The Silence Between Songs

The glitch started small—half a second of static between tracks. Just enough to notice. People complained online, joked about haunted playlists, blamed bad headphones.

Then the whispers began.

Not words at first. Breath. A pause that felt crowded. Maya noticed it on her night run, earbuds in, city asleep. Between one song and the next, something exhaled—close, intimate. She yanked the buds out, heart racing. Nothing there.

The next night, it spoke.

“Maya.”

She tripped, scraping her knee, phone skidding across the pavement. The next track started cheerfully, as if nothing had happened.

Forums exploded. Thousands heard their own names. Different voices. Same timing—always in the silence between songs. The company issued a statement about “audio artifacting.” An update rolled out. The whispers stopped.

But Maya noticed something else.

The gaps were gone.

Songs now bled into one another, seamless and constant. No pauses. No silence at all.

She missed it more than she expected.

Because in that brief, terrible quiet, something had been listening back.