Short Stories

The Midnight Text

It's midnight. I don't know why I'm still awake. I have to be up at 4am tomorrow (or today I guess) but I can't fall asleep! I turn to face the wall at the same time my phone buzzes. I groan softly and ignore it. It buzzes again, and again, and again. I finally flip over, flip my phone off, then grab it just to make sure there's not an emergency, it wasn't the noise amber/emergency alerts make so it's not that. I turn it on and see the messages,

IT'S NOT REAL.

NONE OF IT.

TRUST NO ONE.

ESCAPE.

"What the hell?" I mutter. "Assholes trying to scare me." I turn my phone off and face the wall again, falling asleep weirdly easily.

-----

My alarm goes off, I wake up, stretch, get out of bed, grab my phone, go-- "What the hell?"

I have more messages.

IT'S NOT REAL.

NONE OF IT.

TRUST NO ONE.

ESCAPE.

IT'S NOT REAL.

NONE OF IT.

TRUST NO ONE.

ESCAPE.

I have these messages repeated dozens of times in my phone, all by the same phone number. I shake my head trying to think logically. Someone at school or work got my number and is trying to scare me. Honestly, the scariest part to me is the fact that someone I don't know got my number.

I open the door to my room and find my family standing in front of my door in a freaky semi-circle, they're frowning. I wonder if they found out about that?

"You didn't see anything strange this morning did you?" Asks my mum, tilting her head and narrowing her eyes slightly. (Don't yell at me my brain likes details.)

"Nothing besides you guys. Why?" I say trying to make a joke about it all; those messages playing through in my mind.

"There's some stuff on the news about someone messaging minors." My dad says. "We wanted to make sure they hadn't messaged you."

"Oh! I didn't know that. I haven't heard anything, but I'll let you know if I get any odd messages."

"Not just odd messages. Any message from an unknown number." My older sister says, watching me closely.

"Ok, I promise to tell you about anything like that." I say. My mind's in a werl; my phone buzzes again.

I turn it on and read the message from my best friend, Darth, come to our spot as soon as possible.

"Can I go see Darth?" I ask since my parent's are already here.

They glance at each other, "sure, just be safe." My dad says. He looks like... I don't know, I've never seen this look on him before.

"Thanks!" I say forcing a smile and heading back into my room to grab my bag and a sweater. "I'll text you when I'm on my home." I call over my shoulder as I head downstairs and out of the house.

I keep my headphones on but not playing music while I walk. I need to hear my surroundings, but I don't want it to seem like I'm doing that.

I walk for about a kilometer then head into the forest at the edge of town.

It's overgrown, ferns and berry bushes and flowers and moss growing all over the place.  I walk for another kilometer and a half-- yes I've measured the distance-- before I get to 'our tree'. There's not really anything special about this tree, I guess, besides the little blue flowers that grow around the base.

I climb the tree and see Darth sitting on their branch.

"Hey, what's up?" I say, we've never been good at beating around the bush for important topics.

"Please tell me I'm not the only one who got these messages." They say, their voice is slightly panicky and quite scared.

They show me their messages and,

IT'S NOT REAL.

NONE OF IT.

TRUST NO ONE.

ESCAPE.

IT'S NOT REAL.

NONE OF IT.

TRUST NO ONE.

ESCAPE.

Is the only thing there is.

"Holy fuck. Holy fuck. What the fuck." I whisper, my eyes wide.

"You got them to." It's a statement not a question.

"Yes. Did your family stand in a semi-circle around your door and ask you if you've 'seen anything weird this morning' when you woke up?" I ask. Finally, looking back at them.

Their eyes widen and they look even more panicky. "What the fuck Jaz. What the fuck. How did you know that?"

"It happened to me too." We look at each other. We don't speak. Even if we did we already know what the other is thinking.

"What do we do?" I ask.

"We keep this to ourselves, for now at least, and we try to figure out what's going on?"

"That seems the most logical solution. We're probably just putting ourselves in danger if we ask other people if they've heard this to."

"Probably."

A branch breaks above us, someone grabs me, one of us screams then...