I moved into my current apartment about three months ago.
It’s not a new place. The building is older, the kind where things creak a little at night and the walls are just thin enough that you can hear someone walking in the hallway if it’s quiet.
But it was affordable, and I needed something fast, so I took it.
The previous tenant moved out in a hurry, or at least that’s what the landlord told me. I didn’t think much of it at the time.
Until last week.
I was cleaning out one of the kitchen drawers — one of those deep ones in the back that you don’t really use. It had some random stuff left behind: rubber bands, a couple of old receipts, nothing interesting.
And then I saw the phone.
It was an older model, the kind with a slightly cracked screen and a cheap case. It looked dead, like it hadn’t been touched in a long time.
I almost threw it away.
But for some reason, I didn’t.
I plugged it in.
At first, nothing happened. Then after a minute or two, the screen lit up.
No lock screen.
Just straight into the home screen.
That was the first weird thing.
The second was that it still had a charge history — like it hadn’t been completely dead for that long.
I know I probably should’ve just left it alone.
But I didn’t.
I opened the messages.
There weren’t many conversations. Maybe four or five total. Most of them were short, normal stuff — “I’ll be late,” “Did you get milk,” things like that.
Except one thread.
It didn’t have a name saved. Just a number.
And it was long.
Like… hundreds of messages.
At first, it looked normal too.
Just casual conversation. Jokes, plans, everyday things.
But as I scrolled, the tone started to change.
The messages from the phone owner stayed normal.
But the replies from the other number got… strange.
Shorter.
Delayed.
Sometimes just one word.
Then there were gaps.
Days with no messages, followed by long paragraphs.
I remember one message clearly because it made me stop scrolling:
“I told you not to come back here.”
There was no reply for almost two days after that.
Then the phone owner responded like nothing happened:
“Are we still meeting tomorrow?”
That pattern kept repeating.
One side acting completely normal.
The other slowly getting more distant… and colder.
Then I reached the last few messages.
And this is the part that’s been stuck in my head since.
The second-to-last message from the unknown number said:
“Why are you still in the apartment?”
I felt this weird chill when I read that.
Because at that point, I was literally sitting in that same apartment, holding the phone.
The final message was from the phone owner.
It just said:
“I’m not.”
No messages after that.
No calls.
Nothing.
That was it.
I checked the date.
It was from about two weeks before I moved in.
I didn’t sleep well that night.
The next day, I asked my landlord, casually, what happened to the previous tenant.
He hesitated for a second before answering.
Said they “left suddenly” and didn’t come back for the rest of their things.
I asked if they left a forwarding address.
He said no.
Then I mentioned the phone.
He looked confused.
Said, “They didn’t leave a phone.”
I didn’t push it further.
I still have it.
I haven’t opened the messages again since that night.
But sometimes, when I’m in the kitchen late, I catch myself looking at that drawer.
Just thinking about that last message.
“I’m not.”
And I don’t know why, but it doesn’t feel like it meant what it sounds like.