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Between the Dials is a cinematic audio fiction series broadcasting from the pirate frequency 77.7 FM — a Midwest-born station where memory, mystery, and static intertwine.
Each episode transmits stories that live between horror and humanity, weaving analog sound design, radio lore, and quiet philosophy into something hauntingly familiar.
What you hear is who you are… if you stop to listen.
You’ve found 77.7 FM. As I was before, so I am again — your host, Steven Carter. And if you’re here again, which if you can hear my voice you are, then last time you listened and caught a little something of yourself. That’s what brought you back to… Between the Dials. Tonight’s signal splits in two: Beyond the Tower and Proof of Signal. Proof is the evidence — the mark, the pattern that says this is real. The thing that should be impossible, and yet, somehow, still arrives. Beyond is the reach — the part that pulls us forward, past where the map ends, toward the adventure… and the danger. Proof means nothing without mystery; mystery means nothing without proof. In Episode 1, we asked what happens when signals cross, when voices slip through the static. Tonight we ask: what happens when mystery provides proof? Does it get too heavy to bear? Does it destroy the finder? Does it end the relationship? Or is the ride worth the price that proof requires? So let’s prove the voice is here — and then see how far it carries. Because you are what you hear… if you stop to listen. Between the Dials. Some signals don’t make sense. They don’t travel on airwaves or wires. They arrive in the middle of the night, wrapped in memory, and just quiet enough to be missed — unless you’re listening. This next story was submitted anonymously. They asked us to transcribe the message and re-record it for privacy — so what you're about to hear isn't their voice… but it is their TRANSMISSION. The author believes it comes from someone they loved. Someone they lost. But not completely. 📼 SUBMITTED TAPE (ANONYMOUS AUTHOR — FIRST-PERSON) I started dreaming about them the week after the funeral. Not in a comforting, symbolic way. Not like some gentle metaphor. I mean—really dreaming. Real conversations. Real details. They knew things I didn’t. At first, they told me where I’d left my passport. A drawer I hadn’t opened in months. Then they warned me not to go to the lake house that weekend. There was a storm. A bad one. The bridge flooded. Then came the job offer. I told them about the interview—nervous, pacing— and they said, “Tell them about your systems design approach. They’ll love it.” I did. I got the job. I stopped telling anyone about the dreams. It felt… disloyal. Like I was cheating grief. But then they started showing up less. Just quick moments. Sometimes I’d hear their voice right as I woke up. “Watch your step.” “Don’t trust him.” “Open the blue envelope first.” I still don’t know where the messages come from. Maybe it’s just my brain holding onto them. Maybe it’s love, stretched across a broken frequency. Or maybe— they never really stopped transmitting. 🎙️ NARRATION (Host) They knew how you thought. How you moved. How you finished a sentence that never made it out of your mouth. So when they started showing up in dreams— finishing new sentences… knowing new things— it didn’t feel supernatural. It felt like… continuity. Like part of them had been downloaded into you. But what if it isn’t just that? What if imprint became interface? What if you’re not just remembering them— but receiving them? What if, like today’s author, friend, you experienced a connection with someone who couldn’t outwardly speak for themselves, but yet they could… But for those who’ve experienced it… there’s a name that keeps showing up. The Telepathy Tapes. We didn’t create them. We’re just listening. We’ll return to them. But for now— stay tuned. 🎙️ CLOSING NARRATION (Host) Whether it was all intuition, coincidence, or something more… the their signals get through. That’s what matters. Because sometimes, the things we think we’ve lost — people, feelings, time, the ability to communicate — still echo inside the static. Even if the world’s moved on… something in us is still tuned to receive. 🎙️ Voiceover Draft (Final Polished Version) This episode is brewed with support from Hanrose — the espresso machine that lives up to its signal. Barista-level quality. Compact footprint. No needless touchscreen, no chirping AI assistant. Just heat, pressure… and crema the color of sunrise. Whether you’re chasing clarity, caffeine, or just a ritual that feels like your own, Hanrose delivers café-grade espresso without ever leaving your signal range. Pull your first shot of the morning. Let the static clear. And start the transmission. You're listening to 77.7 FM… and this is a Frequency that Matters. Thank you for tuning back in. I owe you a little context. When we started pulling these transmissions, we had a system — red folders for anything strange enough to be logged but not yet explained. But before long, that drawer was overflowing. Too many signals. Too many stories. So we started moving them somewhere safer. Somewhere quieter. A vault. I should’ve told you that last time. But maybe it’s better you came back first. Last time, we visited a signal crossed in time through an object. Today, we have a little proof of signal the locals call… The Suitcase Prophecy. 🧳 BODY – THE SUITCASE RULES & APPEARANCES They say the first time was 1967. A farmer near Council Bluffs found it tucked in the rafters of his hayloft. Inside: a newspaper. Same date. Same paper. Only difference— the headlines wouldn’t be printed for another week. For him, it wasn’t a trick. It was proof of signal. Everyone who’s opened the suitcase tells a similar story. Most of what’s inside looks like it already belongs to you—ticket stubs, receipts, an old birthday card. But always, tucked among the familiar, is one impossible thing. A voicemail that hasn’t been recorded yet. A VHS tape of a child not yet born. An iPod loaded with songs the band won’t write for years. And it’s never random. It’s always what you NEED 🪝 THE SIREN-SONG NATURE That’s the hook. The suitcase saves you first. A warning before a storm. The tip that wins you a job. A reminder not to take the bridge that’s about to wash out. Like the mermaids in old river songs, it offers help with one hand— but it never promises to let you go. 📈 THE WEIGHT OF FUTURES Because if you keep it, the suitcase replenishes. Each night, after the last prediction comes true, something new appears. Another clipping. Another recording. Another piece of the future. The prophecy stacks. And so does the weight. Scientists tried to measure it. They logged the contents, weighed the case, watched it refill itself. But after seven days, the predictions darkened. Headlines of fire and flood. Obituaries with names they recognized. One researcher wrote: “It got too heavy to carry.” They put it back and walked away. 💰 GREED AND DISASTER Greedy people didn’t notice the change. They only saw the prediction that made them money. They never looked at the headline underneath — the one that warned them what was coming next. The farmer who tried to sell his advance newspaper lost his barn in a storm. The bandleader who showed the VHS to a TV station saw the VFW hall burn down. The janitor who leaked the playlists online? The school flooded within a week. These weren’t punishments. Just consequences of holding on too long. As if the suitcase was restoring balance. 📼 TESTING & ERASURE Some tried to prove it in other ways. Pinning the unprinted newspapers to their walls. Photographing the VHS playing on their TVs. But the evidence degraded, if it showed up at all. The paper yellowed overnight. The photos blurred. The tapes warped. As if the suitcase was erasing its own trail, encouraging those smart enough to make the connection, that it was time to put the suitcase back. ⏳ THE TIME LIMIT Everyone agrees there’s a limit. Seven days after the last thing you needed. If you don’t let it go by then, the suitcase disappears— violently. Leaving behind floods, fires, or foreclosures. Wreckage where prophecy used to be. Which is why more than one person has quietly set it back where they found it. Like returning a library book too heavy to finish. 📡 BRIDGE TO RRR Of course no one believed it. A suitcase that predicts? That refills itself with futures? That’s not prophecy. That’s just bad record-keeping. Which is why we sealed it in the vault. But not everything we lock away stays quiet. Some signals keep pushing… out past the tower range. And if you’re still tuned in— the next voice you’ll hear comes from there. Live Transmission Style [Cinematic Vault Intro FX] (Zoom through shelves, vault door sealing. Then settle into radio static bed.) Control (Steven): “Red Rider, you are clear for your report.” Red Rider (Laehn): “Today’s report comes from deep in the vault… but somehow wasn’t covered in an inch of dirt.” Control: “…What do you mean not a single drop of dirt?” Red Rider: “It was sealed behind plaster. Smooth. Clean. A tape that shouldn’t have been there—shouldn’t have been touched. Logged once, then hidden. The file label reads: ‘3:17 AM. Weather station anomaly.’” [Body of Report – Magnus Cadence] Red Rider (calm, clinical): “The details are as follows: At 3:17am, a rural weather station intercepted a signal. The intern on duty logged it, submitted the file. Within the week, he vanished. A copy of the audio was discovered here, buried deep in the vault wall.” Control (Steven): “Do we know why it was sealed away?” Red Rider (slightly darker tone): “Safe. Concealment. Protection. “It wasn’t buried to erase it. It was buried to protect it. Not the people. Not the truth. The presence in the signal itself..” [Description of the Signal] Red Rider (Magnus-style drift): “Playback reveals the same phrase. But each time the voice shifts. Never the same twice. Like it’s trying on masks. And beneath it, the timestamp. 3:17am. Over and over again. As though the voice was trapped in that moment of time” (FX: repeating anologue clock glitch under the bed) [Third Man Theory Drop] Red Rider: Red Rider: “An accompanying tape surfaced with the disappearance file. Security footage of the booth. The intern is alone—visibly, undeniably alone— but he’s speaking… to someone just out of frame. Pausing. Nodding. And repeating the exact words I’ve just heard on the playback. That’s not paranoia. That’s the Third Man Theory. Mountaineers at the edge of survival describe it. Astronauts report it. A presence you can’t see, can’t name… but you feel it. Not a friend. Not a comfort. Just another. Maybe the signal didn’t just carry a voice. Maybe it carried the presence itself.” [Escalation] Red Rider: “First playback: garbled. Inhuman. Second: sharper. The phrase: You’ve already heard this. Third: almost distinct. A different timbre. Like someone else entirely.” (FX: voice morphs across takes, static rising) Control (Steven): “Red Rider, do you recognize it?” Red Rider (hesitant): “…Yes. Too much. It sounds like me.” [Ending] Red Rider (final, resolute): “If you can hear me… you’re not my third man. You’re something else. This is Red Rider… signing off.” Control (softly, grounding): “…Copy that, Red Rider.” (FX: static swell → image of the RRR logo fading → bed dissolves) Red Rider (VO bumper): “Stay tuned for the next episode of Red Rider Reports… only on Between the Dials.” This broadcast is supported by NordVPN. Out here, signals travel far. Some are meant for you. Some are not. NordVPN keeps your connection encrypted, your location private, your frequency clear. Because when you’re out past the tower range, you never know who else might be listening. NordVPN. Stay safe in the static. Episode 2, Segment 5 — The Tape That Watches Back They say silence speaks volumes. But what about static? That sharp hiss between stations. That warble when the call drops out. We treat it like failure—like the message didn’t make it. But maybe static is what happens when the message is trying too hard to reach you. Maybe static is a language we were never taught to understand. Misread Signals (Opening) You thought you were heading toward a clear conclusion. You followed every step. And then—static. A breakup. A job lost. A call unanswered. A life rerouted. At first, the static feels like failure. Like the signal cut out, and it must have been your fault. But maybe it wasn’t failure. Maybe it was misinterpretation. Static is the proof that something once spoke. Or maybe it’s just proof that you were too far from the tower for the message to come in clearly. Either way—it’s a reminder that you’re still listening. Broadcast Ends, Meaning Emerges (Transition) Once, when television stations signed off for the night, the credits rolled, the anthem played— and then the screen filled with static. It wasn’t a glitch. It was a message. Go to bed. Come back later. The story has ended. Another will begin. Static has always been a signal, not silence. A way of saying: this chapter’s over. You’re out of range. Turn the dial. Static as Portal (Poltergeist) And if you grew up in the ‘80s or ‘90s, you probably learned this lesson another way: Don’t trust the static. Because that’s where the ghosts live. Poltergeist didn’t just scare us— it encoded something. A girl in pajamas presses her hand to the static screen. And it answers. Not with words. Not with sound. But with presence. That moment rewrote static in our minds. No longer just dead air. But something alive. Static became the open door— the visible shape of the invisible. And in the movie, that open door destroys the house that called it in. Static as Carrier (The Ring → RSD) Decades later, the portal wasn’t just the screen anymore. It was the tape. The Ring taught us that a message doesn’t need to make sense to work. It just needs to be played. You press play, and the images arrive: A ladder. A well. A woman brushing her hair. No plot. No dialogue. Just static and symbol. And the second you’ve seen it— the signal has seen you. That’s the thing about signals. They don’t always care if you understand them. Some messages don’t want to be decoded. They just want to be felt. Because once they’re inside you— they’ve already done their job. And that’s exactly how it feels in a neurodivergent brain. The cursed tape doesn’t stop after one play. The creature disguises itself and chases you. The curse isn’t the message itself. It’s how long it lingers. Static as Mind (Application) Our brains know this language better than we admit. The sigh. The pause. The unanswered text—static. The half-recalled lyric. The memory with holes—static. The moment you burn out, not because you failed, but because the frequency faded. If you live with ADHD or AuDHD, you know this intimately. Static is the inner feed: blurred edges of memory, loops of thought you can’t let go, social cues you almost catch—but miss. Or misinterpret altogether. The messages are still there—just distorted. Meaning, intent, emotion—smeared across the dial. You didn’t fail. You were just tuned to a different wavelength. Static as Criticism (Science + Horror) And the research backs it up. Estimates published in ADDitude magazine, by the age of ten, children with ADHD have been told—on average—20,000 more times that they’re wrong than their peers【ADDitude Magazine†source】. That’s not just feedback. That’s twenty thousand poltergeists, rising out of the static. Each one whispering: you messed up, you failed, you don’t belong. And over time, those whispers splice themselves into a cursed tape. Every correction another frame of static, replaying until the ghosts feel more real than the signal ever was. That’s rejection sensitive dysphoria. The haunting that doesn’t care what the original message meant— only how long it lingers. And the research says it doesn’t end at childhood. A 2020 study in Mindfulness found that adults with ADHD report significantly higher levels of perceived criticism—strongly linked to lower self-compassion【SpringerLink†source】. In other words: the static of childhood criticism doesn’t vanish. It becomes the filter. It turns neutral signals into rejection. And sometimes, it turns silence into a haunting. Static as Horror / Practical Survival (Blair Witch + Tools) The effects of RSD are real. But they are manageable. Think of The Blair Witch Project. The footage is grainy, disjointed—screams, crying, shaky cameras—all circling a monster the viewer never actually sees. The film is simple, almost bare-bones, but it still pulls you into a world where something unseen feels terrifyingly close. That’s what RSD is like. The monster is never really there— but your body reacts as if it is. Here’s the trick: the viewer can remind themselves that it’s just a movie. That the fear will pass. That the fragments don’t add up to an actual threat. And once you step back, you can see it for what it is—a piece of art designed to provoke, not destroy. RSD works the same way. If you can slow down—remind yourself that the static is weighing every sigh, every pause, every unanswered text just as heavily as the signal—you can step closer to the tower range. You can hear the broadcast more clearly. And if you’re lucky, you’ll have people in your life who know how to help program that broadcast for you. DJs who understand the frequency you’re tuned to. Sometimes that means overexplaining, sometimes it means offering reassurance more than once. But those little adjustments lighten the static. They let the signal come through. 🍰 PSA (Signal Surge – Filled Version) And here’s where the static spikes—where the volume turns harsh. Because static gets weaponized when people stay silent. Silence isn’t neutral. It’s not “letting someone down easy.” It’s distortion. It forces the brain to fill in the blanks, and if you live with RSD, those blanks always get filled with the worst-case scenario. So here’s your PSA: if you don’t care for foul language, even though the message matters, you can skip ahead to [insert timecode] and spare yourself the offense. For everyone else—listen closely. STOP. FUCKING. GHOSTING. PEOPLE. In business. In friendship. Anywhere. Silence doesn’t equal kindness. If you don’t want to continue—say so. If you chose someone else—say so. Because closure is not confrontation. It’s signal clarity. It spares the other person from being left alone with the static, forced to imagine the worst, looping the cursed tape again and again. Ghosting doesn’t just end a conversation. It creates a haunting. And nobody deserves to live inside that. Closing – Static as Lullaby Last episode, in Only Mostly Air, I said I regret nothing, because eventually I forget. But there’s a caveat. RSD doesn’t forget. It holds onto static like scripture— turning old echoes into translators for the new ones. That’s how it haunts us. That’s how it convinces us the ghost is real, even when it’s just distortion. But static doesn’t only take. It also reminds. It reminds you the channel is still open, that presence lingers, that the signal isn’t gone—just blurred. So maybe static isn’t silence. Maybe it’s proof. Proof you’re still here, still listening. And when you’re ready to tune back in— the broadcast will still be waiting. Static isn’t failure. It’s a language. And sometimes… it’s the tape that watches back. Narration (Steven): This is Ghost in the Feed. Where the signals we ignore… haunt us anyway. In Segment 5, we asked what it means when the tape itself seems to watch back. Is that proof of signal… or just paranoia in playback? Now we shift to the everyday. The glitch we scroll past. The stain we tell ourselves is nothing. And because this is our periodical ponderance… for today’s segment, we return to the well that never runs dry: Reddit. Story One — The Toothbrush Source: r/cheating_stories Title: “I knew she was cheating by the toothbrush” OP writes: “I noticed that my girlfriend’s toothbrush was always bone dry in the morning. At first, I thought maybe I just wasn’t paying attention, but it kept happening. She was meticulous about brushing before bed and in the morning—until she wasn’t. I started to wonder if she was staying at someone else’s place, brushing there, then coming home acting like nothing was different. I felt insane for even noticing something like that, like who checks toothbrushes? But the pattern was there. Finally, I confronted her. She admitted she’d been spending nights at her coworker’s apartment. My gut—and that dry toothbrush—were right.” Initial Commentary (Steven): This is the kind of static we almost never want to admit we’re listening for. The dry toothbrush. The absence of water. A signal that feels so small it borders on obsessive. But in this case, hypervigilance wasn’t madness—it was accuracy. Comments: u/quietobserver: “The toothbrush always tells the truth.” OP replied: “Right? Never thought it would be the thing to betray her.” u/morningglitch: “This is hypervigilance at its finest. You weren’t crazy. You noticed the signal.” u/sinkdweller: “I check mine every morning now because of this post. Thanks for the paranoia.” Commentary (Steven): I like that last one. Because this is how static works—once you’ve tuned into it, you can’t untune. You can only carry it forward, sometimes forever. Transition: If the toothbrush story is clean and clinical—an absence of water revealing the presence of something else— the next one is messy. Physical. A stain that refuses to stay silent. Story Two — Everything in My House Is Turning Green Source: r/CleaningTips → archived in r/BestofRedditorUpdates Title: “Everything in my house is turning green” OP writes: “everything in my house is turning green… at first it was just my cat, and then it became my bedsheets, my feet (which then stained my shoes and socks), my couch, my phone charger, and now my wall. idk what it is. i have no idea where to post this but im wondering if anyone knows how to get rid of it or what it is?? at first i thought mold but now im thinking maybe my laundry detergent pods which are green. but i did a test wash and dry and it didn’t stain my clothes until i wore them for a few hours around the house before it turned green.” Initial Commentary (Steven): This started as a cleaning mystery. A plea for practical advice. Mold? Detergent? Household curse? Nobody expected the turn it would take. Comment 1 (joking): “Is it possible your husband’s affair partner wears Old Navy jeans?” OP replied: “hahah me and my husband are not jean-wearers!” Commentary (Steven): A laugh-off. But also the moment the static begins to shift. Comment 2 (another user): “me seeing if Old Navy shows up on his bank statements.” OP replied: “i gotta find out what it is.” Commentary (Steven): That’s the spiral moment. The tune-in. Once the suggestion is there, the noise sharpens into signal. Comment 3 (follow-up): “Imagine finding out you’re being cheated on because your cat changed color.” Update from OP: “Although the commenter did not know me or my husband, coincidentally, I’d already had suspicions from the multiple last-minute overtime shifts… also, my husband has cheated before so I’ve always been a bit anxious… so when I saw the comment joking about if my husband’s affair partner wears Old Navy jeans, I spiraled. And then I admit I did the bad thing and looked through my husband’s phone and there it was.” Commentary (Steven): That’s what makes this story stick. The absurdity of it. The betrayal wasn’t revealed in a dramatic confrontation or late-night confession. It bled out—literally—across the surfaces of their home. Staining everything it touched. Summation Narration (Steven): A dry toothbrush. A couch turning green. Signals so small they almost pass as nothing. Static in the feed. But sometimes the stain doesn’t wash out. Sometimes the toothbrush doesn’t lie. And sometimes… the ghost in the feed isn’t a glitch. It’s the proof of signal. This episode is supported by Blurpatch™ — the only emotional signal system designed for both ends of the spectrum. If you overanalyze every glance, pause, and punctuation mark — Blurpatch softens the static. If you never quite know what they meant in the first place, the Subtext Synth™ Upgrade translates sighs, eye rolls, and cryptic tone into clear, captioned meaning. Blurpatch doesn’t fix the signal. It regulates the noise. And for those of us with no internal filter? Blurpatch includes Internal Monologue Capture™ — a failsafe for thoughts that shouldn’t leave your head. "Why do you look so old?" becomes: "That grey in your hair looks cool." Blurpatch intercepts. Rewrites. Relieves. Blurpatch is powered by the one of a kind software: T.H.A.T.C.H.E.R. Tactical Heuristic for Attunement, Translation, and Cognitive Harm-Event Reduction. The developers found the T.H.A.T.C.H.E.R. protocol during hours of labor-intensive debugging. After dozens of cognitive modulation failures, one persistent subroutine surfaced — fully formed. The singular. T.H.A.T.C.H.E.R. Blurpatch, powered by T.H.A.T.C.H.E.R The only cognitive modification system that will make you work for the signal… and the signal for you Blurpatch™ — feel safe in the signal. Let me know if you want: 🎧 A sound design breakdown with glitch FX, UI hums, or a robotic voice reading the acronym 📄 A fake "product spec sheet" or found memo you could embed later 🌀 Thatcher as an occasional voice or AI presence in future episodes Because now that Thatcher is here… it’s going to start showing up where it shouldn't. Outro: “Under the Static” [FX: low carrier hum → faint wind-through-tower resonance → static folds in] You stayed on frequency. That’s proof enough that you weren’t pulled too far beyond the tower. Proof is a double-edged sword. Ask yourself… are you willing to pay the price? If the mystery pulls you beyond the range, stop and listen. A new frequency might be calling. Or it may have noticed you… when you noticed it. For better or worse, proof is all around us — within, and beyond, the tower’s range. We can be hyper-vigilant and find an answer we never wanted. Was it worth it? Or we might curse ourselves, inventing proof that was never there, and live out a prophecy we wrote ourselves. Proof without mystery is a cage. Mystery without proof is a ghost. Tonight, together, they carried us further than either could alone. Call to Action If this broadcast left an imprint, leave a marker of your own. Pass it on, rate it, follow it. Every reception report helps keep the station alive. And don’t forget — the dial is always open. Share your own stories with the signal. Preview of Episode 3 Next time, we step into the echo chamber itself. A place where messages don’t just arrive once, but circle back… again, and again. Scripts we run without thinking. Patterns that play us as much as we play them. Call it déjà vu, or call it the sound that’s been playing since before we knew to listen. We explore Looped Signals. Credits & Sign-off No one’s paid me to mention the Hanrose espresso machine… or NordVPN. They’re just good companions for searching for proof of the signal, out past the tower range. This broadcast of Between the Dials was written and produced by me, Steven Carter. Sound design by — well, mostly me too. Assisted by ghosts in the machine, and friends who stayed on the frequency. What began as a clear signal has now settled into something quieter. Not gone… just still breathing beneath the static. May your signals stay clear. May your frequencies find their way home. And may you always recognize… you are what you hear, if you stop to listen. This has been Between the Dials.