Chapter 1
Chapter One — The Voice
The first voice message arrived at 2:13 a.m.
Maya was half asleep when her phone vibrated beneath her pillow.
She almost ignored it.
Almost.
Then she saw the name on the screen.
NINA.
Her breath caught.
She sat upright.
There was no way.
Nina had been dead for eleven months.
Maya stared at the screen until it went dark.
Then it lit up again.
1 Voice Message
Her hands began to tremble.
She knew she shouldn't play it.
She knew there was no reasonable explanation for it.
But curiosity was sometimes stronger than fear.
Maya pressed play.
For three seconds, there was only silence.
Then she heard breathing.
Slow.
Heavy.
Familiar.
“Maya…”
Her eyes widened.
It was Nina's voice.
“Maya, if you're hearing this, it means they haven't found out yet.”
Maya covered her mouth.
The recording continued.
“Listen carefully. You cannot trust—”
Static.
Then silence.
Maya stared at the phone.
“Trust who?”
The message ended.
She immediately called Nina's number.
The number you are trying to reach is unavailable.
Maya called again.
Same response.
Her heart pounded.
Then another notification appeared.
1 New Voice Message.
Maya froze.
She hadn't touched the phone.
Slowly, she pressed play.
Nina's voice returned.
But this time, she was whispering.
“Don't go to the police.”
A pause.
“They already know.”
Maya's blood ran cold.
The recording ended.
She jumped out of bed and switched on the light.
Her bedroom looked exactly the same.
Closet.
Desk.
Window.
Curtains.
Nothing moved.
Then she noticed something on her desk.
A small black envelope.
She hadn't put it there.
Maya approached it slowly.
Her name was written across the front.
MAYA REED.
She opened it.
Inside was a photograph.
It showed Maya, Nina, and three other people standing together at a beach six months before Nina's death.
Maya remembered the photograph.
What she didn't remember was the person standing behind them.
A man.
His face had been scratched out with something sharp.
On the back of the photograph was a sentence written in red ink:
ONE OF THE FIVE LIED.
Maya dropped the photograph.
Her phone vibrated again.
Another voice message.
This time, she didn't want to listen.
But she pressed play anyway.
There was no Nina.
There was a man's voice.
Calm.
Almost amused.
“You should have left the past alone, Maya.”
She stopped breathing.
The man continued.
“Now you have forty-eight hours.”
The recording ended.
Maya's phone immediately received a text.
48:00:00
A countdown appeared.
47:59:59
47:59:58
Maya stared at it in horror.
Then another message arrived.
This one contained only four words:
NINA WASN'T THE FIRST.
Maya's eyes filled with tears.
Because suddenly, she remembered something she had spent eleven months trying to forget.
The night Nina died…
Maya had heard eleven voices outside her bedroom.
She had always believed it was her imagination.
But there had only been ten people at the house that night.
She slowly whispered:
“Who was the eleventh?”
From somewhere outside her bedroom window…
a voice answered.
“Maya.”
She screamed.
And the countdown kept ticking.
47:58:41
To be continued…
