My wife texted me, “Pick me up from work now. It’s urgent.”
I dropped everything, barely grabbing my keys as I raced out the door.
She worked at a downtown office building—nothing flashy, just a solid 9-to-5 in HR. When I pulled up to the curb, she walked out slowly, her eyebrows knit together like she was searching for someone in the crowd. Her eyes landed on me, and instead of relief, confusion washed over her face.
I rolled down the window. “Everything okay?”
She leaned in. “Why are you here?”
“You texted me,” I said. “You said it was urgent.”
She stared at me blankly. “I never texted you.”
My stomach twisted. I pulled out my phone and showed her the message. She stared at it for a moment, then fumbled to open her purse, eyes darting like she already knew what she’d find.
But it wasn’t in her purse. She slowly reached into her coat pocket—and pulled out her work phone.
The screen was on, and a single message glowed: the exact one I had received. Same wording. Same time. Same everything.
“I didn’t write this,” she said, her voice trembling. “I haven’t even touched this phone in hours.”
We both stood frozen on the sidewalk, the sounds of the city around us dull and distant.
“Maybe it’s a glitch?” I offered, though I didn’t even believe my own words.
She looked around. “Let’s get in the car.”
As soon as she closed the door, she locked it. I didn’t ask why. I felt it too—the unease, the tightness in the air, like something had just passed over us and we hadn’t seen it.
I turned the engine off. “Okay… what’s going on?”
“I don’t know,” she said, shaking her head. “That’s not a message I wrote. But someone… or something… sent it from my phone.”
We sat in silence for a beat.
Then, as if on cue, both of our phones buzzed.
“We need to talk. Meet me where it all started. 7:15.”
No name. No number. Just the message.
My wife turned pale. “No. No, no, no.”
“What does that mean?” I asked.
She didn’t answer right away. Her hands were shaking.
“Where it all started…?” I pressed.
She looked at me, eyes wide. “That’s where we met. The cabin.”
The old family cabin. Her grandparents had owned it. We’d met there by pure chance, both escaping the chaos of our lives for a weekend. A storm had trapped us there for two days. By the time the sun came back, we were inseparable.
We hadn’t been back in years.
“I didn’t tell anyone about that place,” she whispered. “Not even coworkers. No one knows. Not the name. Not the location. No one.”
Another buzz.
“Come alone.”
I swallowed. The car felt ten degrees colder. My breath was shallow. “This isn’t some prank, is it?”
She shook her head. “I don’t think so. I think… someone’s watching us.”
We went home, but we didn’t feel safe there. We pulled the blinds. Locked every window. She turned off her phones. I powered mine down too.
But I couldn’t stop thinking about it—about who would know enough to send that message, and why. The last person we saw at the cabin was an old caretaker. He passed away years ago.
At 6:45 PM, she stood in front of the hallway mirror, holding the keys to her car. “I have to go.”
“No. We’re not going,” I said.
She looked at me. “If we don’t go… what if something happens?”
“Or what if it’s a trap?”
She bit her lip. “Then I’d rather walk into it than spend the rest of my life looking over my shoulder.”
I knew she was right.
So we drove.
The cabin was deep in the woods, past a single dirt road that twisted like a snake through the trees. By the time we reached it, the sun had nearly vanished.
We parked. Everything looked untouched. The porch creaked under our feet as we stepped up. The key still worked.
Inside, it smelled like dust and pine. Familiar, yet eerily quiet.
No signs of anyone.
Until my wife stopped in the center of the living room.
“It’s gone,” she said.
“What is?”
She pointed at the floorboards. “There was a box here. My grandfather kept it under the floor. It was bolted down. We never opened it.”
I remembered. We joked it was a treasure chest.
I pulled back the rug. The wood had been pried open. Recently.
“I don’t understand…” she whispered.
Then we heard it.
A knock.
From inside the cabin.
Not the door. Inside.
We spun around. The closet door creaked open by itself.
My wife grabbed my hand.
A phone buzzed again.
It was her work phone. Somehow back on.
One final message glowed across the screen:
“Thank you for coming. Now we can begin.”