Hi, my name is Ash and I'd like to share the most traumatizing string of events in my life. It started when I was 16, I had gotten my first cellphone and started getting involved in social media but I'd never interact with anyone I didn't know in person until I got a horror story app called Tales From the Butcher House. I'd read all the stories on it before, all of those extremely cliché urban legends; "the hook was hanging on the car door," "humans can lick too," "OMG my roommate was killed the night before exams!," etcetera, bloody etcetera. I was about to uninstall it when I noticed it had a chatroom. The only reason I mention all this mundane bullshit is because it's the only place I'd willingly talk to strangers, but I never shared personal info. All they knew about me there was my username and some music and movies I liked. And it was on my phone so maybe someone found a way to hack my phone to do this.. But time to get to the nitty-gritty. One night, I was lying in bed when my phone went off. It wasn't too out of the left field for someone to text me at three a.m. But moments later, my phone buzzed again. I ignored it. It buzzed again. And again.. I was ready to blow the hell up on someone. So when I opened the message thread, choice words resting at my fingertips, ready to go, I noticed something.. Well.. Odd. There was no number... Just ten asterisks... How in the fuck was that even possible?! Anyway, I got to reading the messages and it got even sketchier.. Personal information… My last name, where I lived, what I had been doing… The first message was short and simple: Hello, Miss [redacted]. You Don’t know me, but I know you. That was an instant ‘fuck this’.. I read on; I’ve been following you very closely. Watching. Observing. You’re very promising. A valuable asset for sure. I replied, Who are you? How did you get my number? Five minutes passed. buzz buzz Don’t worry, you won’t be harmed. Rest assured. Now get some sleep. I instantly replied "Seriously, what the hell is this? Some kind of sick joke?!" I got no response. I passed out. In the morning, I still had no response. I eventually forgot about it as the days passed by and turned to weeks. It was actually months until I heard from them again. And it was a phone call. Still asterisks. I reluctantly answered. Absolute silence on the other end. They began with the vague, creepy texts again in December and continued sporadically until the following September. I’d get them once a month at the most. It wasn’t until November that I got another text. It simply said this.  Such a blessing that you’re out of school. Since all that, I got a new phone with a different carrier and haven't gotten anything so who knows? Maybe it was just a hacke