"The Last Message"

The Last Message

He vanished five years ago. Last night, he texted her.

Ava Jensen had stopped hoping years ago. Her brother, Liam, disappeared without a trace during a solo hiking trip to their family’s old forest cabin — a place tangled in shadows and silence. The police searched. Volunteers combed the area. Nothing. Not a single footprint. Eventually, grief hardened into acceptance.

Until last night.

At 3:00 a.m., her phone buzzed. Just once.

Half-asleep, she rolled over and squinted at the screen. One new message.

From: Liam

“Don’t come here. No matter what. I’m sorry.”

She jolted upright. Her chest tightened. Liam’s name glowed back at her, the same contact she'd never deleted — even after five years of no calls, no texts, no sign of life. His number had been disconnected for years. She’d tried it. Again and again.

But the message was there.

She blinked — and the message flickered. For half a second, the screen glitched. Then, it vanished. Not deleted. Erased, like it had never existed. Her call log? Empty. No trace of it. But she remembered it word for word.

Her heart knew.

By dawn, Ava was already driving north toward the forest.

The cabin was exactly as they’d left it — untouched, decaying, swallowed by overgrowth. The front door creaked on rusted hinges as she stepped inside. Dust blanketed the floor. Cold air pressed against her skin. The silence was louder than the wind outside.

Everything looked abandoned. Except for one thing.

On the old wooden table, her brother’s phone lay face-down.

Her breath caught.

She approached slowly, her heartbeat thudding in her ears. When she flipped the phone over, the screen lit up. No passcode.

One message was open — a draft, never sent.

To: Ava

“It’s not me anymore. Don’t trust what you see.”

Goosebumps crawled across her skin.

Suddenly, the floor creaked upstairs.

She froze.

Ava turned, slowly, heart pounding. The second floor had been off-limits since they were kids. Their parents boarded it up after some structural damage, but now the boards were broken. Someone — or something — had gone up there.

She picked up a flashlight from the drawer and crept up the stairs. Every step groaned under her weight.

At the top, a hallway stretched into darkness. But there, at the end — Liam stood.

Or something that looked like him.

He wore the same hoodie he’d gone missing in. Same face. Same eyes. But wrong. Too pale. Too still.

“Ava,” he said. His voice echoed, like he was underwater.

She took a step back. “Liam?”

He tilted his head. “I told you not to come.”

“You... sent the message?”

“No,” he said. “That was the part of me that’s still inside.”

She didn’t understand. Her hand tightened around the flashlight.

“Something found me out here,” he said. “It doesn’t kill you. It takes you. Uses you. I’ve been fighting it, but it’s stronger now. It doesn’t want you to leave.”

He stepped forward.

“I didn’t text you,” he said. “I warned you.”

Then his expression went blank. His body twitched once — then again, like a puppet jerking on strings.

When he looked back up, the warmth in his eyes was gone. He smiled. But it wasn’t Liam’s smile.

It was something else.

Ava ran.

She flew down the stairs, the thing behind her calling her name — Liam’s voice, but wrong. Too cheerful. Too calm.

“Ava, stay. Don’t go. We can be together again.”

She burst through the front door, sprinted to her car, and slammed the door shut. As she fumbled with the keys, she looked back.

The thing stood on the porch, staring. It didn’t follow. Just smiled.

Then the porch light flickered.

And the cabin went dark.

Ava didn’t stop driving until she reached town.

When she tried to show the police the phone, it was gone. Vanished from her backpack. She returned with them to the cabin.

It was empty.

No phone. No figure. No footprints.

But she knew what she saw.

And that night, her phone buzzed again.

Unknown Number

“You shouldn’t have left me.”

She stared at the screen, her hands trembling. She blocked the number. Threw the phone in the trash.

But the messages kept coming.

Different numbers. Same words.

“Come back.”

“Don’t run.”

“You’re already part of it.”

She doesn’t sleep much anymore.

Because when she dreams, she’s not in her bed.

She’s back at the cabin.

And Liam is always waiting.