The phone rang at exactly 2:03 a.m., slicing through the quiet of the bedroom like a blade. The kind of ringing that doesn’t just wake you up—it startles your soul out of sleep. Mark and Lisa had been buried in deep, peaceful rest, tangled in blankets, drifting somewhere between dreams and nothingness. Outside, the neighborhood was silent. No cars. No wind. No distant sirens. Just the hum of the refrigerator and the occasional creak of the house settling. Mark had been dreaming about winning a fishing tournament he’d never entered, while Lisa was somewhere in a dream involving a missing suitcase and a very confused cat. When the phone rang, both of them jumped slightly, but Lisa reached for it first out of pure reflex. Still half-asleep, hair stuck to her face, eyes barely open, she answered without checking the caller ID. “Hello?” she mumbled. There was a pause. Then she frowned slightly, listening. “What?” she asked, squinting at the ceiling. Another pause. “How am I supposed to know?” Her voice sharpened just a little. “That’s two hundred miles away.” She rolled onto her side, turned her back to Mark, and hung up. The room fell silent again. No explanation. No follow-up. Just the soft click of the phone returning to its cradle and Lisa immediately drifting back toward sleep like nothing had happened.