1 Abyss Messages

The chilling wind of the winter season coming through the window is not enough to stop the sweating from me. I think sweatdrops will drop from my t-shirt after some time.

Without any sweater or any extra clothing, I am sitting on the bed. Legs crossed, hands clutched around the handband and a necklace I am wearing, and my eyes don't blink even for a second like my life will end at the very moment when I close them.

In front of me, my old-fashioned keypad phone is placed on the tea table. My eyes are dead set on it. Sometimes my eyes flick to the direction where some random sound occurs but then within a second, I return my gaze to the phone.

I flinch in terror when the message comes.

My heart starts to beat like a mechanical hammer in a factory to the death bell sound of the message. My breathing getting heavy, giving me the most suffocate feeling I ever had.

"When.... will it stop?" I almost cried to myself. My whole body is unwilling to move. My legs are numb from pressuring them for so much time in one position. Nonetheless, I gather the little courage I have left in my mind in hopes that this is not what I think it is.

I try to open it with my trembling fingers. When the screen lit up, not only fingers but now my whole body is trembling looking at the notification of the message from an unknown number. It feels like the phone itself is someone's face, watching my every move and behavior and enjoying it to its full content.

There is nobody at home as usual. These messages only come when there is nobody at home or I am alone. That's why it feels more terrifying when I can't reach out to anyone at this time.

"Should I... open this?" I know nobody is here to answer me but I hoped for the opposite. My trembling body is still frozen in one place but my eyes keep rolling on every side, desperately trying to find someone.

Five minutes have passed like that.

Ding

As I feared, another one comes. I choked on my breath with that horrific sound. Hot tears are coming out of my eyes but still, I can't properly cry as the fear in me is suppressing it.

"I.... shoo...uld open this one, right? All I get is the chilling north wind as the answer which still unable to dry up my sweat.

If I don't open it in five minutes another one comes and the previous one

deletes. But I don't know what happens if I don't open the second one either

or rather I don't even want to know.

The more I want to believe that it's just a random prank or maybe someone

having a grudge on me doing this to me out of anger, the more my thoughts go

to that horrific night three months ago.

In the end, I couldn't decide what to do and before I knew it only one minute

has left.

"What should I do? What should I do? What should I do...?" I repeat and

repeat the same question in a choking voice but nobody is coming to me.

Just like that I wasted the remaining one minute.

Ring Ring Ring.....

"THE F-CK!! MOM!" I throw the phone on the bed in instinct as soon as I feel

the vibration on my hand. When I come to know what's happening right now,

"A phone call!" I exclaim with joy but that short-lived happiness soon

replaces by the fear more than before. "What's this ring tone?!"

The ringtone is of a bell ringing continuously similar to the message sound. At a normal time, I wouldn't have given notice to it but this is definitely not a normal time and the unknown number showing on the phone is proving it.

Just when I look at that same unknown number, my whole body goes numb. Everything around me starts to spin around. Every sense of me slowly slips away from me and I fall without control of my body.

"I shouldn't have gone there. I shouldn't have done that ridiculous betting." These are the only thoughts that swirl in my mind as my eyes slowly start to close despite my unwillingness, and I start to recall everything that had happened three months ago.

Three months ago, me and my three friends decided to go to the uninhabited building at night as a daring bet.

That building is a little distant from our school. It's a four-story building which was on the verge of breaking down at any moment. Fractured walls looking like mush going in or coming out of it, broken windows, and full of spider webs on its frame. Not even a rat dares to enter into there. Even from looking outside to its entrance gives you the chills. Not a single tree can grow near that building let alone anyone living near it.

People say that that building has been abandoned for more than seven years. The last residue was a family of a couple with their four children. One day that family vanished without informing anyone. Even the police couldn't find a single trace of them and had given up. After that, surprisingly no one lived there. Even the building owner never checks upon the building.

After some years the owner passed away and no one could find the building papers. Even no relatives of the owner wanted to claim the building knowing its suspicious past. Not even the official authority did anything regarding this matter.

Days went on and many rumors start to spread. Some say there's still someone living in it or only the pure non-sinner can enter it. But what's common is that all those rumors are based on one thing that the building is haunted.

Despite knowing all of this, we all made the bet. I told my mom that I was going to my friend's house for a project and she happily agreed with it. Even if it was strange how easily she agreed on it, I was just too happy to even think about it. Same with my friends as they told different excuses to their

parents. We all reached near the building at night as planned.

Although it's not too late for anyone to sleep but near the building, it felt like

it's past midnight. The dead silent calmness around us was too uneasy.

We all were terrified but our pride was getting in the way to turn away.

We had to use our flashlights as it was completely dark in the whole building.

We didn't even say a word to each other as we walked slowly, looking

everywhere carefully with each step. Just when we step on the first stair all

our lights suddenly turned off at one time.

We were terrified and shocked. No matter how much we tried none of our

flashlights worked. We all are still in one place near the starting of the

staircase not knowing what to do. Letting go of my pride when I was about to

suggest that we should leave a laughing sound came from upstairs.

Hearing that creepy laugh, it didn't take us a second to run away from that

place as fast as we could screaming like hell. The day after that we never

talked about that night as if it never happened, Many days passed, we had

been forgetting about it but then something unexpected happened.

A month after that incident, one of us stopped coming to school. We couldn't

even reach him. His whole family disappeared. Teachers or his

neighborhoods knew nothing about their whereabouts.

Then one month after that, again another one of us stopped coming to school and we came to know that he also disappeared with his family without informing anyone.

Someone informed the police about it and they started to investigate as soon as possible. They also came to school to ask questions about them. Especially to me and another of my friend as we were best friends of them. We were the only ones remained, who went to that building but we never mentioned it to the police even though we never discussed it beforehand.

Being terrified I stopped talking to him but it was clear that he was also scared and never tried to approach me first.

It was so hard to bear it so I told my mom everything that had happened. She then reassured me to not worry about a thing. After some days, she took me to a strange place where a man gave me a necklace and a hand band and warned me not to lose them ever. She didn't tell me anything about me although I asked her so many times about that place and those bands and necklace.

I became extremely scared and thought I would also disappear with my mom without anybody knowing. But more than anything I never wanted to lose my mom. If it wasn't for her, then I would still be living in that orphanage center.

I never mentioned anyone that I was an orphan and lived in an orphanage center. Cause I never felt like an outsider after living with her. She felt like a real mother to me. Though she has to take care of her many part-time jobs, she still takes care of me in her way. Indeed, she often spends many days. outside but I never complained about it, cause she is the only one who cares for me.

It was three months after the building incident when mom was away, a message came to my phone. I was confused when I listened to the bell ringing type of message notification. Nonetheless, I opened it.

"DARLING, WHEN WILL YOU BE COMING HOME?"

When I read it I thought someone must have got the wrong number. After watching it was from an unknown number, I thought of it as a prank message and ignored it.

When mom came home, I took my phone to show her the message but it was not there. She thought I was pulling her leg and ignored it. I was dumbfounded at how the message got deleted on its own.

Then after a few days, another message came again with that same sound when I was alone.

"I AM GETTING WORRIED, WHY AREN'T YOU COMING HOME? CHILDREN ARE ALSO NOT COMING,

I started to panic after reading the message moreover from the same

unknown number. I dashed out of the house and asked my neighbor to

watch the message but again, it vanished before that.

My mom thought I was just panicking because of the sudden missing of my

friends and nobody at school also believed me thinking of it as a thought-up

story.

I thought that maybe I should always be with someone so that these

messages won't come but it's not possible to always be with someone. At

some point, I will be alone again.

So I had decided to not use my phone for a time being but what if mom calls or

messages me for an urgent matter? That could be a problem. So I decided to

borrow a spare phone from my neighbor so that mom could contact me.

Then after some days, while my mom went for a week on a work-related trip.

This time I was little relieved that I wouldn't get any creep messages as I have

switched off my phone and informed my mom about the other phone. Yet again a

message came with that same sound to that borrowed phone.

"So...it doesn't....matter whose phone it is...." I was scared like hell to open

the message. Is there someone having a grudge on me doing this? Whoever was

doing this must be keeping a close on my daily life. But I could think of no

one who will go that far.

Being terrified I didn't open it this time. "I will just ignore it." I thought to

myself but after five minutes another message came with the same sound.

I didn't know what it was that made me open the message this time but all I

knew that ignoring them won't stop anything. So I opened it gathering my wits.

"WHY ARE YOU NOT COMING? WHY ARE CHILDREN NOT COMING? IF ANY OF YOU WON'T COME, THEN I WILL GO FIND ALL OF YOU BY MYSELF."

It didn't sound like a prank message nor a wrong number one. It felt like it's really meant for me. At that time, I heard someone laughing outside the house. It was the aunty from the market area who is talking to my neighbor.

But I suddenly remember something I shouldn't have. That night when I went to that building, one by one my friends are missing in one month interval after that and these messages coming to me after one month of the last missing case.

I was scared to death and on the verge of crying not knowing what should I do. To whom I should go for help. I clutch to the necklace and handband that! was given treating them like my last protection and another day came waiting for what worse can happen.

"Whe..where... is this place..? My eyes slowly open but everything looks blur right now. My whole body is aching with pain. Bruises and cut marks are on my legs and hands. "Did I get dragged here?", I push myself away from the floor to sit straight.

I try to adjust my eyes and saw that I was in a room and through the broken window, I notice that it's now night time. In the darkness only through the dim moonlight all I can see is broken furniture, rusted photo frames hanging, walls are cracked and everything is covered with dust and spider webs.

"Did I ge..tt..kidnap?" Fear starts to rush in as I remembered what is this place. I stand on my foot and look around to find the exist but I can't see properly anything in here.

"Huh!? Where are they?" I notice that the only thing that I thought of my last protection, my handband and necklace, are gone. But how is this possible? I have never worn them off since the day I got them. Did the kidnapper took them off?

Suddenly I hear footsteps of someone breaking the silence. "Is th...the kidnapper coming?" I rushed towards the broken wood chair and picked up it's broken leg and stand stilled facing to the direction of the sound. "Mom, where are you? Please help me!", I cry to myself in sheer helplessness while holding the wood piece.

I heard that same creepy laughing that I listened to three months ago in that uninhabited building. I can never forget this sound. It sends shiver to my spines. My heart beats so fast it may come out of my mouth anytime.

"Hehehehehehehehehehehehehehe..."

First, it was slowly approaching but as time goes it's coming faster and faster. Not only the footsteps, it's laughing also echoing through everywhere in the room.

"Mom, Mom, Mom, Mom, Mom...." My quivering lips are chanting one word desperately. Finally I can see a figure in this prach darkness. It's coming towards me so fast, that I just catch the glimpse of a-

"MOOOOOMMMM!"

"Coming to our next breaking news. 9 dead bodies have been found in the city's main garbage dump area. After getting the information from the workers police have started with their investigation.

According to the primary investigation among these 9 bodies, 3 bodies are from same family where as others are also belongs to one family.

They don't have any type connection between them except the youngest ones from both family are from same school.

The names of them are-"

Ding

A message comes to the phone of the boy who is the last one who went to that building.

Listening to the news his eyes still glued to TV with heavy breathing and a horrified look on his face.

"Did I change my notification sound?", finally he tries to calm down and turns his attention to his phone and opens the message,

I JUST CAME HOME. BUT YOU GUYS ARE NOT BACK YET? YOUR MOM IS WORRIED.

WHERE ARE YOU GUYS?

WHEN WILL YOU ALL BE COMING?

You've finished