Okay, so this sounds ridiculous, but it all started with my phone dying in the middle of the office meeting. Classic me—always forgetting to charge it overnight. I didn’t want to be that person constantly asking around, so I just grabbed the spare charger sitting on Priya’s desk. She wasn’t there, and we’ve shared stuff before. No big deal, right?

Well… I plug it into my laptop, and suddenly my phone buzzes, screen flashing like it’s having a seizure. Then, just as quick, it goes black. Dead. I yank the charger out, slightly panicked. My laptop screen glitches, goes static for a second, and then—boom—it restarts.

At first, I thought maybe it was just some weird software update or glitch. But when my desktop came back, all my tabs were gone. More importantly, there was this single document open in Word. Untitled. Just sitting there, like it had been waiting for me.

I hesitated for a moment. I mean, it’s not like Word randomly opens documents. I moved the mouse and started scrolling. It was a diary entry. Or something close to it. The first line read: “If someone is reading this, it means I never made it out.”

I let out a nervous laugh. Was this some sort of prank? A Halloween joke in June? But as I read more, the words started to sink in. It was written by Priya. She talked about someone stalking her. Watching her. She mentioned odd messages, things in her apartment moving slightly, and a shadow that always appeared behind her when she looked into reflective surfaces.

This didn’t feel like a prank.

I glanced around the office. People were moving, talking, doing normal stuff. But my stomach tightened. Priya hadn’t come in that day. Now that I thought about it, she hadn’t come in yesterday either.

I closed the document, pulled out my phone again—still dead. Great.

I took the elevator down to the lobby and called Priya’s number from the front desk phone. It rang five times and went to voicemail. I tried again. Same thing.

Something felt off. I remembered she lived only a few blocks away. Before I could talk myself out of it, I grabbed my bag and told my boss I had to deal with an urgent errand. He just waved me off without even looking up.

Outside, the summer heat hit me like a blanket. I walked fast, weaving through the crowd with that strange feeling crawling over my shoulders. Her building was a plain brick one with flower pots hanging from the balconies. I buzzed her apartment. No answer. I tried again. Nothing.

That’s when Mrs. Levine opened the front door, one of the older tenants I’d met at Priya’s last birthday. She looked at me and said, “You looking for Priya, honey?”

“Yeah. Have you seen her lately?”

Mrs. Levine frowned. “Not since Sunday. She always feeds the strays by the alley. But they’ve been howling the last couple nights. You know how cats get when something’s wrong.”

Something about the way she said it made me shiver. I thanked her and headed up. Priya’s door was locked, of course. I knocked, called her name. Nothing.

Then I heard a soft thump from inside.

“Priya?” I knocked again, louder this time. No answer.

Another thump.

Now my heart was racing. I looked around and spotted the building superintendent’s door at the end of the hallway. I ran over, knocked, and thankfully he was in.

After some convincing—and maybe a white lie about Priya saying I could check on her cat—he agreed to open the door.

The smell hit me first. Not decay or anything, just…stale. Like someone had been gone for a while but forgot to open a window.

Her apartment looked normal at first. Neat, everything in place. But the longer I looked, the stranger it felt. Her laptop was on, battery blinking red. The screen showed a browser open to a private forum—something called “The Mirror Game.”

I clicked it. The forum had only one thread visible. A user named ReflectionHunter had posted: “It starts when you look too long. The reflection watches back. You stop seeing yourself and start seeing what it wants.”

I swear the hair on my arms stood up.

I searched the apartment, calling her name, opening doors. When I got to the bathroom, I paused. The door was slightly ajar. Inside, the mirror had a long crack running through it, like someone punched it.

And there, written in red lipstick across the top: “DON’T LOOK TOO LONG.”

I didn’t realize I was holding my breath until I gasped. This was way beyond weird now.

But then, from the hallway, I heard a faint shuffle. Like someone stepping carefully. I peeked out.

No one.

Suddenly, the bedroom door creaked shut behind me.

I turned back fast. My pulse was pounding. I walked to the bedroom and opened the door slowly.

Nothing inside. Just the bed, neatly made. Closet closed. I almost laughed in relief.

Until the closet door started moving. Slowly. Like someone was opening it from inside.

I bolted.

Out the door, down the hallway, into the street. I didn’t stop running until I was three blocks away, panting like I’d just run a marathon.

I ended up at a diner, hands shaking as I used a charger the waitress lent me. My phone came back to life. Twenty-seven messages.

Most from coworkers wondering where I went. But one was from an unknown number. No caller ID.

It read: You shouldn’t have read that. It’s watching you now.

I dropped the phone.

For a while, I thought I’d just hallucinated the whole thing. Maybe I was sleep-deprived, maybe it was some elaborate prank. But that night, at home, every mirror in my apartment had this subtle… distortion. Like the reflections were slightly lagging behind my movements. Barely noticeable.

But once you see it, you can’t unsee it.

Over the next few days, things got worse. Lights flickered when I walked into rooms. My reflection sometimes didn’t match my facial expression. At one point, I swore I saw a second shadow behind me—when I was alone.

I tried talking to my friends, but no one believed me. Priya’s phone was disconnected. Her apartment was now cleared out. The super claimed she moved out suddenly. Said she left a note. I asked to see it.

He said he threw it away.

It all spiraled. I couldn’t sleep. I covered my mirrors. Avoided screens. Then one night, my phone buzzed again. Same number.

You let it in. You can’t undo it. But maybe you can give it… someone else.

That was when it hit me.

This wasn’t random. That charger. The weird document. It wasn’t just bad luck. It was a trap. A chain. Like a cursed link passed from person to person. And now it was my turn.

I didn’t want to believe it. But the signs kept piling up.

So I made a choice.

I went back to the office, found that same charger, and placed it neatly on the desk of someone I didn’t like—Marcus, the smug guy who always took credit for my work. I watched from across the floor as his phone died during a call. Watched him grab the charger without hesitation.

A week later, Marcus didn’t show up. Rumors said he quit suddenly, moved back to his hometown. But I know the truth.

And now, I feel…lighter. Whatever was following me, it’s gone. The reflections match again. The lights don’t flicker. I can sleep.

But I haven’t thrown that charger away. I keep it in my drawer, wrapped in cloth. Just in case.

Sometimes I wonder who started it. Who the first person was. Maybe Priya got it from someone else, just like I did. Maybe she’s still out there, hiding from mirrors.

I don’t know.

But I do know this—some things aren’t meant to be shared. Not even something as small as a phone charger.

And if something feels off, trust your gut. That tiny moment when something seems just a little wrong—it matters. That’s your warning. That’s your chance to walk away.

Because once you let it in, once you look too long—it doesn’t leave easily.

And maybe, just maybe… next time your phone dies, it’s not just a coincidence.

So yeah, laugh if you want. Say it sounds like a bad horror movie. But all I did was borrow a charger. That’s it.

And it changed everything.

Lesson? Be careful with what you borrow. Not all gifts are innocent. Not all favors are harmless.

Some things have a cost.

If this gave you chills—or made you think twice before grabbing something that isn’t yours—give it a like and share it with a friend. You never know who might need the warning.