The Phone of Fate

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It was the kind of gadget that promised to change everything. A sleek black phone with a polished screen, smooth to the touch, and with an air of mystery that drew him in the moment he saw it. The box it came in was unmarked, with only a simple emblem—a pair of intertwined circles—on the front. The salesman, a man with an unnervingly calm demeanor, had assured him that this was no ordinary phone. It could predict the future.

At first, Daniel had laughed it off. He'd seen the ads, heard the rumors. Everyone had heard of the "future-predicting" phone, but no one seemed to believe it. Yet, the more he thought about it, the more curious he became. What if it was real? What harm could there be in trying it out?

The phone buzzed to life as soon as he turned it on. The screen shimmered for a moment, then displayed a message:

"Welcome, Daniel. Your first prediction is ready."

His heart raced. He pressed the notification, half-expecting it to be some kind of prank. The text on the screen was simple:

"Your friend Emily will call you in exactly 13 minutes."

"Impossible," he muttered. Emily had never called him that early in the day, especially not on a Monday. She preferred to text. But, just to satisfy his own curiosity, he set the phone down and waited.

Thirteen minutes later, his phone rang.

It was Emily.

"Hey, I was just thinking about calling you," she said when Daniel answered, sounding surprised.

Daniel froze. The phone had been right. Too right.

At first, it felt like a coincidence. A fluke. But then, more predictions came. They were simple things—his coffee would be cold by 10:42 a.m., a colleague would arrive late for the meeting, the weather would shift by late afternoon. Each one was eerily accurate.

But it didn’t stop there. The predictions grew darker.

The phone began to tell him that his car would break down at exactly 2:03 p.m. on Wednesday. He thought it was ridiculous—who could predict such a thing? But when he was stranded on the side of the road at that exact time, it sent a chill down his spine.

"Just a coincidence," he told himself, trying to shake off the unease.

But then the phone predicted something worse. It warned him, "You will lose something precious to you in 48 hours." The message was vague but unsettling. What could it mean?

For the next two days, Daniel tried to ignore it. He went about his routine, dismissing the prediction as nonsense. But as the clock ticked down to the final hours, the dread settled in his chest like a heavy stone.

And then it happened.

He came home that night to find his apartment ransacked. His belongings scattered everywhere, his most cherished possessions—his mother's old watch, the first edition of his favorite novel—were gone. Everything of value had vanished. The phone, still clutched in his hand, buzzed with a new message:

"You didn’t believe me."

Daniel felt his stomach churn. The phone had warned him. It had told him, in its calm, emotionless way, what would happen. And he had ignored it.

The worst part? It wasn't done yet.

The phone began predicting things that Daniel had no control over—things that seemed to come from the very depths of his subconscious. It told him that his ex-girlfriend, Rachel, would call him at precisely 8:15 p.m. on Friday. That she would apologize for breaking up with him years ago. And that he would accept her apology, despite the pain she had caused him.

"How does it know?" he whispered to himself.

And when Friday came, Rachel called. She apologized. He accepted.

But as the days passed, the phone’s predictions grew darker still. It warned him that someone would be following him. It predicted the exact moment a man in a dark jacket would step into his line of sight, trailing him at a distance. And that was when Daniel realized that the phone had no more predictions of minor events. It knew everything—things he didn’t want to know.

It knew he was going to die.

The last message it sent was chilling:

"Daniel, 12:00 midnight. Your life ends at the hands of someone you trust."

He threw the phone across the room, desperate to escape its all-seeing grasp, but no matter where he went, it followed him. Every action, every word, had been mapped out. There was no avoiding it.

As the clock crept toward midnight, Daniel's mind raced. Who could it be? His mind flashed to everyone he had ever known. His friends, his family, even strangers he had brushed past on the street. But the face he feared most was the one staring back at him from the mirror.

It was himself.

The phone buzzed once more, the final message flashing before his eyes:

"Trust yourself."

The hour hand ticked over to midnight. He knew then that the phone was right. The future had been decided. There was no escaping it now.

Daniel fell to his knees, the weight of his actions crashing down on him. No matter what he did, he couldn’t change what was coming. The phone had predicted it all, and now the only thing left was to face it.

As the final seconds of his life ticked away, Daniel’s last thought was this:

Maybe some things are better left unknown.

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