I, like most people with a phone these days have some sort of video scrolling app, it’s not the most productive way to spend precious free time. It always manages to draw you in, scrolling from video to video. Before you know it an hour has gone by, right in front of your eyes. I enjoy watching creepy videos, unexplained sightings and also some more light hearted content, like memes and various comedy show scenes. Every so often the latest trend video or a person trying to much to gain a follow pops up. This may seem to most like a sad way to spend our most valuable asset on but hey, it does provoke my interest.
I get that their algorithm feeds off what you watch or the video you spend more than 2-3 seconds watching. It’s pretty smart that way, I’ve got into a habit of watching a certain type of video knowing it will throw up similar stuff for me to watch. I’m Chris by the way, I thought I would let you know my name as it seems somewhat relevant to what happened to me. I was scrolling through my home feed the other day when a video came up, it had no likes or no comments.
I watched it with interest, it was as if someone had videoed something by accident. I could see it was at night, the footage swayed as if someone was running with there phone in hand. Every so often I could see a motion blurred light, which I assumed was street lights. The sound was muffled but I could hear fast paced footsteps and someone shouting. It might have been my mind but I’m sure it was saying “Chris, Chris, where are you Chris!”. Now you see why I mentioned my name earlier. I thought that it was weird and I pressed on their profile, they only had one video. Their username was DarkNightzz, they had no profile picture and the video was uploaded a week ago.
I didn’t think to much of it and went back to my mindless scrolling, I don’t think I went back on the app until the next day. I got back from work and had just put a pizza in the oven. I opened the app and went through my almost daily binge. Around 10 minutes of watching and scrolling later another strange video came up. It was from the same person. This one seemed to be in a car, the camera of the phone was faced down on the dashboard. Then about 5 seconds into the video a voice is heard “I know where you are Chris, you better get going”. An image of what looked like a close up of a blade then flashed up at the end. The voice was clearly that of a man but like they were doing a really bad impression of the DC villain The Joker.
I pressed the profile once again, I could see the other video I had come across the day before. This time though, there was a few likes and comments from other people named Chris. One said “I’m here!” The other just said, “boo”. The account also had amassed 5 followers, of course they were all named Chris. I thought it was a bit of fun, so I liked the video and followed the user. I suddenly remembered my pizza, triggered by the smell of burning. It was inedible. It was a Friday night so I thought I would go and get takeout, as the pizza place was only round the corner.
I bumped into my old school friend, Tom while I was in there, I got talking to him about the strange videos I found. He said he was back in town after his marriage broke down. He invited me back to his apartment as he wanted us to have a catch up. We ended up going back to his place with a few pizzas. We played some Xbox and reminisced about the old days. We used to be best friends in school but over the years we lost contact. I ended up crashing at his for the night as I had a few beers so couldn’t drive home.
I went back to mine in the morning, I had just got into the door when my phone rang. My boss needed me to go into the office, which I reluctantly accepted. He needed me there as soon as possible as 3 staff members had called in sick. I left the house after getting changed but annoyingly left my phone at home.
Later that day I came back to find my front door was slightly open, I cussed to myself as I thought I hadn’t shut the door properly in my rush. That’s when I noticed the lock had been broken. I slowly pushed the door open with looming fear and called out if anyone was there.
“Hello, Hello. Is anyone in here?”
I was only answered by Silence. I proceeded to go into my hallway. I felt like a stranger in my own home as I carefully made my way into each room, holding my breath with every door I opened. No one was inside, nothing appeared to be taken either. My phone was still next to my bed thankfully, I proceeded to call the police. They came quicker than I was expecting and took my statement, they swept the place for any fingerprints. They found nothing but advised me to get the locks changed and maybe stay with a relative or friend for a few nights.
I called someone out to fix my front door and packed some stuff to go stay with my parents. They only lived 30 minutes drive away and they had enough space for me to stay. Once I got set up in my old room, I opened up the app to try and ease my stress. I was mainly focused on the meme/comedy videos this time, as wasn’t really in the mood for all that creepy stuff. 15 minutes past, then an unliked, uncommented video flashed up from the same user I followed yesterday. I thought to myself what shit had they posted this time. It started very much the same, the camera faced down and muffled sounds, then around 20 seconds something lifted into view. My stomach dropped, there was my house, what the hell was my house doing in this video. I continued watching in sickening panic as they made their way up my steps to my porch, I heard him laugh. He said in a sinister tone “I found you Chris, you followed me, now I’m following you back”.
The fear as I was watching was incomprehensible, all the horrifying thoughts that were now running through my head. Why the hell were they at my house. A metal crowbar came into view, the camera went dark as I heard a muffled scraping followed by a crack. My skin crawled as he made his way through my doorway, MY. GOD DAMN. DOORWAY! He proceeded to go into each one of my rooms, until he just stopped. I heard a heavy sigh in the background, a voice then said
“Where are you Chris, you were supposed to be here!” his voice turned to anger and frustration towards the end of that sentence.
The video went dark once again as I heard muffled footsteps they were moving quicker this time. Then after around 5 seconds another image flashed up, it was a photo of me. I was asleep on my friends sofa bed, then nothing the video just started again.
My hands and face felt numb, I couldn’t stop shaking. I hadn’t felt fear like this since I was a boy, waiting in the dentist chair to get one of my teeth extracted. I felt sick. How long had he been watching me for? What if I hadn’t seen the videos? What if I was at home? I got in my car and went to the police station straight away. I opened the app to show them the videos but as I clicked on the user, there were no videos, no followers, nothing. The police may not have believed me but the likes from his previous videos were still visible on his profile. He had made a mistake. I once again made a statement, and left them to deal with it as I went back to my parents.
The following day the police knocked on my parents door, I answered and let them in. I could see in their faces, it wasn’t good news. They told me that they had found my friend Tom dead in his apartment. I said with tears in my eyes, this was my fault. I had got him involved and whoever was filming me in his apartment must have killed him. As I frantically spluttered all of this to the policemen, one of them stopped me.
They said “No, you don’t understand. He shot himself”.
A mixture of confusion and sadness overcame me as I forced the words out,
“What?! I was only with him yesterday, he seemed fine”.
The officer sighed, that wasn’t all.
He continued “We also found some disturbing material involving you in his apartment, it seems he had been following and taking pictures of you for at least a month”.
My breathing started to turn to irregular quiver as I knew what they were about to tell me next. I fucking knew.
They explained that they found the mobile device next to his body, it had all of the footage and photos that I had told them about and more. It also had a well thought out step by step plan on how he was going to murder me in my own home. How inviting me back to his place was a way of making me feel more comfortable and at ease with him. He had been tracking my phone which is how he knew where I was. The coincidentally meeting in that pizza place now seemed sinisterly constructed. It appears me leaving my phone that day was probably the best mistake I had ever made.
I was told how lucky I was but I didn’t feel it, I was tormented by what Tom had done. We had known each other since we were 5. I didn’t understand, that was until they showed me the last video.
Tom was sat facing the camera, he looked a wreck as he stared blankly and said “Chris, you never called, you never even sent me a god damn email.” Tears rolled down his face “we were best friends for 10 years but when we left school you discarded me like a piece of fucking trash. You went off and left me, with your straight A’s and fancy scholarship. You didn’t even acknowledge me when I called or sent you messages. You were ‘too busy’ for me. I had no one to turn too”. He took a deep breath in, stood up and walked towards the camera. He then spoke his last words,
“Do you notice me now?”
The video stopped.
I sold my place not long after as I just couldn’t stay there. It has now been 2 years since this all happened. The therapy is slowly dulling the flashbacks but I still can’t get more than 3 hours sleep at night.
I deleted the app not long after all of that, I don’t even have a smartphone anymore.
Think carefully about what you come across online, and think twice before following people.
They might just follow you back.