The phone screen lit up in the darkness: 3:02. Emma rubbed her eyes and tapped on a message from her boyfriend, Mark: \u201cI\u2019m home. I\u2019m so tired tonight\u2014I\u2019m going to sleep. Love you.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
She typed \u201cGood night\u201d and hit send. The message showed as read.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Three minutes later, her phone vibrated again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cAre you asleep?\u201d Mark messaged. Emma was about to reply when she saw the message marked as read. She hadn\u2019t read it. She stared at the screen, cold sweat breaking out on her forehead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWho are you?\u201d she typed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Read. No reply.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cMark?\u201d she messaged again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Read.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Emma dialed his number; it rang once before being hung up. She called three times, and each time the call was hung up. The last time, the call was answered, but all she heard was heavy breathing\u2014as if something was pressed against the receiver, gasping for air. Then it hung up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
She called Mark\u2019s mom. \u201cHe\u2019s home,\u201d his mom said. \u201cI even warmed up some milk for him half an hour ago.\u201d Emma asked her to knock on Mark\u2019s door. Knocks came from the other end of the line, followed by a scream.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Mark was lying on his bed. His phone was in his hand, the screen still lit, displaying the chat window with Emma. The medical examiner said he\u2019d been dead for at least four hours. Cardiac arrest, no external injuries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Emma was shaking all over. Four hours ago\u2014that would have been 3:00 a.m. She stared at her phone; the conversation between her and \u201cMark\u201d was still there. The last message from him read: \u201cOpen the door.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
She jerked her head up. The bedroom door wasn\u2019t quite closed, and the hallway was pitch black. She tiptoed to the doorway and peered through the crack\u2014the living room was empty. She let out a sigh of relief and looked down at her phone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
3:02.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Time had suddenly jumped back.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
She received that message again: \u201cI\u2019m home. I\u2019m so tired tonight, I\u2019m going to sleep. Love you.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A green bubble. Read.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Her phone vibrated again. \u201cAre you asleep?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Emma screamed and threw her phone across the room. With the screen facing up, she saw new messages popping up one after another in the chat window, all marked as read.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI\u2019m right at the door.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWhy won\u2019t you open the door?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI can see you\u2019re reading this.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The last one: \u201cYou\u2019ve finished reading.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Footsteps echoed down the hallway. Slow and heavy, step by step, heading toward the bedroom.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Emma threw herself against the door, trying to lock it tight, but she noticed a note wedged under the door. She picked it up; it was in Mark\u2019s handwriting, though the strokes were crooked: \u201cDon\u2019t open the door. That\u2019s not me. I\u2019m under this note.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
She flipped the note over. Written in blood on the back were the words: \u201cRun.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The footsteps stopped outside the door. The doorknob began to turn.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Her phone screen was still lit. The last message was green, with \u201cMark\u201d listed as the sender:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI\u2019m in.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Read but No Reply at 3 a.m.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":529,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-528","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-suspense"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/storyrecyclebin.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/528","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/storyrecyclebin.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/storyrecyclebin.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storyrecyclebin.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storyrecyclebin.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=528"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/storyrecyclebin.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/528\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":530,"href":"https:\/\/storyrecyclebin.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/528\/revisions\/530"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storyrecyclebin.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/529"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/storyrecyclebin.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=528"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storyrecyclebin.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=528"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storyrecyclebin.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=528"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}