CHAPTER 1 — The Night Her Phone Woke Up
Aisha wasn’t in class that morning.
Nobody talked about it, but everyone felt the strange emptiness the moment they walked in. Her chair was pushed in perfectly, the desk spotless, like she planned not to return. She wasn’t the type to miss school — not without posting about it. She never missed a chance to show off her coffee, her outfits, her cat, her everything.
But that day, she was just… gone.
By lunch break, everyone had a theory. Fever. Family trip. Broken phone. Drama with her boyfriend. Nobody said the one word all of us were thinking.
Missing.
By 3 p.m., even the teachers looked uneasy. Our class teacher, Mrs. Varma, kept checking her phone, pacing like she was waiting for a call she didn’t want to receive.
When the last bell rang, she stopped us at the door.
“Has anyone heard from Aisha today?” she asked, voice just a little too tight.
No one answered.
She scanned our faces, but her eyes paused on mine a bit longer than the others. Maybe because I was the last person Aisha spoke to the previous night. Or maybe because I was the only one who actually noticed when people changed—when they disappeared.
I shook my head. “No, ma’am.”
I didn’t tell her about the message I sent last night.
I didn’t tell her that it was still undelivered.
That was the first sign something was wrong.
But I thought it was just bad network.
I thought maybe she’d blocked the internet, or switched off her phone.
I didn’t know it was the start of something bigger.
Something darker.
I reached home around 5 p.m., threw my bag on the bed, and tapped on Instagram out of habit. There was a new notification.
Aisha posted a story 2 hours ago.
For a moment, my heart jumped — maybe she was fine. Maybe all of this was nothing. Maybe she just stayed home.
I opened it.
It was a blurry picture of the sky.
No caption.
No music.
Nothing.
Almost like someone just pressed the button accidentally.
Then I checked the timing again.
Posted at 3:14 p.m.
The same time our teacher was looking for her.
Strange.
I texted her.
Me: Are you okay?
Me: Why weren’t you at school?
Me: Call me.
A minute passed.
No seen.
No reply.
At 11:42 p.m., everything changed.
I had just put my phone on charge and was about to sleep when the screen lit up.
Aisha is active now.
A cold chill went down my spine.
I stared at the screen as her green dot glowed bright.
She was typing.
For almost fifteen seconds.
Then it stopped.
No message.
Just… typing. Stopping. Typing again. Stopping.
Like someone unsure of what to send.
Or someone who wasn’t supposed to be using her phone.
I opened our chat.
Her profile picture loaded.
Her last online time updated.
I typed again:
Me: Aisha, where are you?
Seen 11:43 PM.
My stomach tightened.
She was online.
She saw my message.
But she didn’t reply.
Then something even stranger happened.
Her account started liking random posts.
Not her usual kind — not selfies, travel pictures, or aesthetic reels.
It liked:
— A post from a page about abandoned places
— A photo of a dark forest
— A quote that said: “Some people leave without leaving.”
— And an old post from my feed… from last year
But the scariest part?
She liked a photo of our classroom taken three days ago.
I froze.
My phone buzzed.
One new message.
From her account.
It wasn’t a text.
It was a location pin.
I tapped it.
A small blue circle appeared on the map.
My throat went dry.
It was pointing to a place I knew too well.
The abandoned construction site behind our school.
And under the pin, a single message appeared:
“Come alone.”
END OF CHAPTER 1
