Friday – 10:17 PM
The dead don't text.
That was the first thought that hit Zina as her phone buzzed beside her pillow.
She had been half-asleep, caught between a dream and the weight of grief that had hung like fog for two weeks straight. Tasha's funeral had been quiet. Empty, almost. No one had cried the way Zina did. And definitely no one had believed her when she said Tasha's death didn't make sense.
Zina blinked at the screen.
1 new message
From: Tasha
Her breath caught in her throat.
No. No. That's not funny. Someone hacked her phone. It had to be. She sat up, her heart thudding loud in the still room. Her phone buzzed again. Another message.
She tapped it open, her fingers cold.
They buried me alive.
Zina didn't scream. She didn't move. Her body turned to stone, her breath frozen mid-chest.
The message sat on her screen like a wound.
It wasn't possible. Tasha had died. Car accident. Closed casket. End of story.
Except… it had never felt like the end.
Zina's hands shook slightly as she opened the chat. The profile picture was still the same: Tasha's wide smile and pink hair — the day they skipped school and bought bubble tea after dyeing it in Zina's bathroom.
The messages above were from two weeks ago, when Zina texted "I miss you" the night of the funeral.
There had been no reply.
Until now.
Another message popped up.
"I'm running out of air!"
Zina couldn't explain how, but she felt a sudden rush of adrenaline.
A tint of apprehension in her motion.
She dropped the phone.
It hit the bedsheets with a soft thud, screen still glowing.
She stared at it, chest rising and falling too fast. Her brain tried to make sense of it.
Hack? Prank? Sick joke? It couldn't be real.
Or could it?
She picked up the phone again and hit "Call" on the contact.
Her thumb hovered over the screen as the dial tone rang once… twice…
Voicemail.
Tasha's voice played, chipper and casual:
"Hey! You've reached me. Leave a message unless you're Zina, in which case… bring pizza."
Zina's voice cracked as she whispered, "Tasha?"
She hung up.
Her thoughts were spiraling now. What if someone had her phone? What if someone knew where Tasha had really gone? What if the funeral was just… staged?
What if—
The screen lit up again.
Another message. Two lines. Brief but touchy.
"I heard them. I heard you crying.
You were close. But they moved me."
Zina's blood ran ice cold.
No one knew that she had sat by Tasha's casket alone after the funeral. No one knew she'd whispered an apology for not being there when the accident happened. No one… but her.
And Tasha.
She stood up so fast her chair fell backward.
She had to tell someone.
But who?
Her mom would say it was grief. Her classmates would call it trauma. The police wouldn't even take her seriously.
No. She needed proof. Something real.
Zina stared out the window. Somewhere out there, Tasha's body was buried.
And what if it wasn't just a body?
What if it was still breathing?
Zina lay back on her bed, feeling shockingly helpless.
She had to tell someone. But who?
Who would believe her?
She sat with her back to the wall, phone in her hand, waiting for another message.
It didn't come.
But she knew one thing for sure:
Tomorrow, she was going to that grave.
And she wasn't leaving without answers. I'm
Friday – 10:27 PM
Zina stared at her screen long after the last message.
"I heard them. I heard you crying. You were close. But they moved me."
Her mind raced. Her bedroom suddenly felt too quiet, the walls too close. The shadows stretched like long fingers, and even the hum of her ceiling fan seemed distant — drowned out by her heartbeat thudding in her ears.
She pulled up her recent calls and dialed the number again.
Tasha. Come on. Pick up. Please.
Riiing. Riiing. Click.
"Hey! You've reached me. Leave a message unless you're Zina, in which case… bring pizza."
Tasha's voice, so alive. So casual. So recent. It punched the air out of Zina's lungs.
A beep.
"Hey… it's me. Zina. I don't know what's going on. I got your messages. If this is some kind of joke, please stop. If it's not…" Her voice cracked. "Tell me where you are. Tell me how to help you."
She hung up, hands clammy. Her thoughts swirled with half-formed theories.
Maybe someone found Tasha's old phone. Maybe they were messing with her.
But how would they know what Zina said at the casket? How would they know she had cried alone after the service — not saying goodbye, but whispering "I'm sorry" over and over again?
No one else was there.
No one… except Tasha.
She opened her laptop and started researching phone spoofing, ghost hacks, message rerouting — anything that could explain this.
But the deeper she searched, the more the theories unraveled. No IP trail. No login attempt. The SIM hadn't been registered since the day of the accident.
At 11:04 PM, another text appeared.
Don't trust the man in green.
Zina's stomach twisted.
She hadn't told anyone about the man she saw at the funeral. Distant. Watching. Standing beneath the tree line like he didn't belong. She'd assumed he was a distant relative or a stranger who got lost.
But now…
She pulled open her desk drawer and dug through her sketchpad. Zina was a chronic doodler, and sometimes her thoughts slipped out on paper when words failed.
A few pages in, she found it: a rough charcoal sketch of a man in a forest green coat, half-shadowed by tree bark. Sharp eyes. Faint smirk. The one from the funeral.
She remembered his boots. Muddy. As if he'd come from somewhere deeper than the rest of the mourners.
Her hands started to shake.
She tore out the sketch and folded it, tucking it into her hoodie pocket. She didn't know who he was. But someone — or something — didn't want her near him.
The air shifted.
Her phone buzzed again.
You have 24 hours