Do Not Open That Chat!

Emily stallion hadn’t dreamt in weeks. But that night, something clawed its way into her subconscious. Cold water. A heavyweight pressing against her chest. Distant echoes of her own voice, trying to scream underwater. She jolted upright. The room was silent. Her laptop screen blinked from sleep mode across the desk. The digital clock glared red: 2:43 a.m. She wiped her forehead. It was sweat, or was it tears? Her apartment was eerily quiet. Zoe’s door was shut, and the usual humming of the refrigerator sounded like thunder in the silence. Emily blinked a few times, then pushed herself out of bed. Maybe it was just caffeine withdrawal. Or her nerves again. Or both. She padded barefoot toward the kitchen, pulled a glass from the shelf, and stood at the sink staring out the window as she drank. The moon was full. Too full. She hated how it lit everything up, like it was searching for something. Back in her room, she tossed herself into the office chair. She had been working on a branding package for a client in Berlin and left her system running to upload some heavy files. As she moved the mouse, her inbox refreshed. And then she saw it. A notification. From an app she didn’t recognize. The icon was matte black, no name. Just a blinking red dot. She squinted. What the hell is this? Curiosity overrode caution. She clicked it. A chat window opened. There was no contact name. Just one message. “If you open this chat, someone you love will die.” Emily stared at it. It looked like something ripped from a Creepy pasta thread. She rolled her eyes, opened her browser, and searched the phrase. No results. She refreshed. Still nothing. The chat blinked again. “Still there?” “We see you.” Her stomach turned. Her cursor hovered over the window. She clicked “close.” It didn’t close. Instead, a third message appeared. “One tap is all it takes.” A soft sound from outside her room. Creak. She whipped her head toward the door. Probably Zoe going to the bathroom. Still, something in the pit of her stomach twisted. “This is just some kind of prank,” Emily muttered. “Someone hacked an ad plugin or something.” She moved her mouse to the top-right corner of the chat window to force-close it. It froze. Then her screen glitched, just for a second, but enough to send a jolt up her spine. The chat app vanished. Gone from her tray. Gone from the task manager. Like it was never there. She blinked. Maybe I imagined the whole thing. She stood up and walked toward the hallway. Zoe’s door was slightly open. "Zoe?" she whispered. No answer. She leaned in, just a little. Zoe was there, curled up, earbuds in, fast asleep. Everything seemed normal. Emily exhaled. She walked back into her room, crawled under her blanket, and tried to force her brain to switch off. It took longer than she liked to fall asleep. The scream came at 3:11 a.m. Loud. Sharp. Raw. Emily sat bolt upright. For one horrifying second, she couldn’t tell if it was still part of her dream. Then came the banging. Zoe was at her door, face pale, phone in hand. “Emily, open up. Open up now!” Emily swung the door open. Zoe was crying. “It’s Mark,” she gasped. “He’s… he’s gone.” Emily froze. “What?” Zoe backed away, holding her phone up. On the screen: a group message thread. Group name: Sunday Hangouts JESSICA: Omg omg omg JESSICA: He’s dead JESSICA: Mark is dead JESSICA: They found him in his apartment just now JESSICA: I can’t breathe The air thinned around Emily. Mark? Dead? “He was just texting us yesterday,” Zoe sobbed. “What the hell is going on?” Emily’s knees buckled slightly. Her heart began to slam against her rib cage. She backed up against the wall. And then, her screen lit up again. From the same black icon. The app was back. And it had a new message. “One down. Four to go.”