New Text Message

The cool September wind whipped Alice’s hair around her face. She watched the colored leaves gracefully fall to the ground around her. She could hear birds chirping happily in the trees above her as she took in how beautiful nature could be. She then looked at her friend, Jane, who was attached to her cell phone. The two girls had been walking with each other for almost twenty minutes and hadn’t said a single word. It might seem strange to some to walk with friends and not talk but Alice and Jane have been friends for twelve years and were used to it. Jane smiled as she continued texting people, Alice didn’t understand why Jane liked texting so much. Alice owned a cell phone and didn’t mind texting but always forgot her phone at home.
Finally the girls approached Alice’s light blue house at the end of the street. They ran in the door and up the stairs to Alice’s bedroom. After watching Jane play with her phone for several minutes Alice decided to check her phone. The pink and silver phone lay on her desk, looking if it hadn’t been touched in days. Alice held it in her hand for a moment, feeling the smooth exterior in her hands. She flipped it open to see that there were no messages or missed calls so she flipped it shut and set it back on the desk. As she turned to walk away, the phone began to play a mysterious ringtone. Alice was surprised to hear it coming from her phone because she had never heard the noise before. In the corner of Alice’s eyes she saw Jane’s head shoot up, now watching the cell phone that was lying on the desk. Her mouth seemed to drop as if she knew what the ring tone meant. Alice picked up her phone, ready to flip it open.
“Don’t open that!” Jane cried out, making Alice jump.
“Why not?” Alice eyed her suspiciously.
“If you read the text on the screen you must do it” there was a long pause, “or you’ll die” Jane’s voice was shaking and filled with fear, her face was tight with concern.
“Then I definitely have to open it!” Alice scoffed. She couldn’t believe that Jane was buying into such stupid rumors. She flipped open the screen, a picture of an envelope blinked, waiting to be clicked on.
“Alice, please don’t.” Jane begged but it was too late Alice opened the message in her inbox. She then read it out loud in the most sarcastic voice she could:
“Hello, my name is Susie Slit.
My throat was cut, but I didn’t deserve it.
This message needs to be sent,
as your life depends on it.
Those who don’t send this today,
will have a big price to pay.
Send this message times ten,
and you will live to see the sun again.” Alice laughed for several minutes, and Jane’s face filled with worry.
“Don’t laugh! You need to forward that now! If you die, I don’t know what I would do,” her voice was tight with fear.
“Yeah sure,” Alice threw her head back and began laughing even harder, throwing her phone on her desk.
“It’s true! My friend had a friend who received the same text and she didn’t send it either. The next day they found her dead in her room, her throat had been cut. Susie Slit came to her house and killed her!” Again Alice began to laugh, thinking how stupid her friend sounds by believing such a dumb story. Instead of arguing with her friend for another ten minutes Alice decided to change the subject and the girls quickly forgot about the message that sat in Alice’s inbox.
After spending a long time awake the two finally fell asleep. Alice woke up feeling extremely cold and sat up in her bed. She could hear a scratching noise coming from her window. She pulled herself out of bed carefully, as to not wake up Jane who lay sound asleep on the floor and made her way towards the window. She looked outside to see the night was completely still, not even the branches on the tree outside her window moved. Alice turned back towards her bed, cautiously stepping over Jane and crawling back into her warm bed. Just as she began to get comfortable Alice felt something hard against her back, she pulled out her cell phone. Surprised to see her cell phone on her bed, considering it had been on her desk all night Alice flipped it open and just as she did so she got another text. She opened it and it read:
Time is running out,
it will be over so fast you’ll have no time to shout.
send this message and save yourself,
otherwise you will die and so will someone else.
You have one minute.
A small wave of fear swept over Alice’s body, she then began frantically trying to find people to send the message to. She had only found three, and her time was up.
Sun poured in through the window onto Jane’s face. She looked up at the clock, it was almost noon. She stretched and looked up at the bed where her friend still lay asleep.
“Alice get up, it’s almost twelve,” her voice was scratchy from the dry air in the house. After waiting several minutes for Alice to respond, Jane groggily climbed to her feet and went to shake her friend. She pulled back the covers and was shocked at what she saw. Her friend was lying in a puddle of thick, red, blood. Tightly gripped in Alice’s pale blue hands was her cell phone. Jane tried to scream, but no sound escaped her lips.
Suddenly the mysterious ringtone they had heard last night, began to play. It was loud and seemed to echo in Jane’s head. She followed the noise to her black and silver phone which lay on the floor. Her phone continued to play the ringtone, seeming to get louder and louder each time. Jane backed away and began to scream.