The stage lights of Canada’s Got Talent burned brighter than the sun.
Standing beneath them was Jacob Lewis, a broad-shouldered man with calloused hands and a weathered face that spoke of years in the biting Atlantic wind.
He looked out over the audience — thousands of faces, silent, waiting — and swallowed hard. His throat felt tight, his palms slick.
He wasn’t supposed to be here.
He was supposed to be 200 miles out to sea, standing on an oil rig with his helmet and steel-toed boots, not under spotlights with a microphone trembling in his hand.
Simon Cowell’s Canadian counterpart, a sharp-faced judge in a dark blazer, leaned forward. “So, Jacob,” she said, “tell us a little about yourself.”
Jacob smiled awkwardly. “Well, I’m from Newfoundland. I worked the rigs for years. Tough work, long hours — but it kept food on the table.”
He hesitated, glancing toward the crowd where his wife and two small sons sat, waving. “Now I’m home more. My boys— they came early. Doctors weren’t sure they’d make it. So I promised myself I’d never waste another day away from them.”
The audience melted. The judges nodded warmly.
“And what will you be singing tonight?”
Jacob cleared his throat. “A song I wrote, called A Bag of Roses. It’s… about the sea. And what it takes from you.”
The room fell quiet.
The band began — soft piano, distant strings.
Jacob closed his eyes. And began to sing.
His voice was deep, raw, trembling with an emotion that filled the air like a tide. Every note carried the ache of a man who had seen too much — storms, loss, isolation.
But halfway through, something shifted.
The stage lights flickered.
It wasn’t the usual kind of flicker — not a glitch, not random. It pulsed. Slow, rhythmic. Almost like… breathing.
And then, underneath Jacob’s voice, another sound emerged.
A faint hum.
It wasn’t from the instruments. It was lower — a deep vibration that seemed to come from the floor, traveling up through the soles of everyone’s shoes.
The judges glanced around, confused.
Jacob kept singing, unaware.
The hum grew louder.
Some audience members clutched their seats, feeling it in their chests.
And then, on the big screen behind Jacob — the one displaying soft blue waves to match his performance — something appeared.
For a split second, in the motion of the water, there was a face.
Pale. Drowned. Staring out.
The crowd gasped.
Jacob’s voice cracked, just slightly.
He blinked, eyes darting to the screen. His fingers trembled around the mic.
Then he kept going.
But the hum turned into something else — a whisper.
A single word, stretched thin by static.
“Jacob…”
The audience froze. The sound came through every speaker, a disembodied voice calling his name.
Jacob stopped singing.
“Is— is that part of it?” one judge stammered.
Jacob’s face had gone pale. “No,” he said hoarsely. “That— that’s not supposed to—”
The screens behind him flared to life again. This time, the ocean image was darker, churning. Shapes moved beneath the surface — shadowy figures swirling in the depths.
One of them rose closer.
Jacob stumbled backward.
“No,” he whispered. “No, that’s not real. That can’t—”
The figure surfaced, clear as day: a man’s face, distorted by water, eyes wide, mouth open in an eternal scream.
Jacob dropped the microphone.
He backed away until he hit the stage wall.
The voice returned.
“You left us there.”
Chaos broke out.
The judges stood, shouting for the crew to cut the feed. Stagehands rushed forward. But the sound system wouldn’t respond. The monitors glowed brighter and brighter until the entire auditorium was awash in flickering blue light.
And through it all, the voice — low, guttural, overlapping.
“You left us.”
“You promised.”
“The storm took us… not you.”
Jacob fell to his knees, covering his ears.
“I didn’t!” he cried out. “I tried to save you! I did!”
The crowd murmured, confused, frightened.
Then the stage lights dimmed completely.
Only the blue glow remained, painting Jacob in the hue of a drowning man.
And from the speakers came the faint sound of waves.
Real waves.
Lapping closer.
Something wet splashed onto the stage. Then another. Then another.
Water.
Seeping from the edges, creeping toward Jacob’s boots.
The judges ran. The audience screamed.
Jacob didn’t move.
He stared into the dark, trembling. “You can’t be here,” he whispered. “You’re gone.”
But the voice came again.
“You left us to the deep, Jacob. But the sea never forgets.”
Security managed to cut the power. Everything went dark.
When the lights returned, the stage was empty.
No Jacob.
Just his microphone, lying in a shallow puddle of seawater.
The episode never aired. The producers released a statement blaming a “technical malfunction.” But the rumors spread fast. Crew members claimed the soundboard data that night had recorded something impossible: not one voice, but five.
All male. All whispering Jacob’s name.
Local news dug deeper. It turned out that five years earlier, Jacob had survived a catastrophic rig explosion off the coast of Newfoundland.
Five of his crewmates hadn’t.
Their bodies were never recovered.
And one of them, according to his widow, had been Jacob’s best friend.
Weeks later, strange reports came from small venues across Atlantic Canada — bars, community halls, open mic nights.
Witnesses said a man would sometimes appear, dressed in dark clothes, carrying a weathered guitar.
He’d sing a song no one recognized — a haunting melody that made listeners cry without knowing why.
He never stayed after.
He never gave his name.
But those who got close enough swore they could smell saltwater.
And if you listened closely to the end of his song, just beneath the final note, you could hear a faint whisper:
“A bag of roses… for the ones still waiting.”