my r/nosleep favorites | volume one

I Dared My Best Friend to End My Life [Part 2]

continuing from part 1

Hello again, everyone.

Thank you for the strong support and suggestions. I'm reading every one and hoping that some of your predictions are true, and some are false. I'll jump right in and keep updating the sequence of events from last night to this morning.

I was going to call Hernandez right after posting my last update, but I had another idea.

I went to Katie's house instead. I would have called, but I didn't have her number. Her calm demeanor from before made me think she would be the best person to approach about this. Hernandez might have set up a crime scene and taken away all the evidence I had found.

I didn't touch anything in Zander's hideout before I left. I figured it was better to have Katie see it as it was when I'd arrived.

Katie's home is about an hour from Zander's hideout, which is pretty lucky considering all the other options for hideouts that are much further away.

I knocked on her door at 9 PM and her startled mother opened up with the chain strung across the door. It took a moment of convincing for me to be allowed inside to speak with Katie. Katie acted even more blank than before around her mother. But her eyes sharpened once her mother left us alone in the living room. We sat on the couch, angled towards each other.

"I found where Zander was hiding," I said quietly. Katie's house was as silent as a crypt, and every door I could see was shut tight. It made me want to speak in a whisper.

"Was hiding?" She picked up on that.

"He's not there. I don't know how long he's been gone. But his cell phone was left on the ground."

"His cell phone?"

"Yeah," I said, fishing it out of my pocket. I handed it to her. She unlocked it and clicked around a little. It's a Samsung Galaxy S4 for those who care. Oh, another worrying fact, his phone didn't have a password set. It used to before.

"What are you looking for?" I asked.

"New pictures, new texts, new emails, voicemails, voice recordings, anything useful," she said. "What was the battery percentage at when you got it?"

"...What?"

"Was the battery charged? At a mid-level? Dying?" She clarified.

"It was at... I dunno, like 45 percent?" I guessed. I remembered seeing that the battery was about halfway in the status bar.

"Okay," she replied. "Did you change any settings? WiFi? Data? Running apps? Have you restarted or charged it since you got it?"

"No," I said. "I found it, looked around a little on his Reddit account, posted on it, then drove to your house."

"Okay," she said. "Take me to the hideout."

I drove her there and we were there in an hour. On the way, we charged the phone in my car. It reached 100% before we arrived. She asked me to keep it unplugged and not use it until it got to 45%.

We clambered through the second story window and down to the basement. Katie held out her arm as we approached the door.

"Stay here," she said, slowly stepping into the room. She pulled out her phone and started taking pictures. As if it were... a crime scene.

"Katie, what aren't you telling me?" I said, my voice catching in my throat. Her attitude introduced a fear that was now leeching away my strength.