I woke up at 2 a.m. to 18 missed calls from my daughter and a text: “Dad, help! Come fast!!” I drove to her home like mad.
My daughter and her fiancé looked surprised to see me. She said, “I never texted you!” But as I left their place, I got another text and froze. It said, “I’m not done yet.”
I stood in the hallway outside her apartment, my phone screen glaring up at me like an eye in the dark.
My heart pounded so hard I could barely hear myself think. The corridor was silent except for the hum of a nearby elevator.
I felt like I was standing in a nightmare, caught between relief that my daughter was safe and a cold dread seeping into my bones. Who had sent those messages?
And what did they want?
I walked back to my car, scanning the empty parking lot, half-expecting someone to jump out from behind a bush. My hands shook as I unlocked the door. I sat behind the wheel for a moment, trying to steady my breathing.
Another message lit up my phone: “You failed her once. Don’t fail her again.” My stomach dropped. I hadn’t thought about that night in years.
Fifteen years earlier, when my daughter was barely ten, there had been an accident.
I was late picking her up from a friend’s birthday party. It was raining hard, and she waited for me outside. A neighbor found her soaked and shivering on the porch, crying her eyes out.
The guilt from that day never really left me.
I worked so much back then, always chasing promotions, missing dinners, school plays, and birthdays. I tried to make it up to her over the years, but I knew some wounds never fully heal.
The text felt like a knife twisting in an old scar. I clenched my teeth, gripping the steering wheel.
“Who is this?” I typed back. No response. I called the number.
Straight to voicemail. I started the car and drove around the block, hoping maybe I’d see someone lurking, but the streets were deserted. It was 3 a.m.
by then, and the city felt like it had gone to sleep, leaving only me and this nameless threat awake.
I decided not to tell my daughter about the messages. She looked so happy with her fiancé, her laughter filling the apartment like music. I didn’t want to ruin that with my paranoia.
But when I got home, I couldn’t sleep. I paced the kitchen, phone in hand, rereading the messages until sunrise. Around 6 a.m., I called my friend Sam, who worked in IT security.
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