All those damn chain messages clog up my phone, I respond.
Though, I haven't seen them since I was in middle school.

I swear—it's real. Please just text it out to others. I know it sounds silly..but just please do it.

Her sincerity surprises me. We are both juniors in highschool—I am literally searching for colleges right now, well, I was before I got interrupted.

And so I took any chance to procrastinate. Even if it was arguing about some stupid chain text.

'Yeet Yeet commit self delete'
It reads.

Honestly it sounds like something I would find funny in 7th grade; but now with the deaths of our friends recently, I would think that she would act more...respectful?

When those around you commit suicide, you think that it might have been your fault in some sort of roundabout way.

There are many ways to cope, but this is just going too far, I text her again. Tears blur my vision.

ITS NOT A JOKE I SWEAR! Please just text it within five minutes!

I can't lose you too.

I glare down at my phone, and that damned message.
This has gone way too far.

I can't tell if this is her way of trying to regain control of situations already passed, but I can't handle this now.

I mute her messages, and toss my phone to the other side of the bed.

Slam my computer down a bit harder than needed.

Throw the sheets away from me, and get out of bed.

I pace restlessly in front of my bed.

Why five minutes?
I glance to the alarm on my side table.

9:43 it blares in its signature red, blocky, font.

I chew on my lips, and then I curse myself as I pick the phone back up again to see the time of the message sent.

She has been spamming me frantically since I muted her, and I don't care to read those anytime soon.

I scroll up quickly, yet her desperation bleeds from her blurred words on the screen.

Check the time for that message.

9:39.

One more minute.
For some reason it makes me uneasy.
My stomach crumples into itself, and my heartbeat quickens.

I turn off the phone again and put it facedown on the sheets.

I speed walk to my bathroom and I almost slam the door.
I take a second to look at myself, and I defy my fear.

This is some elaborate prank, I swear.

My anger ignites, and so I leave the door swinging on its hinges, and I look at myself in the mirror.

My memories of them feel like knives. Knives I once held by the handle to cut their slices of birthday cake, knives to play an impromptu game of darts with hearts, now these knives of mine don't have any handles.

They're just blades. And my blood stains the rug on their bedrooms, on the grass in elementary school, on the wood of the roller skating rink we went to every weekend.

My face is a chaotic mixture of emotions,
anger,
disbelief,

fear.

My fists are balled up on the counter, and I look away from my pitiful self.

I can hear my phone buzzing loudly, suddenly.

I startle, and look back at it.

Its buzzing doesn't cease.

I stand there in silence, as it flips itself over on my bed from the sheer force of its vibrations.

And I shatter that silence with a scream as a pale, gaunt, hand reaches out of the screen.

Inspired by CuteCookieStabbyBear