One night before the start of school, Lana was lazily watching a World War I documentary that her dad made her sit through for history class. She was half-asleep, melting into the couch, her phone in hand, waiting for her stupid boyfriend to text her back.
Earlier that evening, her best friend, Alex, had dropped a bomb: Nick had kissed some girl at his house party last Friday. She was going to make his life a living hell. But for now, she needed an escape from the real world.
With a sigh, Lana opened Wattpad and found a fantasy romance novel in her reading list. She didn't remember adding it, but the description struck a nerve. It was about a girl whose boyfriend had just cheated on her at a party. *Perfect.*
She started reading, and the story got creepier. The girl's house had a burst pipe, water flooding everywhere. As she went upstairs, her dad's voice called to her, telling her to go to her room. She listened, shut the door, and fell asleep, only to wake up to water creeping into her bedroom. The next thing she knew, a masked man was standing over her, holding a phone playing a familiar audio recording: "Sorry hon, it's just you and me now." Then he slashed her throat.
Lana blinked, stunned.
*That's it?* she thought. *Give her a chance to run around and scream a bit.*
She groaned and tossed her phone aside. The unease from the story clung to her as she headed upstairs to bed. Halfway up, her phone buzzed in her hand. It was Alex, calling.
"Dude! I've been trying to reach you for like an hour! What's going on?" Alex's voice sounded urgent.
"What do you mean?" Lana frowned, confused.
"You don't know? Check your Insta!"
With a growing sense of dread, Lana opened the app. Her notifications had exploded. Dozens of messages, comments, and tags. She scrolled through, her heart sinking.
All the nudes she'd sent to Nick were posted on her profile.
"I'm going to kill him," Lana whispered in shock, her hands trembling.
"Was it Nick? Did he do this?" Alex asked, her voice tight with concern.
Lana dialed Nick's number, and after a few rings, he picked up.
"Why the hell would you do this, Nick?!" she snapped the moment he answered.
"What are you talking about?" Nick's voice was groggy, confused.
"The pictures! I know it was you—no one else had them."
"My phone's been in the repair shop since last week," Nick said, his voice slow, like he was just waking up.
Lana's anger froze, her grip on the phone tightening. "Then who the hell did you give your phone to? Were you hacked?"
"I don't know." There was a sluggishness to his words.
"Are you high again?!" she shouted, rage boiling over.
Nick's silence on the other end told her everything. Lana ended the call with a growl of frustration.
"God, he's such an idiot," she muttered to herself.
"Did you talk to him?" Alex asked.
"Yeah, apparently his phone's been out of commission. Great." Lana sighed, rubbing her forehead. "And now I can't even log in. My account got suspended."
"At least the pictures are down, right?" Alex said, trying to be optimistic.
"Yeah, but... God, I hate this." Lana exhaled shakily. "I'm gonna pop a Xanax and crash."
She hung up and stepped out of her room, but something felt off. The moment her bare feet touched the floor, she froze. It was damp. The cold wetness seeped through her socks. Confused, Lana padded over to the bathroom, where the sound of running water greeted her. But the bathroom light was off.
She slowly pushed the door open and flicked on the light. The faucet was running, the sink overflowing, and the tub was filled almost to the brim. She quickly pulled the plug and shut off the water, her heart racing.
Lana grabbed her phone to call her dad, but no one answered. She tried her mom, but the call went straight to voicemail. A few seconds later, her phone buzzed. A message from her mom:
*"Love you too, hon. Sleep tight."*
Lana stared at the screen, her blood running cold. She hadn't sent anything to her mom. Yet, there it was—a message from her own phone, telling her parents, *"I just want to tell you I love you."*
"What the hell?" she whispered.
Another message popped up. From her own number.
*"Knock knock!"*
Her heart skipped a beat as she stared at the screen in disbelief. Then, in her sent messages:
*"Who's there?"*
Another message appeared:
*"Are you playing the game?"*
Terror gripped Lana's chest. She rushed into the bathroom, locking the door behind her. Her hands shook as she scrolled through her phone, searching for some kind of explanation. Then another message:
*"Googling answers is cheating Lana."*
She gasped as a loud knock came from the hallway. Then, metal scraping against the doorframe. Someone was outside.
Her phone buzzed with notifications, old receipts, emails, and messages, flooding her screen until it became almost unusable. It started dialing the police on its own, but when they answered, she couldn't make out a single word they were saying. The phone's connection was distorted, broken.
She slid into the tub, curling up with her phone, waiting in the dark. Her eyes flickered shut, exhaustion creeping in. When the faint sound of police sirens broke through the silence, relief flooded her. She could see their lights flashing outside the window. Finally, help.
The front door opened, and she heard footsteps, running through the house. They were coming upstairs. She listened, her breath quick and shallow.
A knock on the bathroom door.
"Ma'am? Are you there?"
"Yes," Lana called out, her voice shaky. "Are you the officer?"
"Mam, stay where you are. We've got the perp on the premises. We'll handle it. Just wait."
"Please don't leave me," Lana begged, tears welling in her eyes.
"Ma'am, calm down. I'll be back in just a minute," the voice reassured her.
"No, no, no!" she cried, standing up. She unlocked the door and threw it open. "Don't leave me!"
But it wasn't an officer waiting for her. A man in a reflective mask stood in the doorway, a knife gleaming in his hand. Her own distorted reflection stared back at her from the mask as the blade descended.
She tried to scream, but the knife found her stomach, over and over, as the killer's cold eyes watched her fall into the tub.
The last thing Lana saw was the mask's blank surface, reflecting her own terrified face back at her, and the AI voice recording playing from a device clipped to his belt.
*"Sorry hon, looks like it's just you and me now."*
