Inside his mind, he quietly debated whether to answer the call, especially since he was curious to see the caller's identity on the other end. At the same time, he also had a lot of questions forming in his mind as it went into hyperdrive.
'What if this was some aftermath of some idiot accidentally giving away his private number?'
'Then who could it be?'
'Is it Jojie? Or Airhead Nina? Or someone else?'
'No, even if they were that careless, they would know the importance of heeding my warning.'
'And besides, let's assume that if that wasn't the case, how did this happen?'
'Did someone hack the public and somehow manage to gain my number?'
'But as far as I can remember...'
A heavy sigh escaped from his mouth when he felt that his mind was getting more complicated than it needed to be.
"Great, just what I needed after a good shower", he muttered sarcastically, running a hand through his hair and sighed heavily. "A dumb dilemma to start my day."
After a moment, a sudden realisation hit him during his pondering and Victor couldn't help cover his face with his hand and groaned, "Goddamnit."
"I did it again," Victor said, shaking his head with a wry smile, which soon appeared on his lips after becoming aware that he had involuntarily become overly cautious like usual. It was a habit he had picked up over the years whether he wanted to or not which did help him alot but also brought him a lot of trouble from time to time.
"Sometimes I seriously wished that I could turn off this habit when needed." He sighed before glancing at his phone, understanding that this was just a phone call, not high-stakes negotiation. A fact that led him to a simple conclusion in his mind.
"Yeah, let's just ignore it," Victor muttered, casually tossing his phone back onto the bed as he wasn't going to let some random caller ruin his morning. "If it's important, they'll leave a message. If not, then good riddance."
As he stood up and ran a hand through his hair, Victor noticed the ringing tone had finally stopped. Feeling a little frustrated, he soon let out a heavy sigh. "Honestly…"
"How the hell did they even get my personal number in the first place?" he wondered aloud, feeling his pride was hurt a little, considering that Victor was proud of himself for being careful with his personal information. Like using a lot of burner phones during his work and giving out fake numbers to people he didn't trust completely.
Shaking his head and ignoring the itch of curiosity that still remained strong in him, Victor made his way to his closet, and reaching for his dresser, he flung open the drawer dedicated to his underwear.
"Should I wear red today? No, let's just stick with black for today," he muttered, rummaging through the various fabric colours and after a slight of contemplation, he soon pulled out a pair of brand-new black ones that he bought a couple of days ago and immediately slipped into it.
After closing the underwear drawer, he flung open the wardrobe, surveying the neatly folded stacks of various pants. "What should I wear for today?"
"I guess I should go with this one," he then said, reaching in and pulling out a pair of neatly folded dark grey chinos. After flinging the dark grey chinos over his shoulder, Victor turned his gaze to the column above and stared at the neatly folded t-shirts. "Red, grey, oh hey, there is a blue one hiding in the back."
"But I'll go with grey for today," he muttered, reaching in and pulling out a soft grey T-shirt. He examined his outfit choices, and a slow grin spread on his lips. After happily closing the wardrobe and returning to his comfy bed, his phone suddenly buzzed again.
"Who is it this time?" Victor blurted out, feeling his mood sour a little as he tossed the soft grey t-shirt and the dark grey chinos onto the bed. With his eyes narrowed a little, he picked up his phone and saw the screen displayed the same unknown number.
"Ugh, you gotta be kidding me." He groaned while rubbing his temples, trying to calm down the annoyance that was building up before covering his face and sighed, letting all the emotion out. "Well…"
"At least I know that this call isn't a scammer," Victor said and even chuckled awkwardly as he was trying to be optimistic, but his mind couldn't help recalling the most annoying scam call he got from his other number.
In his head, he almost practically could hear word-by-word what was said with an annoying thick accent voice again, "Congratulations! You've won a free cruise to the Bahamas!" followed by a long, rambling spiel about timeshares and hidden fees.
While his mind was trying to forget that displeasing experience, Victor cautiously pressed the green call button and placed the phone to his ear. A moment of silence followed, then a low, static-filled voice rasped, "฿Ɇ ₵₳ⱤɆ₣ɄⱠ."
"Be careful? Who is this?" Victor demanded, with his tone becoming sharp as his eyebrows shot up. "What the hell do you want?"
Despite his persistent questioning, the voice remained silent. Afterward, the only sound Victor could hear was the persistent hiss of static. The call abruptly ended, leaving him completely bewildered.
"What the…?" he muttered, staring at his black screen, scratching his head in confusion. That was certainly… odd.
He replayed the brief conversation in his mind, trying to decipher the meaning behind the cryptic warning and the person behind it.
"Who was this person? Why did they call? And more importantly, why did they hang up without saying anything else?"
!?!?!
"Huh?!" Victor blurted out, suddenly feeling a shiver run down his spine, and immediately, yet instinctively, glanced around the room, his gaze sweeping across the familiar surroundings.
Victor then stood up abruptly, clutching his phone tightly in his hand. His gaze landed toward the window, cautiously approaching it, his other hand hovering over the curtains. He then carefully peered out, scanning the street below for anything suspicious.
However, as far as he could see after taking his time, there was nothing unusual or suspicious that he could tell at the sight of the bustling morning traffic and pedestrians going about to start their day, leading him to sigh heavily, "Let's calm down."
"I'm getting paranoid for no reason at all," he muttered, shaking his head and forcing himself to take a few deep breaths. " It's probably nothing. Just a weird coincidence."
But there was a genuine sense of uneasiness that lingered in the air as for some reason, he knew deep down from his experience that this feeling of being watched wasn't just some random coincidence. Someone was trying to send him a message, a warning.
"But who is it? And why?" Victor wondered with his brows furrowed when suddenly, his phone buzzed again. He immediately looked at the phone screen with his heart pounding and saw a text message from the same unknown number.
[Don't trust anyone.]
"WHAT THE FUCK!?!?!?!" Victor yelped, nearly dropping his phone but somehow managing to grab it back at the very last second before the phone hit the floor, despite his fingers trembling, and quietly whispered, "That was such a close call."
After taking a deep breath and exhaling a few times, Victor managed to calm his emotions alongside his raging beating heartbeat. He then took a look at his phone screen and reread the message. "Don't trust anyone?"
"What's that supposed to mean?" He asked himself, pacing back and forth across his room as the words burned into his brain before running a hand through his disheveled hair. "Let's think more carefully."
"Who is this person? What do they want? And how do they even know…?"
His thoughts spiraled, each question leading to a dozen more, all of them terrifying, before Victor suddenly stopped pacing and squeezed his eyes shut, trying to control his racing pulse.
Okay, okay, calm down," Victor muttered, pinching the bridge of his nose. He could feel a headache brewing, a sharp, throbbing pulse behind his eyes. "Just breathe. In, out. In, out."
"What should I do?" Victor muttered, his voice a low, strained whisper as he stared at the cryptic message on his phone. The unsettling feeling of the cryptic warning and the sheer audacity of someone knowing his personal number was all too much.
"I needed help, and I needed it fast," Victor muttered, his voice tight with fear and frustration. He glanced around his apartment, the familiar space suddenly feeling alien and weirdly threatening. "But who? Who can I call right now?"
While his eyes flickered around the room, looking for some kind idea, they landed on his sleek, black laptop sitting innocently on the nearby desk, and a certain person immediately came into his mind. "That's right."
"Jason," Victor muttered, dialing a set of phone numbers and placing the phone after pressing the call button. "He'd know what to do. He's a tech whiz, practically lives online."
"Let's hope this bastard didn't stay up late and is awake right now," Victor muttered, leaning against the wall and tapping his foot impatiently. "Come on, Jason, pick up. Pick up, pick up..."
*brrring*
*brrring*
*brrring*
*brrring*
*brrring*
The ringing continued, a monotonous drone starting to grate on his nerves. He couldn't help but stare at the phone, his brow furrowed. "Seriously? What's he doing? Sleeping in? He knows I don't call unless it's important."
Finally, the ringing stopped, replaced by the automated voice of a voicemail message. "You've reached Jason. Leave a message, and I'll get back to you."
"Ugh, you've got to be kidding me!" Victor exclaimed, staring at his phone screen for a long moment, his shoulders slumping slightly before a heavy sigh escaped his lips as he ended the call with a frustrated click."Of all the times to be unreachable…"
"That fucking idiot," he groaned, rubbing his forehead, trying to calm his nerves. He was seriously annoyed and decided to take another approach. "Let's just leave a voice message and hope this fucker will notice it."
Without wasting another second, Victor quickly navigated to their encrypted messaging app, a specialized platform they used for secure communication. It didn't take long before he found Jason's name in their group chat and tapped the voice message icon.
"Jason, you absolute moron," he started, his voice a low growl of frustration after took a deep breath, trying to organise his thoughts. "Where the hell are you? I need your help, like, right now."
Victor paused, running a hand through his hair. "Some weirdo called me on my personal number – yeah, my personal number, the one I only give out to people that I really trusted. And this nutjob just said, 'Be careful,' then hung up. Then, I got a text from the same number that said, 'Don't trust anyone.' What the actual fuck is that supposed to mean?"
"Honestly, man, I'm seriously freaked out," he continued, pacing back and forth, the anxiety in his voice rising. "Someone somehow got my number and is sending me cryptic warnings. Before you say anything, I have a bad feeling about this whole thing, with my instinct telling me that this isn't some joke, Jason."
"So I need you to trace that number, figure out who it belongs to, anything. You're the only one I trust to do this kind of thing." Victor then said, stopping pacing and leaning against the wall, his voice softening slightly. "Look, I know you're probably still asleep or hungover or whatever, but please, Jason, call me back as soon as you get this. "
"Just… please help me out," he sighed heavily, the sound of his frustration echoing before Victor paused again while contemplating a bit, and then added, "And Jason? If you ignore this because you're playing video games or simply feeling lazy, I swear to god, I will personally come over there and beat your ass."
With that, Victor tapped the stop button and replayed the message quickly to make sure it was clear before he sent it, while heading to his bed. "Let's hope Jason could actually shed some light on the matter."
To Be Continued