Her phone buzzed. The default text tone, so it wasn’t someone that she talked to frequently. She had customized all the vibrations and tones of the people that she talked to frequently, so she knew who was messaging her before she even picked up the phone. This was just one solid “vvvv.”
She picked up her phone, and the screen lit up automatically, responding to her movement. It was a number she didn’t have in her contacts. Recognizing her face, her phone automatically unlocked.
Opening the texting application, she saw the conversation screen, showing all her recent messages. The unknown number’s message appeared at the top with the message preview reading “Photo Message.”
Odd, she thought. Rarely did she receive spam messages with pictures, and even rarer did she receive wrong number messages with just a photo.
She opened it.
It took her a moment to register what she saw. But once she had, her heart, which had settled back to a steady rhythm after her hike from the parking lot to her apartment, began to pound in her chest. A wave of heat swept over her body, and with the heat came panic. Her knees buckled beneath her, and she only barely saved herself from hitting her head against the corner of the table.
Everything in the picture was familiar, just at an angle, she wasn’t familiar with. That was her couch, that was her TV, and that was her kitchen table. And that was her front door, standing ajar, with her just having come through it wearing the exact clothes she was wearing at that moment.
Her phone slipped out of her hand and fell to the floor, screen side down, with a harsh smack. Wide-eyed, her head snapped to look at every corner of her apartment, searching for anything out of place. She crawled towards her kitchen counter, her entire body trembling, and quietly opened a drawer, feeling around for the handle of her biggest knife. She grasped it as tightly as her trembling fingers and sweaty palm would allow her.
Across the room, her phone vibrated again.
Vvvv.
She froze. There was no question in her mind that it would be from the same number. She debated long enough for the phone to buzz again, a gentle reminder of her own terror.
She crawled on all-fours back over to her phone and, still tightly gripping the weapon in her hand, picked the phone up.
Same number.
When she opened it, the screen still showed the conversation where she had left it when she dropped it. The first picture had been pushed up, replaced by another one from the same angle: a photo of her reaching into the drawer for the knife.
As she held the phone in her hand, the number messaged her again. This time, it was a text. She began to sob. Ugly, deep sobs struggled up every inch of her throat. That won’t do you any good.
