It started on a rainy Friday, the kind that turned the school courtyard into a swamp and kept everyone indoors during recess.
Mira, Aanya, Rishi, and Kabir were crammed into the back corner of the library, whispering around a single phone screen. Kabir had just downloaded a weird app he found on an obscure forum. It had no name—just a black icon with a red dot in the center.
“It’s some kind of dare game,” Kabir said, grinning. “It asks creepy questions. And you have to say yes.”
“That’s dumb,” Mira muttered, already bored.
Rishi leaned in. “No, listen—people say if you say no, it crashes your phone. But if you say yes… weird stuff happens.”
“Like what?” Aanya asked.
Kabir shrugged. “No idea. Nobody ever finishes it.”
“Let’s play,” Rishi said. “Just for fun.”
Mira hesitated. Her gut twisted. But everyone else was already crowding around the screen.
The app launched.
Would you like to begin?
Kabir tapped Yes.
Nothing happened for a second. Then the screen went black.
A slow message typed itself out:
One of you will be chosen.
Do you agree?
The four exchanged glances. Mira laughed nervously. “It’s probably random junk.”
Kabir tapped Yes again.
Suddenly, the app turned the camera on. They all flinched as their faces appeared on screen—lit by the library’s dim light.
A red circle began scanning across their faces… once… twice… then stopped.
On Mira.
Her image flickered. The screen read:
Mira has been marked.
Do you accept?
“Nope. I’m out,” she whispered, standing up, goosebumps crawling across her skin.
But Kabir, without waiting, pressed Yes.
That was the moment everything changed.
That night, Mira couldn’t sleep. The app was still on her phone—even though she never downloaded it. She tried deleting it.
It wouldn’t go.
Every few minutes, her screen lit up with a message:
Do you feel it yet?
She turned off her phone.
Still, something felt wrong.
Her room grew unnaturally cold. Her clock blinked 3:13 AM.
And then—
Her closet door creaked open.
Mira sat bolt upright. “Mom?”
No answer.
Just the sound of slow, wet footsteps. Inside her room.
She reached for her lamp, but the bulb flickered and died.
Her phone buzzed in the dark.
One new message:
It begins now.
The next morning at school, Mira looked pale and shaken. She told the others she barely slept, that something was watching her.
“You’re messing with us,” Kabir said.
“I swear I’m not,” she snapped. “There was someone in my room.”
But Aanya looked uneasy too.
“My mirror cracked on its own last night,” she whispered. “No one touched it.”
Rishi swallowed. “What if we started something real?”
Kabir rolled his eyes. “It’s a prank app, guys. You’re just freaking yourselves out.”
But even he didn’t look convinced.
At lunch, Kabir got a message.
From the app.
You let her say yes.
You’re part of it now.
And then—his phone camera turned on, without warning.
He tried to turn it off, but the screen was frozen. His own face stared back at him, surrounded by a faint red glow.
Then the screen went black.
He dropped the phone like it burned.
Over the next few days, things escalated.
Mira found strange symbols scratched into her desk. Every time she closed her eyes, she saw shadows standing just beyond her reach.
Aanya’s room filled with the sound of whispers at night, voices she couldn’t understand—but they said her name over and over.
Rishi tried deleting the app by smashing his phone. He bought a new one.
The app appeared on that one too.
No one had control anymore.
The messages changed:
There is no “no.”
The game ends with one.
She said yes. The rest must follow.
Then came the last message they all received, at the exact same time.
Final round. Say yes to save her. Say no… and watch.
That night, they met at Mira’s house. She hadn’t come to school. Wasn’t answering her phone.
The front door was unlocked.
Inside, the house was silent.
They found her in her room—barely conscious, curled in bed, lips moving silently.
The phone lay beside her. The app open.
A single question glowed on the screen:
Mira’s time is ending. Will you take her place?
Underneath, the YES button pulsed slowly. Almost… alive.
They all stared at it.
No one moved.
Until Rishi stepped forward.
“Mira doesn’t deserve this,” he whispered. “She didn’t even press yes. We did.”
He touched the screen.
YES.
Mira’s body jerked violently.
Then went still.
Her eyes fluttered open.
Clear. Normal.
She gasped, like surfacing from deep water. “What… happened?”
Aanya screamed.
Because Rishi was gone.
Vanished.
Only his phone remained, lying on the floor.
The app was still open.
But the screen no longer showed Mira.
It showed them.
No one ever saw Rishi again.
Kabir smashed his phone, burned it, and refused to go near a screen for weeks. Aanya changed schools. Mira stopped speaking about what happened—but never walked alone again.
But the app?
It never really left.
Sometimes, at 3:13 AM, their new phones buzz. No contact. No sound. Just a black screen with a single glowing word:
“Ready?”
They never reply.
Not after what happened.
But one night, Aanya’s little brother clicked on something strange while using her phone.
A bright screen. A soft chime.
And then—
“One of you said yes.
Now another must answer.”
They heard him whisper yes from the hallway.
The house went silent.
And when they rushed in—
he was gone.
The only thing left was the phone, face-up, camera still recording.
In the corner of the screen, just for a second,
a shadow moved.
Something tall.
Something smiling.
Something waiting.
So remember:
If a screen ever asks you a question…
Even one that seems harmless—
Even one as simple as “Do you consent?”
Don’t say yes.
Because it doesn’t want permission.
It wants possession.
And once you've let it in—
It never asks again.
It only takes.
And
it never really leaves.
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