The Last Message

The Last Message

When my phone buzzed at 2:13 AM, I assumed it was another spam text or a late-night meme from my best friend, Tasha. I was already half-asleep, the blue glow of the screen stabbing through the darkness like a needle.

Unknown Number: "You up?"

A harmless message. Annoying, but not unusual in the age of midnight loneliness. I was about to block it when something tugged at the edge of my attention. The contact photo was a faded picture of me and my twin sister, Ivy, sitting side by side on our sixth birthday, grinning into a disposable camera lens.

My stomach dropped. Ivy had been dead for three years.

I stared at the message. The rational part of my brain raced: some prank, a hacked account, a wrong number. But no one had that picture. No one except me—and Ivy.

I hesitated, my thumb hovering over the keyboard, then typed.

Me: "Who is this?"

The reply came instantly.

Unknown Number: "It’s me."

I sat upright in bed, heart pounding. My room felt too small, the walls pressing inward. Moonlight spilled through the blinds, making stripes on the floor like prison bars.

I hadn’t spoken her name aloud in months. Ivy had always been the wild one—reckless, bright, a living spark. I was the quieter twin, content to be her shadow. The night she died, everything changed.

Me: "This isn’t funny."

Unknown Number: "I never meant to leave you."

I dropped the phone, my hands trembling. It clattered against the nightstand, the screen still alight. I knew better than to respond. Grief could play tricks, make ghosts out of memories.

And yet…

I picked it up again.

Me: "If this is really Ivy, tell me something only we’d know."

The typing bubble appeared. Disappeared. Reappeared.

Unknown Number: "The attic box. Green ribbon. Our promise."

My blood ran cold.

When we were eight, we made a secret box in the attic of our grandmother’s house. Filled it with tiny treasures: a plastic ring from a cereal box, a scribbled note promising to always tell each other the truth, no matter what. We’d tied it shut with an old green ribbon. No one else knew. Not our parents, not Tasha.

I swallowed hard.

Me: "Why now?"

Unknown Number: "Because you’re about to find out the truth."

A chill spidered up my spine. The attic had been locked since Nana passed last year. Our parents insisted it was for safety, claiming it was full of old junk, nothing worth keeping.

I slipped out of bed, the floorboards creaking under my weight. My phone clutched in one hand, flashlight in the other, I made my way up the narrow staircase.

The attic door was unlocked.

Inside, the air was thick with dust and the sharp scent of mothballs. Cobwebs clung to the rafters like tattered curtains. I found the box exactly where we left it—wedged between a stack of faded photo albums and a broken floor lamp.

The green ribbon was still tied in a bow. My fingers trembled as I pulled it loose.

Inside were our childhood trinkets. And beneath them, a stack of yellowed envelopes. Each one addressed to me, in Ivy’s unmistakable scrawl.

I opened the top letter.

"If you’re reading this, it means I’m gone. And I’m sorry. For leaving you. For not telling you the truth sooner."

I sank to the floor as the letter unfolded the kind of secrets that unravel a family: our father’s affairs, Ivy’s suspicion that our mother knew and hid it, the night Ivy confronted him. How he struck her. How she fell, hit her head. The way our parents covered it up, claiming it was an accident.

Tears blurred the words.

Another buzz from my phone.

Unknown Number: "I never wanted to leave you alone in this."

My throat tightened.

Me: "What do I do now?"

For a long moment, no reply. Then:

Unknown Number: "Tell the truth. Set us both free."

The attic felt impossibly still. Morning light was just beginning to bleed into the sky outside, a pale wash of lavender and gray. I gathered the letters and clutched them to my chest.

It was time.

Time for the last message to become the first step.

To stop being a shadow. To become a witness.

To let Ivy rest.

And to finally, finally tell the truth.