The Group chat for Dead girls

The vibration of my phone against the mattress pulled me out of sleep.

I groaned and turned over, blindly reaching for my pillow in an attempt to block out the sound. Whoever was texting me at that ungodly hour clearly had no respect for people's sleeping schedules. The phone vibrated again before I could drift back to sleep, and when it happened for the third time, I finally gave up.

With a sigh, I grabbed my phone and squinted at the bright screen.

2:13 AM.

I frowned.

Nobody who cared about me would be awake at that hour, which meant the notification was probably from one of my course groups discussing an assignment that wasn't due for another week.

Half asleep, I unlocked the screen and tapped the notification.

The moment it opened, the last traces of sleep disappeared from my eyes.

Someone had added me to a group chat.

I stared at the screen for a few seconds before reading the group name.

The Girls.

That was all.

No emojis. No extra words. No explanation.

Just The Girls.

Curiosity got the better of me, so I clicked on the chat.

The first thing I noticed was the number of messages. There were hundreds of them stretching back several years. The second thing I noticed was that the group hadn't been active in almost a year.

A strange feeling settled in my stomach.

Most random group additions usually came with a flood of welcome messages or people trying to advertise something. This place felt abandoned.

I clicked on the group information.

There were thirteen members.

Twelve girls.

And me.

I slowly read through the names.

Joy.

Anita.

Faith.

Dara.

Miriam.

Chisom.

The names meant absolutely nothing to me.

I checked them twice just to make sure I wasn't forgetting someone from secondary school or university, but nothing clicked.

For a moment, I considered leaving the group and going back to sleep.

That would have been the sensible thing to do.

Unfortunately, I had never been particularly good at ignoring things that caught my attention.

I returned to the chat and began scrolling.

The older conversations seemed normal enough. The girls exchanged jokes, complained about classes, shared memes and discussed everyday problems. Reading through the messages felt like peeking into a friendship circle that had once been lively and close.

Still, something felt off.

I couldn't explain why.

The conversation looked ordinary, yet a strange tension lingered beneath it.

After a few minutes, I typed a message.

"Who added me?"

The message delivered instantly.

I expected silence.

Instead, the typing indicator appeared.

My eyes narrowed.

Someone was online.

At two in the morning.

The typing bubble appeared and disappeared several times before a reply finally came through.

"You accepted faster than the others."

I sat up slightly.

That response made no sense.

My fingers moved quickly across the keyboard.

"Who are you?"

The message was seen immediately.

Then nothing happened.

I waited.

A minute passed.

Then another.

When no response came, I rolled my eyes and dropped the phone beside me.

People genuinely had too much time on their hands.

Just as I pulled the blanket over myself, another notification appeared.

This time, the message came from someone named Joy.

"How old are you now?"

The question caught me off guard.

I picked up the phone again.

"Twenty-one."

The reply appeared almost immediately.

"Same age I was when I died."

A laugh escaped me.

Whoever was behind this group was clearly committed to whatever creepy role-play they were doing.

"Okay, that's creepy."

The moment I sent it, another member joined the conversation.

"She's always dramatic."

A second message followed.

"You should tell her the truth."

Then another.

"No. Let her figure it out herself."

My amusement faded.

The chat was suddenly active.

Messages began appearing one after another.

"She won't believe us."

"None of us did."

"I thought it was a joke too."

A chill crept across my skin.

The entire conversation felt rehearsed, like a group of people reading from the same script.

Without thinking, I clicked on Joy's profile.

The page loaded.

The smile slipped from my face.

At the top of the account was a memorial post.

My heartbeat slowed.

I stared at the words.

"In Loving Memory of Joy Eze."

I blinked and checked again.

The post was real.

A strange uneasiness settled over me.

I quickly opened Anita's profile.

Another memorial post.

Faith's profile.

The same thing.

Dara.

Another one.

My stomach tightened.

I opened my browser and searched the names.

The first result was a news article about a missing university student whose body had been discovered weeks later.

The second reported the death of a young woman under suspicious circumstances.

The third described an unsolved case that had remained open for years.

As I continued searching, the pattern became impossible to ignore.

Every girl in the group was dead.

My mouth went dry.

With trembling fingers, I returned to the chat.

A new message was waiting for me.

The sender had no name, no profile picture and no information attached to the account.

Just a number.

"Do you believe us now?"

My heart pounded against my ribs.

"Who are you?" I typed.

The response appeared immediately.

"The reason you're here."

A knot formed in my stomach.

Outside, the wind brushed softly against my window, making the curtains sway.

The room suddenly felt colder.

Before I could type another question, a fresh message appeared.

"Three weeks from now, they'll find your body."

Every muscle in my body went rigid.

I stared at the screen, certain I had read it wrong.

The message remained there.

Unchanged.

Real.

Replies immediately appeared beneath it.

"That's exactly what they told me."

"I didn't believe them either."

"I wish I had listened."

Fear crawled through me.

This wasn't funny anymore.

My fingers shook as I typed.

"Stop this."

The message was seen instantly.

A few seconds later, the final reply appeared.

"Check under your bed, Amara."

The blood drained from my face.

Nobody should have known what was hidden there.

Nobody except me.

Slowly, I lowered the phone and looked toward the darkness beneath my bed.

For the first time that night, I was genuinely afraid of what I might find.