CHAPTER 5. "The Status You Didn’t Post" by Abrar Nayeem Chowdhury. The Best Modern Devil Horror Thriller Web Novel
CHAPTER 5: The Girl Who Shouldn’t Speak
“He’s been waiting for you.”
Mira’s scream died in her throat, swallowed by a silence so heavy it felt like the building itself was listening.
Layla recoiled backward, her hands shaking. “She’s talking—Mira, she’s talking—she wasn’t talking a second ago—”
Mira couldn’t answer.
She couldn’t breathe.
The girl’s neck twisted—not painfully, but with the slow grace of something getting used to new muscles.
Her eyes were fixed on Mira.
Unblinking.
Bright with something that did not belong to the living.
She whispered again, this time with a voice that sounded layered, as if many throats were speaking through one mouth:
“You touched me.
So he touched you.”
Mira stumbled back, nearly slipping in the dark smear of blood beneath her shoes.
Layla reached for her, tears streaking her face. “We need to get her help—we need to move her—Mira, look at me—”
But Layla’s words dissolved into static.
Mira’s phone vibrated again.
New message from ThingThatFeasts
Her fingers trembled as the screen lit up.
“Five truths demand blood.”
She blinked hard. “Blood? Whose—”
The Devil’s answer arrived before the sentence fully left her mouth:
“Yours.
Hers.
Anyone.
I do not discriminate.”
The injured girl—no, not injured anymore—sat upright with impossible steadiness.
Her wounds still bled, but faintly, as if the body had forgotten to care.
“Mira,” Layla whispered. “Don’t go near her.”
Mira didn’t plan to.
But the girl crawled toward her.
Not fast.
Not threatening.
Worse.
Calmly.
Smoothly.
As if following a path already written.
The girl’s bloody hand reached out, stopping just short of Mira’s ankle.
She tilted her head.
A child’s gesture.
A demon’s intention.
“He says you remember him now.”
Mira gasped, clutching the wall to steady herself. “I don’t—I don’t remember anything—I don’t know him—”
The girl’s voice lowered, turning almost tender:
“Memory is a room you keep locked.
He is the one turning the key.”
Layla grabbed Mira’s arm hard. “We need to get out of here. Now.”
But Mira’s phone buzzed again.
A new status posted itself.
“Mira Rahman knows the truth she pretends to forget.”
Another line appeared beneath it, the letters sharp as needles:
“At age seven, she made her first bargain.”
Mira’s knees buckled.
“No,” she whispered.
“No, I didn’t—there was nothing—there was no bargain—”
The girl’s head tilted slowly backward until her gaze met the ceiling.
Her mouth opened wider than any human mouth should, stretching like a crack splitting through porcelain.
Her voice came out as a low, humming chant:
“He gave you silence.
You gave him an opening.”
The hallway lights flickered.
Layla screamed.
Mira covered her ears, but the chant burrowed through skin, bone, thought.
Then—
A single knock echoed from the dorm room behind them.
Not from the door.
From inside.
The girl on the floor froze mid-chant.
Her head swiveled toward the dorm room with a slow, jerking motion.
Layla whispered, “Please tell me that’s not—”
Another knock.
Soft.
Careful.
Patient.
Her phone lit up.
A new message:
“Shall we revisit your childhood?”
Another knock.
Harder.
Mira’s breath shattered in her chest.
The Devil’s final message of the chapter arrived, cruel in its quiet:
“Open the door, Mira.
Truth number five waits inside.”
And the injured girl began crawling toward the dorm door, and her blood crept along the tiles in a thin, obedient line, as if drawn toward the dorm door by an unseen hand.
She crawled without urgency, but with certainty—like a pet returning to its master.
Layla grabbed Mira by the wrist. “We’re not staying for this. We run. Right now.”
But Mira didn’t move.
Her phone buzzed again.
A tiny sound, barely audible, but somehow louder than Layla’s trembling voice.
New Notification: “Memories Auto-Loading…”
Her stomach dropped.
Her throat tightened as if invisible fingers pressed against it.
“What… what is it loading?” Mira whispered.
Layla shook her head. “Mira, forget the phone. Look at her!”
But Mira could not look away from the screen.
A blurry thumbnail began sharpening, pixel by pixel.
A video.
Timestamp: 11 years ago.
Title: “Playtime Behind the School.”
Mira choked. “No. No, that’s not possible. Nothing was recorded. There was no camera—”
Layla’s face twisted. “What video? Who recorded it?”
Mira’s answer broke into pieces. “No one.”
The girl crawling toward the door paused.
Her head turned… slowly… listening.
The video thumbnail is fully sharpened.
A small child—Mira, at seven years old—standing behind the school.
Alone.
Digging.
Layla covered her mouth. “Mira… is that… you?”
The Devil’s message appeared over the video like a shadow falling over a face:
“Children rarely understand the price of a promise.”
Mira’s hands trembled violently. “I didn’t make a promise. I didn’t—”
Behind them, the girl hissed.
Not like a person.
Not like an animal.
Like steam escaping from a cracked coffin.
Her body jerked once, twice, and then—
She stood.
Not slowly.
Not naturally.
One moment crawling.
The next upright.
A broken marionette pulled to its feet.
Layla screamed, stumbling backward. “No—she can’t—she was dying—”
The girl’s spine straightened with a sickening series of clicks.
Her jaw opened slightly.
Her eyes—those too-wide eyes—intensified.
And then she spoke again, but this time in a whisper shaped like a smile:
“He showed me your childhood, too.”
Mira’s pulse hammered like a trapped bird.
The girl took a step toward them.
Every light in the hallway snapped off.
Complete darkness.
Then—
A faint, pulsing red glow lit the hall.
Not from the ceiling.
Not from phones.
From the girl’s chest.
Her ribcage flickered like a lantern, shadows dancing through the thin skin.
Layla whimpered. “Mira, what is that? What is she—what is she becoming?”
Mira felt her own voice crack.
“She’s… showing us something.”
The girl lifted a hand.
Not at Mira.
Not at Layla.
On the hallway walls.
They began to ripple.
Smoothly, silently, like screens waking from sleep.
Then the walls lit up—square by square—each tile glowing like an LED screen.
And on each one, a face appeared.
Mira’s face.
Age seven.
Age ten.
Age twelve.
Age seventeen.
Hundreds of versions of Mira.
All staring at her.
All expressionless.
All silent.
Layla backed away until she hit the opposite wall. “What is this? Who recorded these? Why—”
The Devil’s message appeared across all the glowing Mira faces at once, scrolling like a living billboard:
“Humans document everything.
Photos. Memories. Secrets.
You delete only what embarrasses you.
Never what damns you.”
The faces blinked simultaneously.
Mira screamed.
The walls flickered again.
This time, the images changed.
Not Mira.
Other people.
People she knew.
People she didn’t.
People she passed daily and never looked at.
Strangers taking selfies.
Friends posting fake smiles.
Influencers crying for likes.
Couples pretending happiness.
People performing their lives for invisible eyes.
Every tile showed someone lying.
Someone hiding.
Someone pretending.
The Devil’s words crawled across the screens:
“Today’s truth is curated.
Today’s guilt is filtered.
Today’s soul is archived, stored, backed up, and sold to the highest fear.”
Mira’s legs weakened.
She grabbed the wall to keep from falling.
Layla covered her ears. “Stop it. Stop it—please stop it.”
But the screens kept glowing.
One last image appeared.
A new one.
A live feed.
Mira’s heart collapsed into itself.
It was them.
Right now.
In the hallway.
Captured from an angle behind them—
as if someone… or something… stood just inches away.
Breathing.
Watching.
Filming.
And then the live feed zoomed in.
Closer.
Closer.
Not on Layla.
Not on the resurrected girl.
But on Mira’s back.
Right where her hair brushed her spine.
A shadow crept into the frame behind her.
Tall.
Bent.
Smiling in the pixel glow.
Mira felt breath on her neck.
Her phone buzzed.
The Devil’s final line of the extended chapter arrived:
“Truth number five is this:
You never stopped inviting me.”
And something cold placed a hand on Mira’s shoulder.
To Be Continued...
Chapter 4: https://storylinespectrum.blogspot.com/2025/12/chapter-4-status-you-didnt-post-by.html
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