You shouldn’t have touched it

It was late, about 7 pm, and I was getting ready to close up shop.

I’ve spent the whole day fixing phones, changing screens, and replacing batteries.

I was just about to lock the door when a man walked in, looking all nervous.

He handed me an old phone, battered and scratched.

“Can you fix it?” he asked, voice trembling.

I took a quick look; the phone was in rough shape, but nothing too crazy for me.

I told him to come back in an hour. So, I got to work. As soon as I opened the back, I noticed something weird, a strange symbol scratched onto the battery.

I had never seen anything like it; the phone was old, but something felt off.

When I powered it on, the screen blinked, then went black.

I figured the battery was dead, so I plugged it in, but when the phone turned back on, the screen showed up with a message that made my heart skip a beat: “You shouldn’t have touched it.”

I looked at the screen; I checked the phone’s history; nothing was there, no calls, no messages, no weird apps.

Just a regular old phone; I thought maybe it was some glitch, but then the lights in the shop were shaking.

I thought it was just the generator giving issues, but when I looked around, I could’ve sworn I saw something move outside the window.

I checked the door; no one was there. I turned back to the table, and the phone was still on.

But now, it was showing a live feed of the shop and of me; I was sitting there, working, but something was wrong; behind me, there was a shadow moving.

I looked around, but the shop was empty; my heart raced. I looked back at the phone; the shadow was closer now, standing right behind me.

Before I could react, the lights went out completely, and the shop went dark.

And then I heard it, low and creepy, a voice whispering from behind me: “Fix what you’ve broken, or it will fix you.”

When the lights turned back on, I turned around, but the phone was gone.

There was just a note on the workbench that said, “I’ll be back.”

I knew right then, whatever was inside that phone, it wasn’t something I could fix.

The man came back the next day after I dropped that story.

It was around noon when he walked into the shop, looking just as nervous as before.

He didn’t waste time. “Is it ready?” He asked, and I froze for a moment, then told him, “The phone… It’s gone.

His face didn’t change, but his eyes looked different, almost colder, “I told you not to touch it,” he said softly, leaning closer.

Then he added, “Whatever it showed you, it’s not over.”

Before I could say anything, he slid an envelope onto the counter and walked out.

When I opened it, there was a piece of paper with that same strange symbol from the phone’s battery.

Underneath it was a note: “Tonight, don’t lock the shop.”

I wanted to close up and leave, but something told me running wouldn’t help.

So when night came, I left the door unlocked and waited. Just like the night before, the lights started shaking.

I knew something was coming, and I wasn’t ready for it.