You won’t find it on Google Play or the App Store. There’s nothing about the game on any public websites, other than this cautionary post. It doesn’t matter whether you’re a good or a bad person. It indiscriminately chooses targets.

The point is that you can’t avoid the game. Nobody can. You might hear a reverberating ding from your phone — a death toll from the depths of Hell.

An incongruous window might pop up.

>“Can you hide?”

>‘Yes’ — ‘No’

Make sure you select ‘No’.

When the window first appeared on my phone screen, I was stunned. I always presumed smartphones to be safer from the threat of viruses than computers. Especially a brand new iPhone. Isn’t Apple supposed to be superior to Microsoft when it comes to security?

“Nice try,” I said.

But before I made a rash decision and ended up infecting my phone with something nasty, I decided to do some research. I’m not exactly computer-savvy, but I didn’t trust either the ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ option. I didn’t want to mess with the window in any way.

There was nothing about the ‘Can you hide?’ pop-up online. I didn’t even realise it was a game until a Reddit user, who I won’t name, pointed me in the direction of a Discord server for discussing unearthly matters.

There was an entire category dedicated to the bizarre new game that had been appearing on people’s phones. Clicking ‘Yes’, apparently, commences a hide-and-seek game of unknown origin. I scrolled through the many Discord messages. I’ve removed the usernames.

User 1: Can anyone help me? Nobody seems to know anything about this game. My friend played it non-stop for a week, and then he went missing. That was two weeks ago. There are daily search parties, but I don’t think they’re going to find him. He said it wasn’t really a game. He said he saw a face outside his window.

User 2: You have to select ‘No’.

User 3: I destroyed my phone after reading these messages. Haven’t seen or heard anything unusual.

User 4: I selected ‘No’, but I keep hearing creaks. And I don’t think it’s in my head.

User 6: Just leave the pop-up window open, guys. You don’t have to select anything.

User 5: What? For the rest of my life? What if something accidentally knocks it?

User 3: Destroy your phone. Like I said, it worked for me.

User 6: Until it pops up on your next phone.

User 5: What if I just turn off my phone? That seems a little less dramatic than destroying it.

User 3: Your funeral.

The more I read, the more anxious I felt. I had expected the pop-up window to be a virus, but everybody was telling ghost stories. Stop being a superstitious baby, I told myself. That guy’s disappearance had nothing to do with the game he was playing.

Eventually, after a weekend of horrified contemplation, I opted for User 5’s idea to turn off my phone — in fact, I took it a step farther and reset my phone to its factory settings.

I met my friends, Corey and Tanya, in a local park on Monday afternoon. I’d planned to tell them about my experience, but they beat me to the punch.

“Why didn’t you pick up your phone all weekend, Lee?” Corey asked me. “We were worried about you, man! We wanted to hang out on Sunday.”

“I didn’t fancy third-wheeling. Some of us have to go to work on Mondays,” I replied.

“Hey! I work!” Corey protested.

“From a bathrobe in your bedroom,” Tanya smirked.

“You’re both just envious that I can scroll through Reddit and play games away from the watchful eye of my employer,” Corey said. “Speaking of games, Lee, have you played ‘Can you hide?’?”

My heart plummeted, and I felt as if Corey’s words were cinder blocks, dragging my body though the floorboards.

“He’s obsessed,” Tanya sighed. “He’s been playing it every day since Tuesday.”

“It just popped up on my phone, so I thought, ‘Why the fuck not?’” Corey laughed. “Tanya thought it must be a virus, but it’s just a cool augmented reality game.”

Corey thrust his phone down on the wooden picnic table. It was already open on a game window — a map of our surrounding area. A small green marker indicated Corey’s location in the park, and there was a small red marker moving along nearby roads.

“Once a day, from two to four in the afternoon, the game takes place. I have to hide. It tracks my location in the real world, so I have to keep moving. I wanted to delay coming to the park, but I don’t think the red seeker will find me here. Besides, it’s ten to four. Nearly made it,” Corey said.

“What’s the red marker that’s searching for you?” I asked, shuddering.

“The boogeyman,” Corey whispered.

He laughed, and Tanya thumped him on the arm.

“You know that kind of talk makes Lee freak out,” Tanya scolded.

Corey shrugged, and the pair of them became absorbed in a different topic of conversation. They were tucking into their sandwiches, talking between mouthfuls, but I wasn’t eating. I couldn’t take my eyes off Corey’s phone on the table. The red marker was circling the park, looking for him. I couldn’t stop thinking about those people on the Discord server who had spoken so solemnly of the supposedly-deadly game.

Suddenly, the marker was in the park. Corey was wrong. It had found him. I prepared for something dreadful to happen. I prepared for my friend to be caught.

“And that’s a wrap!” Corey said, scooping up his phone. “Four o’clock. Yet again, I bested the game. It got close this time, though... Damn. Just a hundred yards away!”

On the game map, the park was a featureless green patch. I could see Corey’s green marker, scarcely standing out from the grass, and I could see the red marker north-east of our location. The victory box read:

“You avoided the Creaker by: 121 yards. You can hide.”

Tanya groaned and mumbled about Corey’s game addiction, and the two of them resumed their conversation. I was about to dive back into reality, putting the silly game out of my head for good, but a sudden noise terrified me.

A creak.

My eyes shot up from the table. Neither Tanya nor Corey seemed to notice the eerie noise. And I can’t explain it — as nearby as the sound seemed, my eyes were drawn to a solitary tree, a little over a hundred yards away. Perhaps not exactly where the red marker had appeared on Corey’s screen, but close enough.

Peering around the bark was a frightful face. The thing looking at the three of us was not human. It was as short as a toddler. Its head, if it even had a head, was wearing a peach-coloured rubber mask — almost the tone of human flesh, but not quite. And its sickly-sweet smile seared through my eyes into my very soul.

With a second resounding creak, the nightmarish face snapped behind the bark, disappearing from view.

“Earth to Lee,” Tanya said, giggling. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

“I think somebody’s actually seeking you, Corey,” I whispered, pointing a shaky finger at the tree. “I don’t think you should play that game anymore.”

“Your phasmophobia really kills my buzz sometimes, Lee,” Corey sighed. “There’s no boogeyman following me.”

I have a proclivity for trembling at everyday sights and sounds. In my mind, there’s always a ghost or a ghoul around the corner. Ever since my parents died, I’ve been that way. But I knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that I hadn’t imagined what I saw behind the tree. Unfortunately, my phasmophobia — fear of ghosts and the supernatural — makes it very difficult for anybody to believe me when I’ve been startled by something.

Corey and Tanya told me to take it easy and get lots of rest. The following day, the two of them pinged me incessantly on WhatsApp. I was still reeling from the terrifying thing I’d seen behind the tree. Transfixed by terrible thoughts, the workday flew by. I was starting to believe that maybe I’d become unwell. Perhaps I’d suffered a psychotic break.

Not so.

Around half six in the evening, on my drive home from work, Tanya called me. I answered via my car’s dashboard.

“I’m driving right now, Tanya,” I said. “What’s-”

I trailed off when I heard my friend bawling her eyes out on the other end of the phone.

“It’s in the house,” She whispered. “The… The game started playing. It’s later than usual.”

“Slow down,” I replied. “What’s happening?”

“The game started at six…” Tanya tearfully explained in a fragile whisper. “I think you were right, Lee… I think someone’s actually seeking us. We saw a horrible face at the window, and then there were creaking sounds in the house. We’re hiding in the attic. Corey’s pulled the door up, so we don’t think-”

“- Have you called the police?” I interjected, heart pounding.

“They’re on the way,” Tanya said. “Fifteen minutes. If we can… What? It’s Lee. No, I feel safer with someone on the other end of the… Okay! Corey wants me to hang up. He wants us to be quiet.”

“Okay, I understand,” I shakily replied. “Just make sure-”

“- No, no, no…” Tanya whimpered.

I didn’t need to ask what had frightened her. I heard it too. A creak in the attic. It sounded so clear and, once again, so near. So nightmarishly near that I snapped my neck around to make sure the rubber-faced demon wasn’t in the back seat of my car. It wasn’t.

At that point, I decided not to go home. I diverted to Corey’s house. An eight-minute journey. Barely any quicker than the police.

“How did it even get in here?” Tanya whispered. “I didn’t even see the door open.”

“It’s not an ‘it’,” Corey scoffed, though he spoke with a quivering voice. “He’s just a child, and he needs to leave our- Oh…”

“What the fuck is that?” Tanya screamed.

“Please-” Corey began to plead.

The screams of my two friends were deafening. I was so fixated on reaching the house that I didn’t hang up the call. It was only as I tore onto Corey’s driveway, mere minutes before the police, that I realised I’d been listening to sounds of squelching, snapping, and, most hauntingly of all, creaking.

I barged down the front door and ran up to the attic. I expected to find a sickening scene of mutilation, but the space was empty. Corey and Tanya were gone.

The police had questions for me, of course, but my alibi was airtight — the 999 call was made before I even left the office, and traffic camera footage corroborated the fact that I was on the road whilst the intruder terrorised Corey and Tanya.

Missing persons. That’s the verdict.

I don’t understand what the game wants. I don’t know where the missing people go. All I know is that resetting my phone wasn’t enough.

On my drive home, after a long night of tears and police questioning, I could swear I caught a glimpse of a peach-coloured mask peeking around a postbox. And then, as if to confirm that menacing thought, there was a notification on my phone.

That unmistakable ding of Hell.

The message displayed on my car dashboard.

>“Can you hide?”

>‘Yes’ — ‘No’

I moaned in horror, and that was what damned me. My car uses voice recognition, and it somehow registered my terrified vocal reaction as an answer.

“You selected ‘No’.”

Perhaps I’ve chosen the safer of the two options. I know many of the Discord users suggested ‘No’, but I can’t stop thinking about what I read on that server.

I selected ‘No’, but I keep hearing creaks.

I haven’t heard anything yet, and the game hasn’t started playing. But Corey didn’t seem to hear the creak when he was playing the game. Maybe, like him, I’ve just been missing it.

I’m horrified of the Creaker. I’m horrified of where he might take me.

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