You and some of your friends are spending the night together, having a nice little hangout session. As college students on break, it’s one of the few times you all have to relax. At around 12 AM, you’re all sitting on the floor, trying to come with something to do.

“How about we prank call someone,” one of your friends suggests, and everyone agrees. You don’t love the idea, but you don’t protest. Your friend pull out their phone, and punches in the area code, and a series of 7 other numbers. It rings, but someone picks up after a few moments.

“Hello?” The voice is deep, and British. “Who’s calling?”

“People much better than you,” one of your friends laughs. “Why are you up at 12 AM? Nobody to hang out with? Talk about a loser!” The group laughs, and you fake your amusement.

This keeps up for a while. They insult him and laugh, till eventually he hangs up. Once again bored, everyone decides to go to sleep. Except for you. You take the phone that was used for the call and open the number again, calling it. Again, it rings for a few moments, before it’s answered.

“What do you want?” The voice growls.

“I’m sorry for what my friends said. That wasn’t okay of them. I understand if you don’t forgive me, I just feel bad,” you say quickly. The voice is silent for a moment. Then he speaks.

“I appreciate that, little Dove. So I’ll give you a pass. You have ten seconds to run before I kill you along with them all.” You drop the phone, eyes wide. You stumble out of the room, into the hall. Back pedaling down the hall away from the front door, you hear a silenced pistol fire several times, and a tall, dark figure walks out of the room you were just in. Your back hits a wall, and the man approaches. You look up, trembling, to see his face is covered with a white skull mask and balaclava. He tilts his head slowly, brown eyes studying you.

“You should have run while you had the chance, little Dove,” he says, trapping you between himself and the wall.

Shit.