The Midnight Snap

It started as a joke, something small. Max had always been the prankster of his high school, the kind of kid who could turn any moment into a viral sensation with the right kind of timing.

But this time, it wasn’t about pranking a teacher or starting a food fight—it was something far stranger.

One Friday night, Max was at home scrolling through his phone when he came across an old, mysterious video someone had posted in a random corner of the internet.

It was labeled only as “The Midnight Snap”, and it showed a person walking through a dark, foggy forest at midnight, holding a phone camera as they whispered something unintelligible.

Max clicked on it, intrigued. The video was grainy, blurry, and unsettling. There was no context—just the person walking, muttering under their breath, and then, at the end, a single snap of their fingers.

The moment the snap echoed through the video, the screen flickered, and everything went black.

What the hell is this? Max thought. The video was disturbing, but he couldn’t stop watching. For some reason, he felt compelled to show it to his friends.

He did just that, sending the video in their group chat with a simple caption: “Try this at midnight tonight. Let me know what happens. Freaky, right?”

Max didn’t expect much, just some jokes and teasing about how lame the video was. But the next morning, his phone was blowing up.

His friends were texting him non-stop, sending back pictures of their own phones in the dark, with their faces half-lit in the glow of their screens.

“Max… this is real. Something happened. I swear I saw it. I didn’t want to believe it, but I saw it. Last night. Right after the snap.”

Another friend: “No way. I thought I saw something standing in the corner of my room, but when I looked again, it was gone.”

Max laughed it off at first, figuring they were just messing with him. But then, the Snap started to spread. His post had gone viral overnight.

Strangers from all over were trying the challenge, filming their own versions of The Midnight Snap—some just as eerie as the first, others more unsettling.

The challenge was simple: go out at midnight, record a video of yourself walking in a dark place (preferably a forest or abandoned building), whisper something mysterious, and then snap your fingers.

If you were brave enough to try it, you’d have to send it out before the next day’s sunrise, or something… strange would happen.

Max was still skeptical. That is, until he received an unexpected message from a user who claimed they had done it. The message was simple but terrifying:

“I snapped. I’m not sure what I saw, but I don’t think I’m alone anymore.”

Max shivered, but laughed it off. It’s just a stupid viral trend, he thought. Nothing real about it.

But as the days went on, he noticed strange things happening around him. He’d catch glimpses of someone out of the corner of his eye, a figure standing too still, too silent.

He could hear whispers in his ear, but no one was around. His phone buzzed constantly with notifications from new videos—each more unnerving than the last.

Then, one night, it happened to Max.

He was alone in his room, his phone in his hand. The time was 11:59 PM. He looked at the screen, seeing the video he had sent out to the world. Curiosity gnawed at him. What if I tried it? Just once. To see for myself.

Max set up his phone in front of him, the camera capturing his face in the dark. He whispered the same words from the video he had seen. And then he snapped his fingers.

The moment his fingers clicked together, a sudden chill ran through the room. His phone flickered, the screen going black for a split second, and when it came back, he was no longer alone. A shadowy figure stood in the doorway, its eyes glowing faintly in the dark.

Max’s heart pounded. He reached for his phone to stop the recording, but before he could, the figure whispered something back. The words were clear.

“You’ve made a mistake.”

In the days that followed, Max’s video, along with thousands of others, continued to flood the internet. The Midnight Snap challenge wasn’t just a trend—it was a curse, one that no one could escape.

No one knew where the figures came from, but the one thing everyone agreed on was that once you made the snap, you couldn’t undo it.

Max’s last post was a simple message to the world:

“Don’t try it. It’s too late. You’ve been warned.”

And just like that, the Midnight Snap became a part of internet lore—an urban legend that no one could forget.

Thank you so much for reading this! 🥰 If you liked my writing, please leave a comment, click the heart and subscribe for free!