The clock on Lira's phone blinked silently: 11:11 PM.
And right on cue, the message appeared.
"Don't trust anyone. Not even me."
She froze, fingers hovering above the glowing screen.
It was the fourth night in a row. Same time. Same words. Same unknown number.
She had blocked it. Deleted it. Even reset her phone.
But every night at exactly 11:11, the message came back. Like a ghost that refused to stay dead.
Lira glanced around. The dorm hallway was empty. Still.
Too still.
Her room door was slightly ajar. She had only stepped out to refill her water bottle.
But now the air around her felt colder. Like someone had just walked past.
She stared at the message.
"Not even me?"
What the hell does that even mean? Is this some kind of joke?
A chill crept down her spine.
She walked back to her door, hand reaching for the knob...
A sound behind her.
Footsteps. Soft. Unmistakable.
She spun around.
No one.
When she turned back, her door was fully open.
"I swear I closed this," she whispered.
From inside, her laptop let out a soft ding.
A notification.
But she didn't leave it on. She was sure of it.
She stepped inside, cautiously.
On the screen, one sentence glowed:
"Are you ready to remember?"
She hadn't typed that. No one else had access to her laptop.
Her hand moved slowly toward the touchpad. She was about to click when...
Flick.
The hallway light outside her room flickered.
Flick. Flick.
Then... silence.
Footsteps again.
She rushed to the door, slammed it shut, and locked it.
Chest heaving. Heart pounding.
Back to the screen.
The sentence was gone.
Now, a new file had appeared.
Lira_watch_this.mp4
Her fingers hesitated over the mouse.
What the hell is going on?
Click.
The video began. Black screen. Then slowly, an image faded in...
A girl sat in front of the camera.
Her.
But not exactly her.
The girl looked exhausted. Her eyes were red. Her voice cracked as she spoke.
"You don't remember yet, do you? But you will. And when you do..."
"...don't trust the boy in the corridor."
Lira blinked.
What boy?
"He'll pretend he wants to help you. He'll say he's been getting the same messages."
"But he's lying. He's the one who started this."
Lira's pulse roared in her ears. She stared at the door.
A shadow passed beneath it.
Someone was there.
"If he finds you tonight," the girl whispered, "everything resets. Again."
Knock.
She froze.
Three knocks.
Then silence.
A voice from outside.
"Lira? It's me. I think... we need to talk."
***
Lira didn't move. Her back was pressed against the door, her fingers still hovering over the lock.
The voice outside called again, gentler this time.
"Lira, I saw the messages too. I think we're both in danger."
Danger?
From who? From you?
Her eyes darted back to the laptop screen.
The video had stopped. But it hadn't closed.
She hit play again, skipping ahead.
There, her own face, whispering, terrified:
"If you're hearing this, it means you opened the file."
No sht,* Lira thought.
"That means it's begun. Again."
The voice in the hallway continued.
"Open the door, please. I can explain. You're not crazy, Lira. You're not alone."
That last part made her flinch.
Wasn't that what her therapist used to say?
"You're not alone."
Only now it didn't feel comforting. It felt like a trap.
She glanced toward her desk drawer and quickly yanked it open.
There it was.
Her old flip phone. The one she hadn't used since her father died. It had no SIM card. Just a few photos and that one message he sent before...
No.
She shoved the thought away and powered it on.
While it loaded, she opened her laptop again. The desktop looked... different. The wallpaper had changed.
Not just changed.
It was a photo. A group of students standing in a hallway.
She stared closer.
It was her school. Her corridor.
And in the center was her. Or at least, someone who looked exactly like her.
She zoomed in.
No mistake. It was her.
But… she didn't remember ever taking that picture.
And even stranger: everyone in the photo was looking directly at the camera, except her.
She was looking over her shoulder.
At someone behind her.
Someone just barely out of frame.
A chill ran up her spine.
The flip phone vibrated in her hand. One message.
She opened it.
From: Unknown
Time: 11:11 PM
"Look behind you."
Her body locked up. She didn't want to turn around.
Then...
A soft knock, not from the hallway... but from inside the room.
The closet.
She slowly turned her head.
The door was slightly open.
Just enough for her to see an eye.
Watching her.
***
Lira stumbled backward.
The eye behind the closet door did not blink. It just stared, wide and silent.
She grabbed the nearest thing she could find on her desk. A heavy glass tumbler.
"Who's there?" she asked, her voice shaking.
No answer.
She didn't wait.
She marched forward and yanked the closet door open.
Empty.
No one.
The closet was just like it always was. Neatly arranged clothes. Stacks of books. A dusty backpack on the floor.
She dropped the glass on her bed and stepped back. Her hands were still trembling.
You saw it. You know what you saw.
But now she was starting to question everything.
The laptop blinked again. A new window popped up.
File restored: memory_01.jpg
She clicked it. A photo opened. It was old. Blurry. Faint colors. A little girl sat on a hospital bed, holding a snow globe.
Her.
She remembered that day. Her mom had cried. The doctor said she had been lucky. That the car had missed by inches.
She zoomed in.
Behind the little girl, almost faded into the hospital curtain, stood a boy.
A boy in a school uniform. Her school's uniform.
His face was turned slightly away, but she could make out his hair. Jet black. Messy. Familiar.
She didn't remember any boy being there that day.
Before she could look closer, her phone buzzed.
This time it was her real phone, not the flip one.
Another message.
11:11 PM
"Don't believe his face."
That was it.
She dropped the phone on her bed and backed away again. Her mind racing.
Don't believe his face?
Who is he?
A knock came again. The hallway door.
"Lira?" the boy called. "Can I come in now?"
His voice was calm. Soft. But it was the calmness that made her chest tighten.
She looked back at the photo on the laptop screen.
The boy in the hospital room.
She walked to her door, rested her ear against it.
"Who are you?" she asked, as firmly as she could.
A pause.
Then, "You know who I am."
"No. I don't."
"Not yet. But you used to."
She stepped back.
Used to?
"Open the door, Lira. It's already started. You need to remember before it's too late."
Her hand hovered near the lock.
Inside her mind, pieces were trying to fit. A boy she didn't recall. A memory she had never accessed. A voice she almost trusted.
She looked at the laptop again.
The photo had changed.
Now it showed her bedroom. A live shot. And on the screen, there were two people in the room.
Her.
And someone behind her.
Smiling.
She spun around.
The room was empty.
But her reflection in the mirror was not smiling.
***
Lira staggered back from the mirror. Her reflection was no longer hers.
The girl staring back at her had the same face, same hair, same trembling hands, but her eyes were wrong.
Too calm. Too knowing.
Lira rubbed her own face, blinked, and looked again.
Still there.
Still smiling.
A message appeared at the bottom of the mirror, slowly forming as if written in fog.
"You let him in before. That is why we are here again."
"What do you mean again?" she whispered.
The reflection tilted her head.
"Open the door. Or it will start from the beginning."
Lira shook her head.
"No. No, I have not done this before. I would remember."
The reflection smiled wider.
"Would you?"
She turned away. Her heart thudded in her ears.
Her phone buzzed again.
This time, it was a photo.
It showed her bedroom. The current moment.
She was in it. Crouched near the mirror.
Behind her, a shadow stood by the window.
She turned instantly.
Nothing.
But the curtains were swaying.
And the window lock had been undone.
Lira ran and latched it shut. Then grabbed her phone, scrolled up, checked the photo again.
It was gone.
Deleted.
No trace of it in her gallery.
Her breath came fast now. Panic clung to her chest like a rope tightening with every second.
Then she remembered something.
There was a drawer in her desk she never used. It had been stuck for months, jammed shut.
She pulled at it.
It opened easily.
Inside was a notebook. Old and torn.
Her name was written on the cover in red ink.
She flipped it open.
The first page read:
"If I forget again, read this first."
Her hands trembled as she turned the pages.
Each one was filled with her handwriting. Some words were scratched out. Some pages were smeared like they had been touched with wet fingers.
One sentence kept repeating:
"I chose wrong. I let him in."
And further down:
"Next time, I must remember to lock the window first. He always comes through there."
Lira stopped.
She looked back at the curtains.
The window lock was undone.
Again.
I just locked it.
Her hands began to shake violently.
She turned to the last page of the notebook.
It was blank.
Until letters began to appear slowly in real time, as if an invisible pen was writing from the inside.
"You have three minutes left. Choose who lives."
She dropped the notebook.
Knock. Knock. Knock.
The door.
"Lira," the boy's voice said again. This time, it was not gentle.
It was hollow.
Too flat. Too empty. Like someone copying a voice they did not own.
"You let me in last time. Are you really going to abandon me now?"
Lira stepped back until her spine hit the wall.
Two minutes left.
She picked up her phone.
Another message.
"Choose wisely. One Lira lives. One disappears forever."
She looked back at the mirror.
Her reflection lifted a hand and pointed toward the window.
Then she turned toward the door.
The lock.
She was out of time.
***
Lira stood frozen. The ticking of the clock on her wall had become louder somehow. Each second scraped against her nerves like a knife.
Two doors.
The window.
The hallway.
One led to him.
The other, maybe, to the truth.
The mirror shimmered again. Her reflection mouthed the words slowly.
"Do not open it. He always lies."
Knock.
This time, longer. Steadier.
"Lira."
His voice changed. No longer boyish. No longer warm.
Colder now. Older. Tired.
"You cannot stop it this time. But you can try again. Like always."
She took a step toward the door. Her hand grazed the knob.
And then her phone vibrated.
Another message.
From: Me
"I am still in here. Please do not let him erase me."
She turned sharply to the mirror.
Her reflection was crying.
Real tears. They slid down the glass like it was no longer a mirror but a window to somewhere else.
"I remember now," she whispered.
Her reflection nodded slowly.
Then behind her, the closet door creaked open again.
This time, she did not move.
Inside the closet, a light flickered.
A phone screen.
Lit up. Floating.
Playing something.
A video.
She stepped closer, cautiously.
The video was grainy. The same girl again. Herself.
But now, she was screaming.
"Stop opening the door!"
The screen glitched.
Her voice again.
"Every time you open it, we lose more of me. Every time you believe him, he takes more."
The video looped back. Then repeated again. And again.
Knock.
This time, a whisper from under the door.
"She is lying."
Lira looked down.
A shadow was crawling under the door, fingers reaching through the gap like smoke made of bone.
Her phone buzzed.
Final message.
"Break the mirror. Now."
She stared at it.
The reflection now reached out. Pressing both palms against the glass. Mouth forming one last plea.
"Please."
Lira picked up the glass tumbler from her bed.
She hesitated.
Then threw it at the mirror.
The world seemed to shatter with the glass. Her ears rang. Light flickered. The floor shook. Her phone dropped.
Silence.
The door creaked open.
But no one was there.
Her room was empty.
Except for her.
And the shattered pieces of the mirror, scattered on the floor like jagged memories.
She knelt down slowly.
In the reflection of the broken shards, she saw no one.
Not even herself.
***