The Dead User

1. The First Message

It started on a rainy Thursday night, when Alex slumped into bed and checked his phone one last time. Notifications flickered across the cracked screen—emails, app reminders, and one new message on Messenger.

> From: Daniel.

“Hey, you still up?”

Alex’s chest tightened. Daniel had been dead for six months.

He stared at the screen, unblinking. His best friend had died in a car accident last winter, the kind that made the local paper and the obituaries column. Alex had even spoken at the funeral.

But here it was—Daniel’s name, his profile picture grinning back in familiar smugness.

Alex typed back:

“Who is this? This isn’t funny.”

Almost instantly:

Daniel:

“It’s me. Don’t freak out.”

2. Rational Explanations

Alex’s mind scrambled for explanations. A hacker. A cruel joke. Maybe Daniel’s account hadn’t been deactivated.

Alex:

“You’re dead. I saw you in the coffin.”

Daniel:

“Yeah. I know.”

The answer chilled him more than any hack could.

He slammed the phone face-down, heart hammering. Sleep was impossible. By morning, exhaustion dulled the terror. Surely it was someone trolling him. He reported the account, blocked it, and told himself it was over.

By evening, another notification came.

A new account had added him: Daniel_1989.

The profile picture was the same—but the eyes seemed different. Darker.

3. Memories That Shouldn’t Be

Against better judgment, Alex opened the chat.

Daniel_1989:

“Remember the shed behind your grandpa’s cabin? The one we broke into when we were twelve?”

Alex froze. He had never told anyone about that. Not even Daniel’s parents.

Daniel_1989:

“You cut your palm on the nail. You cried and begged me not to tell. I didn’t.”

Alex’s phone trembled in his sweaty hands.

Alex:

“Who are you? HOW do you know that?”

Daniel_1989:

“Because I was there. And now I’m here.”

The typing dots appeared, vanished, returned. Then:

“It’s cold. It’s so dark. I don’t like it here.”

4. The Wrong Voice

The messages kept coming over the next few days. Sometimes they were banal, mimicking Daniel’s old sense of humor. Other times, they turned bleak—descriptions of endless blackness, of whispers that chewed at the edges of thought.

Then came the voice call.

His phone rang at 3:12 a.m. The screen glowed with Daniel_1989 is calling. Against all instinct, Alex answered.

The sound on the other end wasn’t a voice. It was wet, static-laced breathing. A dragging, guttural rasp.

Then words emerged, distorted as if spoken through water:

“Aaaalex… help me… it hurts.”

Alex threw the phone across the room.

5. The Descent

Friends told him he looked pale, thinner. Work suffered. Nights were restless. Every time he blocked the account, another appeared: Daniel.Returned, Daniel_Alive, Dan4ever.

And each account carried the same memories only Daniel would know. Shared secrets, childhood dares, humiliating crushes.

The last straw came one evening when his mother called.

“Alex,” she said nervously, “I… I just got a message from Daniel. He said he missed Sunday dinners.”

Her voice cracked. “But Alex… he mentioned the blanket fort you two built in our basement. How could anyone else know that?”

Alex realized he wasn’t the only target anymore.

6. The Visit

That night, a final message arrived.

Daniel:

“Come outside.”

Alex’s stomach lurched. He went to the window. The street was empty except for a single figure standing beneath the flickering lamppost.

It looked like Daniel. Same posture, same tilted head. But the face—something was wrong. The skin seemed stretched, too pale. The mouth too wide.

His phone buzzed again.

“I’ve been waiting. Let me in.”

When Alex looked back at the street, the figure was gone.

7. The Last Chat

The next day, Alex smashed his phone, bought a new one, changed accounts, numbers, everything. For a week, silence blessed him.

Then, on the eighth night, his new phone vibrated.

New Message: Unknown Number

“Did you think you could get rid of me?”

The typing dots lingered. Then:

“You’ll join me soon. It’s not just darkness. It’s hunger. And now it wants you too.”

Alex dropped the phone. The buzzing didn’t stop. Notifications poured in faster than he could swipe them away—hundreds of messages flooding his screen.

All from Daniel.

Each one saying the same word.

“Closer.”

“Closer.”

“Closer.”

8. Silence

The next morning, Alex’s apartment was found empty. The front door was ajar. His phone lay on the carpet, screen cracked, battery drained.

Police examined it, but couldn’t explain the final photo saved in the gallery:

A blurry selfie of Alex—taken from above, as if by someone standing directly behind him.