Homeroom at 3:40
The class group chat called a meeting for 3:40. Twenty five people read it. There are twenty four of us.
- ThemDid you see what they posted in the group?
- YouI left that group back in May
- ThemThen why are you in the read list
- pause 1.5 s
- YouSend me a screenshot
- Them"Homeroom. Room 12. 3:40"
- YouThey mean 15:40
- ThemIt says 3:40. And today is Sunday
- YouWho sent it
- pause 1.2 s
- ThemMrs Harper
- YouDan, that is not funny
- ThemI know it is not funny
- YouShe has been gone since February
- pause 1.8 s
- ThemThe account was deleted in front of me. I asked the admin myself
- YouThen somebody restored it
- ThemTwenty five people have read it
- YouThere are twenty four of us in the class
- pause 1.5 s
- Just leave the group and forget it
- ThemI tried. Something adds me back
- YouSomething?
- ThemTake a guess
- YouFine. We do not go, and it ends there
- ThemOf course we do not go
- pause 2.0 s
- Why are you still awake
- YouI am asleep
- ThemThen why are you typing from room 12
- pause 1.5 s
- YouDan, I am at home
- I am in bed with the light off
- pause 1.2 s
- ThemThen why does the group show you at the school
- And why are you waving at me from the window
How it works
The read count is the only piece of evidence, and it cannot be blamed on imagination. The story ends not with an answer but with a question the character cannot answer about himself.
How to make it yours
The whole story rests on the read count: twenty-five readers in a class of twenty-four. Change the numbers if you like, but keep the gap at exactly one, because one extra reader is something everyone notices at once. The class chat works just as well as a work chat, a building chat or a team chat, and the teacher as a former coach or a neighbour. The longest pause sits between the promise not to go and the question about not sleeping: hours pass there, and the viewer should feel them.
Every story here is fiction. Any resemblance to real people or events is coincidental.
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