THE BOY WHO RECEIVED MESSAGES FROM HIS DEAD PHONE

Ahmed never believed in ghosts.

He loved horror movies, creepy internet stories, and dark mysteries, but he always laughed at people who claimed supernatural things were real.

“Bhoot waghera kuch nahi hota,” he always told his friends.

That changed on a rainy Thursday night in Rawalpindi.

Ahmed was returning home after college when he noticed a tiny electronics shop hidden between two old buildings. The shop looked strange — dusty yellow lights, broken radios hanging from walls, and shelves filled with ancient phones.

An old man sat behind the counter silently staring at him.

Ahmed noticed a black phone lying separately on the table.

It looked old but interesting.

Cracked screen.

Faded cover.

One deep scratch across the back like somebody had clawed it with fingernails.

“How much?” Ahmed asked.

The old man looked uncomfortable.

“That phone is not for sale.”

Ahmed laughed. “Sab kuch bikta hai.”

The old man stayed silent for a few seconds before finally whispering:

“If it turns on at night… don’t read the messages.”

Ahmed smirked.

“Nice marketing strategy.”

The old man didn’t smile back.

After a long silence, he handed over the phone for an unbelievably cheap price.

While leaving, Ahmed noticed something strange.

The old man quietly recited a prayer under his breath.

At home, Ahmed plugged the phone into charging beside his bed.

The battery symbol appeared for one second… then disappeared.

Dead again.

“Junk phone,” Ahmed muttered before sleeping.

Hours later…

At exactly 3:13 AM…

The room suddenly filled with a faint white glow.

Ahmed slowly opened his eyes.

The phone screen was on.

No startup logo.

No charging animation.

Just one notification.

UNKNOWN NUMBER:

“Don’t look under your bed.”

Ahmed stared at the message.

His sleepy mind tried to make sense of it.

Then he laughed nervously.

“Hamza hoga… pagal.”

But something felt wrong.

The room suddenly felt colder.

The fan had stopped spinning.

Even the rain outside had gone silent.

Then—

SCRAAAATCH…

A sound came from beneath the bed.

Slow.

Sharp.

Like fingernails dragging across wood.

Ahmed froze completely.

The phone vibrated again.

UNKNOWN NUMBER:

“It knows you read the message.”

The scratching stopped instantly.

Silence.

Heavy silence.

Ahmed grabbed the phone with shaking hands and tried turning it off.

The power button wasn’t working.

The screen brightness suddenly increased by itself.

Another message appeared.

UNKNOWN NUMBER:

“If you look under the bed… it will smile.”

Ahmed threw the phone across the room.

CRACK!

The screen shattered further.

But the phone kept vibrating.

Vrrrrt.

Vrrrrt.

Vrrrrt.

Then suddenly—

A picture appeared on the screen.

Ahmed slowly picked the phone up again.

His blood turned cold.

The image showed his room.

His bed.

Himself sitting there holding the phone.

But the photo wasn’t taken from the front.

It was taken from underneath the bed.

And in the darkness behind him…

Two pale eyes stared directly at the camera.

Ahmed stumbled backward.

“No… no…”

He rushed toward the bedroom door.

Locked.

He pulled harder.

Nothing moved.

Then the lights started flickering violently.

ON.

OFF.

ON.

OFF.

The phone rang loudly.

Caller ID:

UNDER YOUR BED

Ahmed rejected the call instantly.

But a voice still filled the room.

Wet.

Broken.

Barely human.

“Ahmed…”

“Why didn’t you look at me?”

Something slammed against the underside of the mattress.

BOOM!

Ahmed screamed and jumped away from the bed.

Another slam.

BOOM!

The entire bed shook violently.

Then slowly…

A grey hand crawled out from beneath the bed.

Its fingers were impossibly long.

Its skin looked rotten and stretched tightly over bone.

The nails were sharp.

Exactly like the scratches on the back of the phone.

Ahmed backed into the corner of the room shaking uncontrollably.

The creature slowly pulled itself halfway out.

Its face had no eyes.

No nose.

Only an enormous smiling mouth stretching across its face.

Too wide.

Too unnatural.

Its teeth looked human.

Hundreds of them.

The phone vibrated again.

UNKNOWN NUMBER:

“Now it can see you too.”

The creature tilted its head unnaturally.

Then smiled wider.

Ahmed grabbed a chair and threw it toward the creature.

The lights exploded instantly.

Darkness swallowed the room.

Ahmed heard crawling sounds everywhere now.

Walls.

Ceiling.

Floor.

Something rushed past him in the darkness.

Then the phone flashlight suddenly turned on by itself.

The beam pointed toward the wall.

Words had appeared there.

Written in black liquid.

LOOK UNDER THE BED

Ahmed covered his mouth trying not to scream.

Then he noticed something horrifying.

The black liquid wasn’t paint.

It was moving.

Slowly dripping upward across the wall.

Toward the ceiling.

Toward him.

The voice whispered again right beside his ear.

“You looked.”

Ahmed turned around—

But there was nothing there.

Then two freezing hands grabbed his shoulders from behind.

The phone fell to the floor.

The last thing Ahmed saw was the creature crawling across the ceiling directly above him…

Smiling.

The next morning, police broke into Ahmed’s room after neighbors complained about screams during the night.

The room was empty.

No broken window.

No escape.

The door was still locked from inside.

But one thing remained in the center of the floor.

The cracked black phone.

Still glowing.

Still vibrating softly.

One officer nervously picked it up.

A new notification appeared instantly.

UNKNOWN NUMBER:

“You’re holding me now.”