Chris hadn't slept in three days. His eyes burned from staring at the cracked screen of the old phone that refused to die — the ghost phone that breathed in the dark like it had lungs of its own.
He sat cross-legged on his bed, curtains drawn tight, lights off. The only glow came from the phone's screen, flickering with a number that made no sense.
000-000-0000
It had called him every night at exactly 3:03 AM. And every night he'd tried to ignore it — until last night, when he answered and heard only his own voice on the other end, whispering things he couldn't remember saying.
Now, the number was back. The phone buzzed on his mattress like something alive, vibrating against his thigh until his bones felt the tremor.
He stared at it, heart hammering. His throat was dry. He told himself he wouldn't pick up again — but his fingers moved anyway, like they weren't his own.
The moment his thumb touched accept, the light in the room seemed to bend, shadows pooling in corners that had been empty a second ago.
He pressed the phone to his ear. Silence. Then, faintly — a wet, slithering sound. Like something dragging itself closer on the floor behind him.
Chris's breath caught. He didn't dare turn around.
A voice crackled through the line — broken, distant, yet unmistakably his own.
"Why did you answer me again?"
He clenched his teeth. "Who are you?"
The voice laughed — a sound so wrong it made his teeth ache. "You know me. I'm the part of you that never sleeps. The part you buried in the dark."
The air in his room grew heavy, thick enough to choke on. He heard the floorboards creak behind him — slow, deliberate.
"Don't turn around," the voice hissed in his ear. "If you see it, it sees you too."
His chest tightened. He squeezed his eyes shut, fingers gripping the phone so tight his knuckles whitened.
"Stop this. Leave me alone!" he rasped.
The voice whispered softer now, so close it felt like it breathed through the speaker. "You shouldn't have bought me. You shouldn't have kept me. Now I'm yours forever."
The shadows on the wall stretched longer — thin arms reaching. Something brushed his bare ankle — cold, damp, gone the moment he flinched.
The voice on the phone laughed again. "Check your window."
Chris's eyes snapped open. Slowly, against every scream in his head, he turned to face the window behind him. His breath caught in his throat.
A pale hand rested on the glass from the outside. Long fingers, skin so thin it looked almost translucent under the streetlight. The face behind it was worse — his own face, but not alive. Not human. Its mouth stretched wide, cracking at the edges like old porcelain.
It mouthed words he couldn't hear — but the voice in the phone filled in the blanks for him.
"Let me in, Chris. I'm so cold."
The hand on the window started to tap — a slow, rhythmic knock that synced perfectly with his racing heartbeat.
Knock. Knock. Knock.
Chris dropped the phone. It didn't matter. The tapping didn't stop. Neither did the voice now echoing in his head without the phone's help.
"Let me in. Let me in. Let me in."
He stumbled backward off the bed, crashing into his desk. The old phone hit the floor but didn't break — its screen lit up brighter, brighter, until it filled the whole room with its sick, greenish glow.
"If you won't open it… I'll find another way."
The knock on the window turned into a pound — the glass rattling in its frame. A hairline crack snaked across it, spreading like a spider's web.
Chris pressed his palms to his ears, squeezing his eyes shut. But the voice burrowed in anyway.
"You can't hang up, Chris. I'm already inside."
Something warm dripped from his nose. He wiped it with shaking fingers — blood. More blood. He choked on a sob.
The pounding stopped. Silence crashed over him, so sudden his head spun.
He looked at the window. Empty. Clean. No hand. No face.
He looked at the phone. Dead screen. Black. Nothing.
But in the silence, his own voice whispered back at him from the darkness under his bed — soft as a lullaby.
"See you tomorrow night."