At 2:17 a.m., Aarav's phone vibrated.
Not rang.
Not chimed.
Just… vibrated.
Once.
He was half-asleep, face turned toward the cracked ceiling of his one-room apartment in Delhi. Rain hammered the window like impatient fingers. The city outside was alive in that restless, sleepless way—horns, sirens, distant arguments.
He ignored the phone.
Then it vibrated again.
Aarav sighed, rolled over, and grabbed it.
UNKNOWN CONTACT
"If you're reading this, I'm already dead."
His breath caught.
He sat up.
"Okay… prank," he muttered, though his heart was already speeding up.
Another message appeared.
"Don't reply. Don't tell anyone. And whatever you do—don't go to the police."
Aarav rubbed his face. He was a data analyst, not someone who got involved in creepy midnight mysteries.
Then he read the name at the bottom.
— Riya
His chest tightened.
Riya Malhotra had been dead for three years.