Speaker 1: A guy finds an old phone in his locker with
memories that don't belong to him, or do they. My
name is Edwin and here's a scary story. An old,
dusty hoodie was at the bottom of my locker. I
stretched it out in front of an old friend of mine,
who was more excited about it than I was. It
was a sweater I took off in missus Burson's class
because she said it was going to catch on fire.
During chem lab, Paul, my best friend, was trying to
get some help in opening his locker. The guy always
forgot his combination, and it was probably his fourth or
fifth lock that year. Fortunately, we wouldn't have to worry
about it for a while. We were about to be
seniors and it was about to be summer break. So
there I was cleaning out my locker as I had
to do, and everyone else was doing old candy wrappers,
sheets of paper with big red circles and numbers notes
we had passed in class, and stuck at the bottom
of the corner, almost wedged against the bottom of the
locker itself, was a cell phone. I didn't remember ever
having it or borrowing it from anybody. I thought that
maybe someone had gotten the wrong locker and placed it
in there, but the lock was mine and no one
else had been sharing it with me. Had it been
somewhere in between my books one day and it just
stayed there? My stuff was set on the floor. Now
when I inspected it, an iPhone, an older one, maybe
the eight or ten. I think they had skipped nine
for some reason. I couldn't remember it either way. It
didn't look familiar. Its screen was scratched. It looked like
it had been damaged from where you put the cable
to charge it. The hallway was becoming empty now, and
I wasn't even halfway done with separating the trash from
what I was going to be taking home that day.
So I did what I always do it and instead
stuffed everything in the grocery store plastic bag, and then
I put that into my backpack. I would deal with
it later, but the phone, that thing was going to
stay with me. I needed to find out who it
belonged to, or at least was in it, And so
I gave the locker one last look, and I held
the phone and the combination lock in the same hand,
and then I slammed the locker shut one last time,
and I knew something was weird about it. Maybe it
was the faded out color of the phone, how it
felt it was so much lighter than the phone's today.
An actual button was on it, but beyond that, I
kept wondering what it was doing in my locker. Part
of me seemed to remember it, holding it and putting
it away, and the other part knew that I had
never lost a phone, and there was nothing that would
have gotten my parents to replace it for me. The
curiosity was killing me. No one was home when I
got there. I called out to my mom since her
car was out in the front, but my voice echoed
down the hallway. It was completely empty. I went straight
to my room to connect the phone to the cable
next to my bed. The screen was still completely black
and no signs of it turning on. I figured it
needed some time for it to charge up. I mean,
there were some devices that needed that, so I left it.
I went to the fridge and made myself a sandwich.
I kept getting a strange feeling, though, like long forgotten
secrets being told to me again. I heard a sound
from my room, the distinct buzzing of a phone, so
I rushed back there and watched the phone screen turn on.
I pressed the button and the main screen actually showed up.
There was no lock screen, no password. My stomach twisted.
Behind the old app icons, there was a photo a
birthday party, candles glowing against the lens of the camera
that took it. There was a little kid, me grinning
at the camera. I felt my chest tightened. It was
my phone. Although nothing made sense. I had never used it.
My phone was the one that had gotten recently. I
never had this other one, and I couldn't even tell
what version it was. But still, why was there a
picture of me? I wouldn't do that myself even now.
I went straight for the photos app to find hundreds
of family moments, pictures of get togethers and vacations, random
school days, some from a long time ago and others
from the same month. And then I spotted another photo
from yesterday as I scrolled, although I was in all
of them, but then I noticed something. The dark image
as the most recent one I could see it. It
was my bed, a half felt bottle of water on
the night stand, the green alarm clock showing two forty
two am on it. Someone had been in my room
last night. My hands went cold even as I gripped
that phone, but then I felt it. It vibrated through
my hands and of my arms, transforming into a chill
that ran from my shoulders and down my back. A
message had popped up on the screen, an old style
notification from the Messages app. You shouldn't have turned it on,
it read. I stared at it before it vibrated again,
to look at the videos. Then I heard the sound
that beeps when you plug in your phone, likely from
a loose connection. And then, without even thinking about it,
I went straight to the video album. My heart was
hammering so hard I could hear it in my ears.
The video album loaded and a row of thumbnails appeared.
There were dozens, no hundreds of them, all with vague,
unhelpful preview images. Some were just darkness, and others were
blurry streaks of movement. The most recent one sat at
the top, the timestamp two forty two am, the exact
same time as a photo. I swallowed. My throat was dry,
my finger hovered over the screen, a cold sweat forming
on my palms. I didn't want to press play, but
I did. The screen out to black for a moment
before it started. It was my room. The dim glow
of my alarm clock cast a faint green light across
the walls. Everything was still and silent, and then there
was movement. At first, it was subtle, the slightest shift
in the darkness, and then slowly something stepped into frame.
My breath got caught in my throat. A figure stood
at the foot of my bed. It was hard to
make out. The shadows clung to it unnaturally, like it
wasn't just standing in the dark, but made of it.
Its shape was vaguely human, but not Its limbs were
too long, its head tilted at an unnatural angle, and
it didn't move. It just stood there, watching. And then
the worst part, the camera moved. I barely registered the
sound that escaped my lips, a choked, horrified gasp, because
this wasn't just security footage. This wasn't some hidden camera
in my room. Someone was holding the phone. Whoever or
whatever was standing there had taken this video, and that
meant I'd been here, right here in my room. I
scrambled off the bed so fast my knee hit the nightstand,
sending the water bottle crashing to the floor. But I
didn't care. My eyes darted around the room, the phone
still clutched in my shaking hands. I turned on the lamp.
The sudden light burned my retinas, but I didn't care. Nothing.
The room was empty. The closet was opened to crack,
but it had been like that before. The shadow sat still, undisturbed.
I turned back to the video. The footage was still playing.
I could see the figure at the foot of my bed,
and it was stepping closer. A sound crackled through the speaker,
a low, distorted breathing. I was in the video, fast asleep,
completely unaware. The camera angle shifted slightly, like the person
holding it was adjusting their grip, and then it moved,
not fully awake, but shifting in my sleep, like I
sent something standing there, and the breathing stopped. The camera
held steady, and for a moment nothing happened, and then,
just as I settled back into stillness, the figure lunged
forward and the screen went black. I threw the phone
across the room. I hit the wall with a sharp crack,
and landed face down on the carpet. My whole body
was trembling, my breath coming in ragged gasps. That thing,
that thing had been in my room last night, inches
away from me, watching recording, and I never woke up.
The thought made my skin crawl. My instincts screamed at
me to get out of this house, to run, to
burn that phone and never touch it again. Something else,
something deeper, kept me rooted in place, the question how
long has this been happening? Because if there were hundreds
of videos on that phone, that meant last night was
not the first time the phone vibrated. I jumped so
hard I nearly tripped over myself. I lay motionless on
the floor. It scratched, screen, glowing faintly. Another message appeared,
you shouldn't have done that, and then a second message followed,
you can't erase what's already taken. The room suddenly felt
too small. My head was spinning. I didn't want to
check the phone again, but I had to. I picked
it up, my hands still shaking, and I pressed the
button to unlock the screen. The messages were still there,
but something else had changed. A new album had appeared
in the gallery, and it had a name, my name Thomas,
and in parentheses previous owner. My breath hitched previous owner.
My fingers trembled as I scrolled down. There were more names,
Eric previous owner, Daniel previous owner, Megan previous owner, Dozens
and dozens of them. Some names felt vaguely familiar, like
classmates I hadn't thought about in years. Others meant nothing
at all but my name. Why. Something cold settled in
my stomach. My fingers felt numb, but they moved on
their own. Hovering over the folder, every part of me screamed,
don't open it. But at this point I needed to know,
and I tapped it and it opened. Inside were hundreds
of videos, more than in the main gallery. The thumbnails
were the same, dark, grainy, motion blurred, but once stood out.
The title wasn't a date or a timestamp like the others,
It was a single word. Watch. My body felt frozen,
locked in place. Put my thumb pressed down anyway, and
the video started. It was in my room. It was
a different bedroom, but similar, plain walls, messy bed, a
lamp casting a dim yellow light. The camera was shaky,
like whoever was recording had unsteady hands. A boy sat
on the bed, his head down, gripping the sides of
his face like he was trying to hold himself together.
I got chills again, because the boy he looked exactly
like me, same face, same build, same nervous habit of
bouncing his knee when he was stressed. But it had
never never seen this room before, had no memory of
this video. The camera zoomed in slightly, and the boy,
my double, looked up straight into the lens. His eyes
were hollow, rimmed with dark circles. His face was thin, sunken,
and he looked off. And then he spoke. His voice
was horror, barely above a whisper. If you're watching this,
it's already too late. My stomach clenched. It takes them
the memories, little by little. His fingers dug into his temples.
You won't notice at first a detail here, a face there,
But then one day you wake up and you're just gone.
I felt something tightening in my chest again. I don't
know how long I have left. His voice cracked. He
looked around the room as if something was lurking just
out of sight. I try to stop it, I try
to warn them, but it just and he turled off,
his eyes locked onto the camera again. You have to
pass it on. A chill rushed down my spine. Destroying
the phone won't work running won't work. It would always
find its way back to you. The only way to
escape is to give it to someone else. And then
his voice became urgent, desperate, Do it before it takes everything,
before you forget who you are. The screen flickered. The
boy suddenly jolted, his body stiffening. His mouth opened, but
no sound came out his eyes. My eyes widened in terror,
and then something pulled him back. A dark, twisting shadow
burst from the edges of the frame, wrapping around his
limbs and dragging him out of view. The camera tilted wildly.
The screen got blurry. The brightness went up and down, flickering.
Just before the video cut out, a final frame flashed
across the screen, A new shot, A new bedroom, my bedroom.
A dark figure stood at the foot of my bed, watching, waiting.
The phone slipped from my hands. I staggered back. My
breath was shallow, my body numb with shock. This was real.
That thing had been watching me, taking my memories, just
like I had taken his. I tried to think back,
tried to remember things I knew should be clear, my
locker combination, my old home address, my mom's favorite song.
But the answers wouldn't come. It was like they'd been erased.
Panic surged through me. My skin felt too tight and
my mind unraveling. I remembered before you forget who you are.
I knew I had to do something. I had to
A vibration jolted through my hand, the phone a new message.
I didn't want to look, but I did the same,
unknown number times up. I stared at it, my whole
body locking up. The air in my room felt wrong, heavy,
pressing in from all sides. My thoughts were racing, but
I couldn't grasp onto anything solid. I needed to move.
I needed to do something. But then the lights flickered.
My entire room dimmed, the warm glow of my bedside
lamp smothered by a creeping darkness that spread like ink.
I knew I wasn't alone anymore. A sound filled the space,
a slow, wet clicking, like something with too many joints,
shifting in the dark. I turned my head, but my
body felt sluggish, like I was wading through syrup. My
eyes landed on the mirror across the room. My reflection
was not right. I was standing in the middle of
the room, phone still in my hand, but the me
in the mirror wasn't holding anything. He was smiling and
I wasn't. I felt something cold press against my shoulder
and I spun around, but nothing was there. The mirror
me tilted his head, the grin stretched wider, and then
his lips moved. I couldn't hear the words, but I
understood them, Give it to someone else. I stumbled back,
my legs shaking. The room was growing darker and the
shadows were stretching and reaching. I could feel something behind me, close,
watching and waiting. The phone vibrated again, violently, this time
like it was demanding my attention. It was a new message,
that same number, last chance. I was losing time. I
could feel it like sand slipping through my fingers, Memories
flickering away, details vanishing. My mind was breaking. I had
to pass it on, and that's what the boy in
the video had said. That's the only way to escape,
the only way to survive. My hands were slick with
sweat as I gripped the phone, my breath coming in
ragged gasps. Who who could I give it to? I
thought of my friends, my classmates, my mom, and then
a spike of guilt stabbed through my chest. I couldn't
do that. I couldn't let this thing take someone else.
But if I didn't, the lights flickered again, and this
time they went out completely. The darkness was absolute. My
heart beat was the only thing I could hear until
I heard the breathing, not mine, but right next to me.
It was slow, shallow, Then the whisper you're mine. Oh.
Something cold wrapped around my wrist. The phone screen became
brighter and brighter before I couldn't bear it anymore, and
I shut my eyes tight. I tightened them so much
my ears were ringing with the pressure of my own
blood rushing through my head. It was all I could feel.
It was all I could sense. Nothing else mattered because
there was nothing left to remember. Then the ringing in
my ears faded. Silence swallowed me whole, stretching into a heavy,
suffocating void. I couldn't feel my body. I couldn't remember
what I was just thinking about the pressure in my skull.
The burning fear was gone. Everything was gone. I could dream,
slipping from my grasp. The moment I opened my eyes,
I blinked. The hallway was buzzing with voices, lockers slimming, shut,
footsteps echoing, the end of the year. Chaos filled the air,
but it felt distant, muffled, like I was just standing
outside of it. I stared ahead at my locker, a
combination lock in my hand. What was I doing? Oh right,
I was cleaning it out. Paul, my friend, was a
few lockers down, struggling to open his own. He always
forgot his combination I smirked, watching him wrestle with the dial.
The guy had probably gone through five locks this year already.
Huh de javaus. We wouldn't have to worry about this
for a while. We were about to be seniors. Summer
was finally here. I think I thought of this already.
I sighed and pulled open my locker. Old candy wrappers,
crumbled papers, a half empty water bottle that had probably
been there since midsim Yes, I started tossing everything into
a plastic bag, barely paying attention. The routine was muscle memory.
And then my fingers brushed against something, something smooth, something cold.
I frowned and reached deeper, pulling it free. A phone,
an older model, scratched near the charging port, slightly faded
from time. A strange sensation crawled up my spine. Something heavy,
settling in my chest. The phone felt familiar, like I
had held it before, like I had found it before.
I turned it over in my hands, my stomach twisting,
My pull suddenly too loud in my ears. The hallway
noise dulled, like the world had taken one step back,
leaving me standing in the empty space between a thought
and a memory. Had someone left this year, had it
always been in my locker, I should have thrown it
into the lost and Found bin, But instead I slipped
it into my backpack, not knowing I had already done
this before that I was going to do it again.
My thoughts were interrupted just as I was stepping away
from my locker. Russ, the janitor holding a large set
of pliers or cutters, stepped in front of me. You see, Paul, Paul,
my friend though, yeah, I answered, still lost in thought. Okay,
well tell him I just bust open his combination lock
fifth times a charm, right, he said, chuckling as he
walked away. I looked down the nearly empty hallway and
found his locker on the top row. The broken lock
was stangling on the latch. I started walking toward it.
My fingers dug into my backpack, the phone was waiting.
Scary Story podcast has written and produced by me Edwin
ko Uyaz. Thank you for your ratings and reviews. By
the way, you really came through for me on this one.
I noticed it on Apple Podcasts and Spotify, and if
you haven't done so, i'd appreciate it if you'd left
some stars or comments or whatever you can on there.
As long as they see some interaction, I think it
really helps. Anyway, if you're following the show, I will
tell you another story next week. Thank you very much
for listening. Keep it scary everyone, See you soon.