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[Group Chat: The Offline Ones ☠️📴]
🧃ava.exe: who added the normie
🕹️milesAFK: not me. i was gaming.
👻riley_irl: wait she's cute tho
🧃ava.exe: that's how they get you. first cute, then cursed.
🧊lucas: she wasn't supposed to join.
🧃ava.exe: oh.
🕹️milesAFK: oh.
👻riley_irl: oh.
🧊lucas: …hi.
—
Juno stared at her phone like it had just insulted her entire bloodline.
One second she was doomscrolling through cursed memes and ignoring her ex's "u up?" texts, and the next .. boom. New chat. No notification. Just… there.
The group name? "The Offline Ones ☠️📴"
The vibe? Cult, but with ✨aesthetic branding✨.
The members? Unhinged.
And then there was Lucas.
Profile pic: a blurry photo of someone mid-scream.
Bio: "currently buffering."
She should've left. She really should've.
Instead, she typed:
you: hi. who are you people.
🧃ava.exe: oh she's polite. that's worse.
🧊lucas: you weren't supposed to see this.
you: okay but like. i did.
🕹️milesAFK: maybe she's the one
👻riley_irl: THE PROPHECY 😭
🧃ava.exe: there is no prophecy. shut up.
🧊lucas: …what's your name?
She hesitated. Thumb hovering over the keyboard. Why was she still here? Why did Lucas's typing bubble make her stomach do a weird little flip?
—
Juno didn't believe in ghosts. Or cursed group chats. Or haunted vending machines.
But then her phone started buzzing every night at 3:33 a.m.
Then she started seeing messages that disappeared before she could screenshot them.
Then she found a photo in her camera roll — one she didn't take.
It was her. Sleeping.
And someone else in the background.
Someone in a hoodie.
Someone who looked a lot like Lucas.
—
[Group Chat: The Offline Ones ☠️📴]
🧊lucas: you're not crazy.
you: i never said i was
🧊lucas: but you're thinking it.
you: how do you know that
🧊lucas: because i used to think the same thing.
🧃ava.exe: oh no. he's doing the cryptic thing again.
👻riley_irl: someone get him a poetry journal
🕹️milesAFK: bro just say you like her
—
She closed the chat.
Her phone buzzed again.
New message from: lucas
||"Don't trust the vending machine in the library basement. It's not… real."||
Juno stared at the screen.
Then, like the main character in every bad-decision horror movie, she grabbed her hoodie and headed to the library basement.
Because apparently, she had no survival instincts.
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