A beggar who became a billionaire

Chapter 4: User Zero Four

Andre did not sleep again.

He sat on the edge of the narrow bed with the photograph in one hand and the phone in the other, staring between the two as if one of them might explain the other.

You are not the first.

Four words. Neat handwriting. No name. No threat, not exactly. But somehow it felt heavier than any threat could.

He thought about calling the police. Then he laughed at himself, quiet and bitter, alone in the dark room. What would he even say? A stranger tried to buy my haunted phone, and now somebody is leaving me photographs. Nobody would believe him. Nobody would care. He was still, in the eyes of the world, a homeless man who used to have a wife.

He looked down at the two hundred and ten dollars left from his winnings, folded carefully inside his shoe. Forty had gone to the room. The rest, he decided, would stay hidden until he understood what he was truly holding.

Around four in the morning, the phone in his hand grew slightly warm.

Andre nearly dropped it.

The countdown on the screen, which had been steadily ticking down all night, suddenly froze.

00:00:01.

00:00:00.

The screen went completely black.

Andre held his breath.

Then, slowly, white letters began to appear, one line at a time, like something typing them from very far away.

[COUNTDOWN COMPLETE.]

[NEW EVENT DETECTED: UNAUTHORIZED CONTACT.]

Andre's stomach dropped. Unauthorized contact. The envelope. The photograph. Somehow, the phone knew.

He stared at the screen, waiting.

[USER HISTORY ACCESS GRANTED.]

Andre's hands began to shake.

A list appeared, line by line, each one slower than the last, as if the phone wanted him to read every word carefully.

USER 001 — STATUS: DECEASED

USER 002 — STATUS: DECEASED

USER 003 — STATUS: MISSING

USER 004 — STATUS: UNKNOWN

Andre read the words again and again, hoping they would change into something less terrifying. They did not.

Deceased. Deceased. Missing. Unknown.

"What happened to you?" Andre whispered to the screen, to the ghosts of three strangers he would never meet. "What did this thing do to you?"

The screen did not answer his question. It never did. Instead, one final line appeared beneath the list.

CURRENT USER: ANDRE.

Seeing his own name written there, so plainly, so certainly, sent a cold shiver down his spine. The phone did not think of him as a man who found a lucky device in the trash.

It thought of him as the next name on a list.

Andre almost set the phone down and walked away from it forever. He almost believed, for one long moment, that the stranger under the bridge had been telling the truth. It is a chain. It will not let you go.

Then the final message appeared.

[WARNING: USER 004 IS LOOKING FOR YOU.]

Andre's whole body went still.

Status: unknown. Not dead. Not missing. Somewhere out there, alive, aware, and searching.

Was it the stranger from the car? The person sitting silently in the shadows of the back seat? Or someone else entirely, someone Andre had not even seen yet?

A sound came from downstairs. The front door of the shoe repair shop, creaking open.

Andre froze, every muscle locked tight.

Footsteps. Slow, careful, climbing the narrow staircase toward his room.

He looked around the small space in a panic. One window, facing the alley behind the building. One door, with a lock that suddenly did not feel strong enough.

The footsteps stopped right outside his door.

Andre grabbed the chair leg from the corner, his heart slamming against his ribs so hard it hurt.

A shadow moved beneath the door, blocking the thin line of hallway light.

Then, three slow knocks.

Andre did not move. Did not breathe. Did not answer.

"Andre." The voice through the door was low, careful, almost gentle. Not the same voice as the stranger from the bridge. Someone new. "I know you are awake. I know you can hear me."

Andre's grip tightened on the chair leg.

"I am not here to hurt you," the voice continued. "I am here because you are in more danger than you understand. The man who came to you last night, the one with the car, he does not care about you. He only cares about what is in your pocket."

Andre said nothing.

"There were others before you," the voice said. "I imagine you already know that now. The phone showed you, did it not?"

Andre's blood ran cold. How could this person possibly know what the screen had just shown him, only minutes ago, in a locked room, with no one else present?

"Who are you?" Andre finally asked, his voice barely steady.

A pause. Long. Careful.

"Someone who survived," the voice said. "Which is more than I can say for the others."

Then, footsteps again. Retreating this time, moving away from the door, down the stairs, out into the night.

Andre stood frozen for a long time before he finally found the courage to open the door.

The hallway was empty.

But resting against the wall, exactly where the footsteps had stopped, was a small folded piece of paper.

Andre picked it up with trembling fingers and unfolded it.

There was no photograph this time. Just a single address, written in the same careful handwriting as before.

17 Marrow Street. Midnight. Come alone.

Andre stared at the words until they blurred in front of his eyes.

He looked back at the phone in his hand. The screen had gone dark again, the countdown reset, silently ticking toward whatever came next.

Somewhere out in the city, three strangers had already lost everything because of what he was holding. One was searching for him right now. And another had just left an invitation Andre was certain he should refuse.

He knew he would not refuse it.

Because for the first time since Claire closed that door in the rain, Andre finally had a reason to walk toward something instead of running away from it.

Even if it killed him.