CHAPTER 4. The Status You Didn’t Post BY Abrar Nayeem Chowdhury - A Terrifying Modern Devil Horror Thriller Web Novel About Social Media, Secrets, and Sin

 CHAPTER 4: The Girl in the Hallway

Darkness swallowed the hallway as if someone had painted over the world with a single, merciless stroke.

Layla’s scream echoed somewhere ahead, but the dark muffled it—turning it into something damp and distant.

Mira didn’t move.

She couldn’t.

Her bones felt filled with cold sand, heavy and useless. The shadows on the walls seemed to breathe—slow, greedy breaths that pulled the heat from her skin.

Then the phone vibrated in her hand.

Once.

Twice.

A third time—longer, like a warning.

New Message from ThingThatFeasts

Her thumb hovered over the screen, shaking.

The message opened on its own.

“You are late.”

Mira’s breath hitched. “Please… please don’t let anything happen to her…”

The Devil replied instantly, almost indifferently:

“I do nothing.
You are the one who watches.”

A faint rustling drifted through the corridor—the sound of someone trying to move but failing.
Layla.
The injured girl.
Someone.

Mira stepped into the hallway. The darkness pressed against her, thick as smoke. Her fingers brushed the wall, grounding herself, but even the wall felt wrong—warm in spots, like flesh.

She forced her voice out. “Layla?”

A weak sound answered—not quite a word, more like a wet exhale.

Mira inched forward.

Halfway down the hallway, she stumbled over something. She crouched and felt the floor, expecting blood, or a shoe, or—

It was cold.
Metallic.
A phone.

Not hers.
Not Layla’s.

Its cracked screen flickered to life for a moment.

A text message glowed faintly:

“Help me please, I'm—”

Then the light died, leaving her in darkness again.

Something shifted behind her.

She spun around. Nothing but shadows—yet they looked thicker than before, layered, almost crowded.

Her phone buzzed.

The Devil’s message arrived:

“You should move faster.
Her breathing slows.”

Mira’s throat tightened. She broke into a staggered run toward the faint shape lying at the end of the hall.

As she approached, the darkness thinned enough for a pale outline to emerge.

The girl on the floor was barely conscious—her hair matted, face scraped, blood seeping down her arms.
Layla knelt beside her, shaking, trying to stop the bleeding with trembling hands.

“Mira!” Layla cried. “She fell—she’s losing so much blood—my phone won’t turn on—yours might—call someone, please!”

Mira knelt, fumbling for her phone.

But the screen glowed with a new post.

“Mira Rahman stands over the dying and does nothing.”

“No,” she whispered. “No, I’m trying—”

She tapped the call icon.
The screen froze.
Then the Devil’s message appeared over the dial pad, smothering it:

“Is this the moment you redeem yourself?
Or shall I write your fourth truth?”

Mira threw the phone to the floor and reached for the injured girl.
Her hands shook violently—but this time she moved. She applied pressure to the wound, her palms flooding with warmth.

Layla sobbed with relief. “Thank God—finally—finally—”

“Oh,” the Devil’s voice murmured from behind them, just above a whisper, “but I am no God.”

Mira froze.
She didn’t turn.
She didn’t need to.

She felt him.

The air chilled.
The hallway seemed to shrink.
Every shadow leaned inward.

The Devil’s breath touched the back of her neck, cold enough to sting.

“You think pressing your hands onto a girl’s blood absolves you?”

She closed her eyes, tears streaking down her cheeks. “I’m helping her. I’m calling the ambulance.”

“Are you?”
His voice slithered into her ear, too close.
“Because I see the thought clawing behind your heartbeat.
I smell it on your skin.”

Mira’s next inhalation trembled.

“You want to run.”

The girl on the floor groaned, twitching.
Layla shouted, “Mira, her pulse is dropping, call for help!”

Mira reached again for her phone.

The Devil stepped between her and the light of the screen, casting an impossible shadow—shifting, writhing, wrong.

His voice deepened, echoing through the hallway walls:

“Tell her, Mira.
Tell Layla.
Tell the dying girl.
Tell them what you truly want.”

“I want her to live!” Mira screamed.

But even as the words left her mouth, doubt curdled inside her.

And the Devil heard it.

He always heard it.

He leaned closer, his presence pressing against her skull like heavy hands.

“Liar.”

The lights flickered back on with a harsh snap.

For one heartbeat, Mira saw him fully—
Tall, leaning over her shoulder, his long hands resting on the walls, his face a shifting blur of hunger and fire.

Then he vanished—leaving only the hallway, too bright now, like a stage.

Layla stared at Mira, shaking. “Call someone! Why are you frozen? Mira—what’s wrong with you?”

Mira picked up her phone.

The screen buzzed.

A new status posted by itself:

“Mira Rahman lets her friend die today.”

Mira screamed—a sound raw enough to tear her throat.

Layla recoiled. “Mira—?”

But Mira didn’t stop screaming, because her phone lit with one more message:

“Four secrets revealed.
Nine remain.
And the next one… is not about the past.
It is about the girl you are touching.”

Before Mira could react, the injured girl lifted her head.

Her eyes snapped open—unnaturally wide.

And in a voice that wasn’t human, she whispered:

“He’s been waiting for you.”

To Be Continued...

CHAPTER 3: https://storylinespectrum.blogspot.com/2025/12/chapter-3-status-you-didnt-post-by.html