Chapter One: 2:17 A.M.
The first message came at exactly 2:17 a.m.
Peach didn't hear the notification at first. The room was too quiet, the kind of silence that pressed against your ears until even your own breathing felt loud. Her phone lit up beside her pillow, casting a faint glow across her face.
Then it buzzed again.
Her eyes fluttered open.
For a moment, she just stared at the ceiling, disoriented. Something felt… off. Not wrong exactly. Just unfamiliar. Like waking up in a place that looked like yours but didn't feel like it.
Her phone buzzed a third time.
Peach reached for it slowly.
Unknown Number.
She frowned.
No one texted her at this hour.
She opened the message.
Do you remember what you did last night?
Her chest tightened slightly.
Peach blinked at the screen, waiting for the punchline. A second message followed almost instantly.
Because I do.
A small, uneasy laugh escaped her lips.
"Okay… weird," she muttered to herself.
Probably a wrong number.
That had to be it.
Still, something about the message sat wrong in her stomach. Not the words exactly, but the certainty behind them.
She typed quickly.
You have the wrong person.
Three dots appeared immediately.
Then disappeared.
Then came back again.
Peach felt her fingers go cold.
No, Peach. I don't.
Her breath caught.
The phone nearly slipped from her hand.
She stared at her name on the screen like it didn't belong to her.
"How…" she whispered.
Her room suddenly felt smaller.
Darker.
She glanced around instinctively, as if someone might be standing in the corner watching her. But everything was the same, her desk, her chair, the half-open wardrobe.
Normal.
Everything was normal.
Except it wasn't.
Her phone buzzed again.
Check your hands.
Peach hesitated.
Her pulse began to rise, slow but heavy.
"This is stupid," she said under her breath.
But she looked anyway.
At first, she didn't see anything.
Then she turned her wrist slightly.
And froze.
There, just below her palm, faint but unmistakable
A thin smear of something dark.
Dried.
Her stomach dropped.
"No… no, no, no…"
She scrambled out of bed, rushing to the small mirror by her wardrobe. Her reflection stared back at her wide eyes, messy hair, sleep still clinging to her face.
Normal.
Except,
There was something else.
A faint mark near her collarbone.
Bruising.
Peach touched it lightly, wincing.
Her mind raced.
She tried to remember last night.
She had gone to bed early… hadn't she?
Or
Her thoughts stopped.
There was nothing.
No memory.
Just a blank, empty space where last night should have been.
Her phone buzzed again.
Slowly… reluctantly… she picked it up.
You really don't remember.
Her throat went dry.
That's interesting.
Peach felt something shift inside her. Fear, yes, but something else too. Something colder.
"Who is this?" she typed, her fingers shaking.
This time, the reply took longer.
Much longer.
Long enough for her heartbeat to grow louder in her ears.
Long enough for her to start hoping it would stop.
Then
You'll remember soon.
Another message followed.
And when you do…
you'll wish you didn't.
The screen went still.
No typing.
No follow-up.
Nothing.
Peach stood frozen in the middle of her room, her reflection staring back at her like a stranger.
Her hands still stained.
Her memory still empty.
And somewhere, out there,
Someone knew exactly what she had done.