She Texted Me After She Died

It started with a notification.

A single message that appeared on my phone at 2:17 a.m. a message from Emily Hart.

That wouldn’t have been strange… except Emily had been dead for three days.

The text was simple:

“Why did you leave me there?”

My blood turned to ice. I stared at the screen, waiting for the dots to appear the typing bubble that would explain everything. But nothing came. Just the cold glow of her name at the top of my screen.

Emily had been my best friend more than that, maybe. We met in college, bonded over late-night drives and bad horror movies. She was the kind of person who made everything brighter until that night last week when the brightness went out.

We’d gone hiking to the old Raven’s Hollow Quarry, a place locals avoided. The cliffs were steep, the trails poorly marked. She’d wanted to take photos for her new blog “Urban Shadows,” she called it, documenting abandoned places and local legends. We laughed at how dramatic it sounded.

Then she slipped.

The police called it an accident. I told them everything how it was dark, how I tried to grab her hand, how she screamed my name before she fell. But inside, I couldn’t shake the guilt.

So when her name flashed on my screen, it felt like punishment.

I typed back with trembling fingers:

“Emily? Is this some kind of joke?”

Seconds later, another message appeared.

“You didn’t help me.”

My chest tightened. Maybe someone had hacked her phone. Her account was probably still active that was the only explanation that made sense. Still, I couldn’t bring myself to sleep. The next morning, I went to her apartment. Her parents were packing her things, grief etched deep into their faces.

Her phone was in a sealed evidence bag on the table.

I couldn’t breathe.

That night, I received another text.

“Come back to where it happened.”

Against every instinct, I drove to Raven’s Hollow. The rain came down hard, the forest swallowing my headlights. When I reached the quarry, the air felt unnaturally still. I parked and stepped out, flashlight in hand.

The edge of the cliff looked different now darker, deeper. I stood there, soaked and shivering, staring into the void.

Then my phone buzzed again.

“I’m still here.”

I swung the flashlight around, scanning the trees. “Emily!” I shouted, voice cracking. “If this is you, just tell me!”

Nothing. Only the sound of rain hitting stone.

Then the phone buzzed once more a new message, this one with a photo attachment. My hands shook as I opened it. The image was grainy, taken from behind me. In it, I stood at the cliff’s edge and behind me was a figure, pale, dripping, eyes hollow.

I spun around. No one.

The air grew colder. My phone’s screen glitched, flickered, then went black. I turned to run, but the mud gave way beneath my feet. For a second, I was falling until I hit something solid. Not rock. Wood.

I was in some kind of old mine shaft below the cliff. My flashlight flickered to life, illuminating broken beams and rotted timbers. That’s when I saw it a torn piece of fabric caught on a nail. Emily’s jacket.

And beside it her phone.

It was on. The screen glowed faintly, though it shouldn’t have had power. One message sat unsent in her drafts:

“Tell him I forgive him.”

I stared at the words, my heart pounding. Suddenly, the phone buzzed once more on its own and the message sent.

To me.

The light dimmed, then died completely. But for a brief moment before darkness swallowed the shaft, I heard her voice soft, almost peaceful:

“Thank you for coming back.”

The rescue team found me the next morning, half-buried in mud. They said I was lucky to be alive. They found Emily’s phone too but it was smashed, the battery rusted through, dead for days.

No one believed my story. They said trauma does strange things.

But sometimes, late at night, my phone still buzzes once no number, no name. Just a message that reads:

“Don’t forget me.”