Chapter 2: 𝓦𝓱𝔂 𝓐𝓻𝓮 𝓨𝓸𝓾 𝓢𝓽𝓲𝓵𝓵 𝓣𝓮𝔁𝓽𝓲𝓷𝓰 𝓜𝓮?

Monday, April 4th

Cory's eyes fluttered open to nothing but darkness. Judging by the lack of sunlight, he came to the conclusion that it was the middle of the night. He reached over to his phone that was sitting on the nightstand and he squeezed his eyes shut at the blinding light of his lock screen. The numbers 3:18am were written across the screen.

Once his eyes adjusted to the light, he noticed twenty-one missed calls from his dad and fifteen unread messages from his mom. He was still cooling off from his fight with him so he ignored his voicemails, but continued to read his messages from mom.

'Where are you?'

'Are you okay?'

'Ignore your father. You know I'll always support you and your decisions'.

After he read the rest, he noticed the conversation thread with the person he thought was Kendall. He was wide awake at the moment and lying on his back, stressing over the fight would keep him up all night. Cory figured he might as well strike up a conversation with this mystery person.

Unknown:
Sent 3:21am

Hey.

Unknown:
Sent 3:26am

Hello?

Unknown:
Sent 3:31am

Are you there

Unknown:
Sent 3:35am

Hellooo?

(xxx) xxx-xxxx:
Sent 3:35am

Why are you still texting me? I thought I told you you got the wrong number.

Unknown:
Sent 3:36am

I'm bored I thought I'd get to know you
better

(xxx) xxx-xxxx:
Sent 3:37am

First of all, do you have any idea how creepy that sounds?

Unknown:
Sent 3:37am

Shit

Rereading it now it lowkey sounds creepy.

(xxx) xxx-xxxx
Sent 3:38am

Not lowkey. Highkey.

Unknown:
Sent 3:38am

Okay fine It was highkey creepy.

But clearly, you don't mind me texting you. Otherwise, you would've blocked me after the first time I texted you.

(xxx) xxx-xxxx
Sent 3:39am

I didn't think you'd keep texting me.

I don't know what time it is where you are, but it's 3:40am here.

Unknown:
Sent 3:39am

It's 3:40am here too

(xxx) xxx-xxxx:
Sent 3:40am

Then why aren't you sleeping?

Unknown:
Sent 3:40am

Can't sleep

(xxx) xxx-xxxx:
Sent 3:40am

I can.

Good night!

Gracie couldn't believe the audacity of this psycho stranger. All she wanted was to curl up in her sheets and forget the day ever happened. Of all nights this serial killer randomly selected her number to text at an ungodly hour, he has to choose the night that she needed sleep the most.

Unknown:
Sent 3: 41am

Wait

Please talk to me.

(xxx) xxx-xxxx:
Sent 3:40am

How do I know you're not some psycho predator luring in young girls to kidnap them?

Unknown:
Sent 3:41am

I'm not I promise

(xxx) xxx-xxxx:
Sent 3:41am

And I'm supposed to trust some random stranger? Yeah right. That's exactly what a serial killer would say.

Unknown:
Sent 3:41am

I can assure you I'm not I'm just bored.

(xxx) xxx-xxxx:
Sent 3:42am

Ugh. Fine. It's too early in the morning for this. If you want to get to know me, at least text me at 6 or 7.

Unknown:
Sent 3:43am

That's still pretty early...

(xxx) xxx-xxxx:
Sent 3:43am

I'm still a morning person. Just not a middle-of-the-night person. Now, bye!

-

Author's note- If you noticed that I didn't use punctuation with Cory's texts, that was on purpose.

Not everyone texts perfectly. ESPECIALLY in the middle of the night. Gracie does because she's a grammar nazi. So to make it more realistic, I added some grammar mistakes on his side.