THE 3AM LETTERS

The 3AM Letters: Episode 1 – “The Arrival”

“At exactly 3:00 a.m., my inbox chimed—three new emails, each from myself.”

In the heart of Lagos, Nigeria, Chinonso Okafor, a 32-year-old freelance graphic designer, lives a solitary life in a modest apartment. Her routine is simple: work by day, unwind with a book or a movie by night. But that all changes one fateful morning.

It begins with a single email:

Subject: “You don’t remember, do you?”

Body: “I know what you did last night.”

The sender’s address is her own. Confused, Chinonso dismisses it as a glitch or a prank. But then, the emails keep coming—always at exactly 3:00 a.m., always from herself.

Subject: “Don’t look behind you.”

Body: “They’re watching.”

Subject: “You can’t run from the truth.”

Body: “It’s already too late.”

Each email is more cryptic and chilling than the last. Chinonso starts to question her own sanity. She checks her sent folder, but there’s nothing there. No record of her sending these messages. She changes her passwords, scans her devices for malware—nothing.

Then, the physical manifestations begin. Objects in her apartment are subtly out of place. A chair moved slightly to the left. A book on the floor she doesn’t remember dropping. A faint, unfamiliar scent in the air. She brushes it off as stress or fatigue.

But when she wakes up one morning to find a photo of herself sleeping on her phone—taken from the foot of her bed—she can no longer deny that something is terribly wrong.

Terrified, Chinonso reaches out to her friend Ngozi, a tech-savvy journalist. Together, they delve into the mystery. They discover that the emails are being sent from an IP address that doesn’t exist. It’s as if they’re coming from nowhere—and everywhere.

As the days pass, the emails become more personal, more invasive. They reveal intimate details about Chinonso’s life—things only she would know. It’s as if someone is living inside her mind, watching her every move.

One night, at exactly 3:00 a.m., she receives a final email:

Subject: “It’s time to wake up.”

Body: “You were never alone.”

The next morning, Chinonso wakes up to find her apartment exactly as it was the night before. But there’s one difference: a letter on her desk, written in her own handwriting.

“Welcome back. We’ve been waiting for you.”

And so begins Chinonso’s descent into a nightmare where reality and illusion blur, and the line between self and other becomes dangerously thin.