JOIN FOR CHAPTER 2

"what if the last person who texted you... was already dead?"

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Genre: Dark romance × supernatural thriller × found family

Tropes: Enemies-to-lovers, morally grey FMC, "he fell first," unreliable narrator, slow burn that combusts

Vibe: If A Court of Thorns and Roses had a baby with You and raised it on Reddit threads at 3 AM

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Chapter 1: delivered ✓

The notification came at 3:47 AM.

Not the time that bothered Noor — she was already awake, doom-scrolling through her ex-best friend's finsta like the emotionally unregulated person she was. It was the name.

Kian Ashraf.

Kian, who had ghosted her three months ago. Kian, who'd left her on read after she'd sent him a voice note at 2 AM confessing that she might actually, genuinely, embarrassingly like him. Kian, who she'd written off as yet another boy with commitment issues and a Spotify wrapped full of Radiohead.

Kian, who — according to every news outlet, every Instagram story, every whispered conversation at uni — had been dead for six weeks.

kian.a: you need to stop looking for me

She stared at the message until her screen dimmed.

Then she typed back.

noor: bro what

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Three dots appeared. Disappeared. Appeared again.

kian.a: i'm serious. delete this conversation. forget my name. move on.

Noor laughed — the kind of laugh that sounds like crying if you're not paying attention. She screenshot the conversation. Then she screenshot it again, because the first one had her battery percentage showing and she had standards.

noor: you've been dead for six weeks and THIS is what you open with? not "hey sorry I ghosted you" or "btw I'm alive lol"?

kian.a: noor.

noor: you don't get to "noor." me right now

kian.a: there are things you don't understand

noor: then EXPLAIN. use your words. you literally have a literature degree.

The dots hovered for a long time. Then:

kian.a: i can't explain. not here. not like this.

kian.a: but if you keep looking for answers, they'll find you too.

kian.a: and i can't lose you. not again.

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Noor read that last line four times.

Not again.

What did he mean, again?

She closed the app. Opened it. Closed it. Threw her phone across the bed. Retrieved it. Typed a response. Deleted it. Typed another one.

noor: who is "they"?

Read 3:52 AM

No response.

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She should have listened. She should have deleted the conversation, blocked the number, gone back to her regularly scheduled program of midterms and mediocre coffee and pretending she was fine.

But Noor had never been good at leaving things alone.

And whatever Kian Ashraf had gotten himself into — whatever had made a dead boy send texts at 3 AM — she was going to find out.

Even if it killed her too.

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