The Last Message Before Dawn

It was 3:27 AM when Aiden’s phone buzzed.

He groaned, half-asleep, pulling the screen toward his face. One message from Ella.

> "If anything happens, I need you to remember what I said at the bridge."



He blinked. The bridge?

By 3:28 AM, she had gone offline.


---

Ella and Aiden had been best friends for eight years. More than friends, some would say. But nothing was ever official between them. They had this unspoken connection, a fragile string stretched tight between distance, fear, and what-ifs.

That night, Ella wasn’t supposed to be out. She’d texted Aiden earlier:

> "Going home early. Mom’s being weird again."



Weird how? He didn’t ask. He should have.


---

By morning, Ella was missing.

Police found her phone in a drain by Seventh Avenue. No signs of struggle. No trace of her on cameras after 3:30 AM.

But Aiden remembered the message: "What I said at the bridge."

He hadn’t thought about that night in two years.

It was the summer of 2023. They were both seventeen. Sitting on the old railway bridge near Black Hollow Creek, legs dangling off the edge, hearts beating louder than the crickets.

She had looked at him, serious.

> "If I ever disappear... promise you won’t believe what they say."



> "What do you mean?" he’d asked.



> "I mean it. One day, something will go wrong. Everyone will tell you it’s my fault. That I ran away, or went crazy. But it won’t be true."



At the time, he thought she was being dramatic. Just Ella being Ella. Her mom did have some strange rules. Her dad was absent. Still, nothing prepared him for this.


---

Days passed.

News reports claimed Ella had a history of depression. That maybe she’d run away. Her mother cried on TV. But something didn’t add up.

Aiden went back to the bridge.

He stood at the same spot they once sat. Same rusted bolts, same graffiti. His fingers grazed the metal as if it would somehow hold her fingerprint.

Then he saw it.

Carved beneath the railing, hidden unless you knew where to look:

“AIDEN – I’LL FIGHT.”

She had written it. Recently. The scratch marks were fresh.

So she hadn’t given up.


---

He started digging.

Ella had once told him her mom used to take her to a therapist she didn’t trust. That the sessions felt more like interrogations. Aiden tracked down the clinic — no record of any sessions. No record of Ella.

But a nurse remembered her.

“She came with her mother once,” the nurse said quietly. “Didn’t speak. Just stared. Her mother did all the talking.”

“What did she say?” Aiden asked.

“That Ella wasn’t... behaving. That she needed correction. The words scared me.”


---

Then came the second message.

From an unknown number. One sentence:

> “They’ll come after you too. Stop looking.”



Aiden’s blood ran cold. Was this connected? Or someone playing a sick joke?

He couldn’t stop.

He went to Ella’s house. Her mother refused to open the door.

“She’s gone,” she said through the screen. “Let it go. You boys always live in fantasy.”

Aiden’s hands shook.

“Ella didn’t run,” he whispered. “You know that.”

The door slammed.


---

That night, Aiden received a package.

No sender. No return address.

Inside: a flash drive. One video file.

He clicked play.

It was Ella.

In a dimly lit room, hair messy, voice trembling.

> “If you’re watching this... it means I didn’t make it. Or they’ve taken me somewhere I can’t leave.”



> “My mom isn’t who she pretends to be. There’s a place. A facility. They call it Reform Haven. It’s hidden. Not government, not legal. They take girls like me—rebellious, emotional—and ‘fix’ them.”



She looked straight into the camera.

> “I never wanted to run. I wanted to live. But they think silence is safety.”



> “Tell my story, Aiden.”




---

He uploaded the video to every platform he knew. Twitter. Instagram. Reddit.

It went viral in 2 days.

By day 4, the police raided a farmhouse outside of town. Hidden underground was a private “behavior correction center.” Ella’s mother was arrested.

And Ella?

They found her.

Alive.

Broken, but breathing.

She had never left. She had been locked away for 19 days.


---

A month later, Aiden met her again at the bridge.

She looked different. Lighter. Like she could finally breathe.

“I knew you’d remember,” she whispered.

He didn’t speak. He just sat beside her.

Same spot. Same graffiti.

But now, carved next to her words, he added:

“WE FOUGHT.”