Nimra hadn't cried.
Not when Faizan disappeared.
Not when the cursed app vanished.
Not even when she read the last message on her phone:
"THE CHAIN IS BROKEN. FOR NOW."
She just sat there.
Staring at her screen. Waiting for it to glitch. For the countdown to return. For Faizan to walk through the door and say it was all a mistake.
But silence wrapped around her like a blanket soaked in ice.
Faizan was gone.
And whatever had cursed him… had chosen.
But why did she still feel watched?
The next week passed in a blur.
Nimra returned to college. To the same dusty lecture halls. The same busy corridors.
No one knew what had happened.
Faizan was "on leave," his mother had told the university. "Visiting relatives." But his number was disconnected. His email deactivated. His hostel room cleaned out.
He'd erased himself like he never existed.
But Nimra remembered.
Every detail. Every whisper.
Every confession.
She couldn't sleep.
Not because she was scared — but because she kept hearing voices.
Not her own.
Others.
Day 9
She heard it first in the library. A soft whisper between the shelves.
"He never forgave me. I buried the letter. He never knew I loved him."
She turned, heart pounding.
No one was there.
She shook it off as fatigue.
But the next day, during a lecture, the voice returned — clearer this time.
"She drowned her baby in the hostel sink. It cried for 10 minutes."
Nimra dropped her pen.
The room was silent. No one else reacted.
She stared around, trembling.
Was she going insane?
Or had something followed her?
That night, she sat in Faizan's old room, staring at his cracked laptop.
It still had the CHAIN_ORIGIN folder backed up on a flash drive.
She plugged it in.
And hit play.
Dozens of confessions.
Dozens of secrets.
Then — a new file.
One that wasn't there before.
nimra_echo_001.mp3
She froze.
Clicked it.
Her own voice, whispering:
"I broke the chain. But the echoes remain. And they want to be heard."
Her blood ran cold.
Someone — or something — had recorded her.
The air grew heavy. Her breath fogged the screen.
And then… her phone buzzed.
She hadn't used it in hours.
No apps open. No notifications.
Just a single, blinking recording symbol in the top corner.
She hadn't pressed anything.
And yet… it was recording her silence.
The next morning, she woke to find her mirror fogged — though the windows were shut.
On the glass, a message written with a finger:
"Tell their stories."
She backed away, gasping.
She wasn't the target anymore.
But she had become something else.
A vessel.
A host for the voices of those who died in the chain.
And they wanted one thing:
To be heard.
Day 12
Nimra started writing them down.
Every whisper. Every confession.
A girl who poisoned her roommate's tea.
A boy who let his father hang himself and pretended it was suicide.
A librarian who replaced a rare manuscript with a forged one and buried the original.
Nimra filled a journal.
Each story darker than the last.
Each one coming from nowhere — and everywhere.
She felt less like a girl and more like a medium.
The app was gone.
But the curse had evolved.
She met Inspector Jaleel that afternoon.
He had once investigated the string of suicides Faizan was tracking.
Now, he was interested in Nimra — especially after one of her professors reported her "strange behavior."
"You claim to hear… confessions?" he asked, voice skeptical.
Nimra handed him the journal.
He flipped through it, frowning.
"Some of these cases are real. Names of victims from closed investigations."
"I know," she whispered. "They told me."
He looked up. "Who told you?"
She hesitated. Then softly: "The ones who died because of the chain."
Silence.
Then the inspector leaned forward. "You're either lying… or you're the key I've been waiting for."
He slid over a file.
Photos of victims. Suicide notes. Crime scene reports. All different cities. Different methods.
But one thing in common:
Each victim's phone was shattered. Each one had tried to confess.
"I don't believe in curses," Jaleel said. "But I believe in patterns. And you're the first person to survive one."
She swallowed. "Faizan didn't."
"No." The inspector tapped the table. "But maybe he chose to end the curse. For you."
That night, Nimra received an email.
No sender.
No subject.
Just a video file.
She opened it.
It was Faizan.
He looked thinner. Pale. Somewhere dark — a basement? A cellar?
His voice was shaky.
"If you're seeing this… then you're still alive. Good. That means it worked. The chain broke. But it's not over. The app is only the surface layer. The real curse… is the echo."
He looked behind him, eyes wide.
"They speak to me too now. But differently. Through static. Through screens. I see their faces. I think I'm in the origin point now — not the factory, something deeper. A source."
The screen glitched.
Then his final words:
"If you want to stop this, Nimra, don't find me. Just listen. They'll tell you what to do."
The video ended.
Nimra stared at her reflection in the dark window.
Behind her, shadows moved — not real ones, but flickers of memory.
She wasn't haunted.
She was chosen.
And she had a job now.
To tell the stories of the dead.
To reveal every buried secret.
And maybe — just maybe — to stop the next app before it spreads.
To be continued…