The storm had already passed when Lila stepped outside, but the world still trembled with the memory of it. The air smelled like rain-soaked earth and electricity, and every leaf on the giant ash tree at the edge of her property glittered with droplets, catching the pale morning light.

She pulled her jacket tighter, more out of habit than cold. The night’s storm had been unlike anything she’d ever heard—thunder that cracked like stone splitting, wind that roared as though something enormous had been trying to speak through it. But what drew her outside wasn’t the damage, or the fallen branches scattered across her yard.

It was the voice.

She had heard it just as she fell asleep—a faint, trembling whisper, rising from the ground itself.

Lila…

She told herself it was the wind. Or exhaustion. Or imagination—something her mind conjured after a long week. But now, standing in the damp, still air, she wasn’t so sure.

The ash tree towered above her, older than any house in the town, its trunk wide enough that three people would struggle to encircle it. Her grandmother used to tell her stories about this tree—how the elders believed its roots stretched deeper than the wells, deeper than the old mines abandoned beneath the hills.

Some things sleep beneath the earth, Grandma would say, eyes sharp and bright. And some things whisper when they’re waking.

Lila hadn’t thought of that in years.

She crouched near the base of the trunk, brushing aside wet leaves. The soil felt soft, freshly disturbed, though no animal tracks marked it. The earth bulged slightly, like something beneath had shifted during the storm.

Then she heard it again.

Soft. Fragile. Impossible.

Help me.

Lila’s breath caught in her throat. She stumbled backward, heartbeat thundering louder than last night’s storm. No one was near her. No one could be buried under the tree. No one could survive that.

But the voice wasn’t panicked. It wasn’t pleading in fear.

It was calling to her—as though it already knew she would listen.

She took a hesitant step forward. “Hello?” Her voice sounded small, even to her own ears. “Is someone there?”

Silence.

Then—

Not someone… not anymore.

A chill crawled up her spine, but something else rose inside her too—curiosity, sharp and insistent. It wasn’t fear that kept her rooted to the spot.

It was recognition.

Because something about that voice… felt familiar.

Lila touched the bark, steadying herself, and the moment her fingers brushed the rough surface, the ground shuddered.

And the ash tree whispered back.