And not only that, but that they're not what we think they are.

That's the truly terrifying thing.

They are not what we think they are.

They're something else.

Something...

(Saskia gasps. There's a long pause. A whisper. After a while the chair squeaks again.)

It's nothing. Nothing. I'm jumping out of my skin over nothing. Damn it, Saskia.

(Saskia exhales.)

Anyway, the interview is going live tomorrow on the podcast.

Then we'll see.

Yep. We'll see what happens.