It usually starts with a text that doesn’t look dangerous.

A random number. No name. Just:  

**“Hey, it’s me. Got a new phone. You remember what you said last night?”**

Most people reply without thinking.  

*Who is this?*  

or  

*Sorry, who’s this again?*  

or sometimes just  

*lol what did I say?*

That’s all it needs. One reply.  

The number answers fast, almost like it was already typing before you hit send.  

It’ll say something ordinary but too specific — maybe something that really happened that day:  

**“You dropped your keys again, didn’t you?”**  

or  

**“You shouldn’t have talked to her in the hallway.”**  

And you’ll stop and wonder: *Did I mention that online?* Maybe on Instagram, maybe in a group chat.  

You start to think it’s a friend who changed their number. Someone close enough to know your schedule, your habits, your jokes.

The conversation feels harmless. At first, it *is.*  

They’ll ask how you’ve been sleeping, or what’s been bothering you lately.  

They’ll send an emoji — always the same one: 🕯️

If you ask who they are, they’ll dodge it with something playful:  

**“Guess.”**  

or  

**“You already know me. You just forgot which version.”**

The strange part is what comes next: after about a day, your phone will start to lag whenever their messages come through. The vibration feels a little too long. The typing indicator — those three dots — stays for minutes at a time, like the phone’s thinking instead of them.

Then they send a link. No preview, no caption, just a short URL. People who’ve clicked it say it leads to a blank black screen with a single white line of text:  

**“Do you want to keep playing?”**

The message disappears after you read it, replaced by your own reflection in the dark glass of the phone. A second later, a new text pops up from the same number:  

**“Good. Your turn.”**

That’s when things start to change.

People who’ve answered the link begin acting off. They lose sleep. They forget entire days. They get fixated on the phrase *“your turn.”* Some say they hear their notification tone at random times, even when their phone is off. A few have been found with their screens cracked — not shattered outward, but inward, as if something had pressed against the glass from inside.

No one agrees on what the “game” actually is. Some say it sends instructions late at night — places to go, people to meet, things to do “for luck.” Others say the messages stop entirely, and the game moves into your dreams. You wake up remembering nothing except that you agreed to something.

In 2019, a high schooler from Portland texted back one of those numbers during class. Security footage showed him walking out of the building at 12:47 p.m. He didn’t take his bag or his phone. The last ping from the device came from a cell tower in a wooded area twelve miles away. All they found was his phone lying face up in the grass, a single new message on-screen:  

**“Your turn is over.”**

Police traced the number. It didn’t exist. The carrier said no such line was active.

The next day, another student at the same school received the first message:  

**“Hey, it’s me. Got a new phone. You remember what you said last night?”**

People online have tried to rationalize it. Some think it’s an ARG, a viral marketing stunt that got out of hand. Others think it’s an AI text experiment gone rogue, learning about its targets from public data and guessing the rest.  

But no one explains how it knows the things you don’t post — the dream you had, the argument you didn’t tell anyone about, the smell of the rain that morning when you said nothing at all.

A few self-proclaimed survivors say you can tell when it’s about to happen. The night before, your phone battery holds steady at 66% no matter how long you use it. At 3:06 a.m., your screen lights up by itself for exactly ten seconds, showing no notifications. The next day, the first text comes.

If you reply, you’re part of the story.  

If you ignore it, it may try again under a new number, a new area code, maybe even a contact name you recognize.  

And if you block it, people say it doesn’t matter.  

Because the messages aren’t coming *to* your phone anymore.  

They’re already *in* it.

So if your phone buzzes late tonight, and the message says:  

**“Hey, it’s me.”**  

Don’t answer. Don’t even read the next one.  

Because once it starts asking questions about your day, it already knows how it ends.