At 2:00 a.m., Mark was awakened by the faint glow of his phone screen. Still half-asleep, he picked up his phone and saw a text message from an unknown number: “He’s still watching you. Don’t look back.”
Mark furrowed his brow, thinking it was some friend playing a prank after a few too many drinks. He casually replied, “Did you send this to the wrong person?”
The reply came instantly: “I didn’t send it to the wrong person. You’re wearing gray pajamas, your bedside lamp is on, and you’re holding your phone in your left hand.”
Mark’s heart skipped a beat. He instinctively looked down—he was indeed wearing gray pajamas, and his left hand was clutching his phone. He whipped his head around to look behind him—but there was nothing there except his empty bedroom.
“Who are you? Where are you?” Mark’s fingers trembled slightly as he typed frantically.
“I’m under your bed.”
Mark gasped, jumped up from the bed, and scrambled out of the bedroom, flinging on the living room light. He panted heavily, staring intently at the half-open bedroom door.
His phone vibrated again.
“It’s no use turning on the light—it doesn’t reach under the bed.”
Mark swallowed hard, steeled his nerves, and walked back into the bedroom, yanking the sheets off the bed. The space under the bed was empty, with nothing but a few pairs of shoes and a thin layer of dust.
He let out a long sigh and gave a self-deprecating smile. It was a prank after all. He picked up his phone to block the number, but then noticed the latest message:
“By the time you pulled back the sheets, I was already inside the closet.”
Mark froze, his gaze slowly shifting toward the half-open closet in the corner of the bedroom. The inside was pitch black, like a mouth waiting to devour everything.
Just then, his phone lit up again—it was the same number:
“Don’t be afraid. I just wanted to remind you that you forgot to lock the door when you ran out earlier. Now, there’s someone else in the living room.”
Mark whipped his head toward the living room. The living room light was still on, but outside the previously open bedroom door, a long shadow—one that wasn’t his—had appeared at some point and was slowly creeping toward the bedroom doorway.
The phone vibrated one last time:
“The game is over.”
The living room light suddenly went out.
This ending is somewhat open-ended. Would you like me to write a more explicit follow-up version for you? For example, how Mark managed to escape in the end.
