I braced myself, waiting for that person to suddenly rush up to the camera, reveal some terrifying face, or for some edit to make a scream suddenly ring out in the video.
But none of that happened.
The person stood beside the desk, the light illuminating half his face. It was an ordinary face, with no wounds or blood, and no missing eyes or extra mouths.
To me, he was a stranger.
The video ended there. I could see the camera dip as the person filming cowered, hiding both himself and the camera.
The next voice message played automatically. The group member called Soaring Freely Among the Waves spoke in a barely audible voice, close to tears. "You saw that, right? Sob... That was a ghost... A ghost..."
"It's real. It was a ghost."
"No. That wasn't my friend. It was the previous owner of the house."
"He died. My current place is a haunted house. I'm renting it. It's really cheap."
"It's true! That was the previous owner. When I moved in, all his things had already been cleared out."
"He was murdered. It must've been a burglary."
"Ah... Ahhh... Sob... What is that... Blood..."
"AAAAAHHHH!!!!"
The final message was a scream that ripped through the dead of night, delivered with the skill of a professional horror-movie voice actor.
My hand jerked in fright, and I nearly dropped my phone.
Curses came from outside the window. It seemed the noise had woken a neighbor, who grumbled and swore for quite a while.
I checked the group chat again. Someone had posted a picture—a photo of the man from the video.
It hadn't been posted by Soaring Freely Among the Waves, but by someone else who often chatted with him.
"He showed it to me before. That's the guy."
"He