Autoplay Next: A Choose Your Horror Flash Fiction Story

by Justine Norton-Kertson

Leah liked to fall asleep listening to horror podcasts. Something about the cadence—the half-smiling tone of a well-researched urban legend, the lull of music fading under true crime monologues—it calmed her brain better than melatonin ever could.

HysteriaCast was her favorite. Had been for years. The show ended abruptly after Episode 56, just shy of its planned finale. No explanation, no goodbye post. Just... silence. But she still listened to the archive. She knew the episodes by heart. The sound design, the hosts' banter, the way the outro music always landed exactly eight seconds after the last breath.

So one Thursday night when her podcast app buzzed with a new notification—Episode 57 – The Red Room on Pine Street—her stomach flipped before her brain had a chance to catch up. Once her brain did finally get there, the thought that came to her was that she lived on Pine Street. Her walls were red.

She didn’t mean to listen at first. But the impulse was automatic: the way your thumb hits play before your thoughts catch up. The familiar voices filled her headphones—Nora and Dex, still witty, still warm, still using the same jazz sting transition. Their banter was seamless, as if no time had passed.

“Today’s episode,” said Dex, “is a particularly creepy one.”

“It’s got everything,” Nora chimed in. “An upstairs apartment, crimson walls, vintage IKEA furniture, and a cat named Scissors that no one’s seen in a week.”

Leah froze. She hadn’t told anyone that Scissors was missing. She sat up in bed. Rain thudded against her window in soft sheets, her phone warm in her palm.

“The scene is quiet,” Dex said. “A chipped ceramic mug rests on the nightstand—brown glaze, fern pattern. There’s a circular burn mark from a candle. Probably left unattended.”

Her mug. Her candle. Her burn mark. All familiar. 

She hit pause and checked the file. No episode description. No link-outs. No transcript. The app said it had been uploaded five minutes ago. But the HysteriaCast feed was dead—last updated in 2020.

Leah restarted the app. The episode was still there.

She played it again.

The voices continued as if uninterrupted.

“Whoever lived here,” Nora said, “was already gone long before anyone noticed.”

“But we’ll get to that,” Dex added.

The music swelled.

“And tomorrow, the story continues.”

Then static.

Leah was smart. This had to be a prank. Some elaborate horror ARG maybe, targeting nostalgia-laced podcast junkies like her. Or an AI stunt scraping old metadata and social media footprints. She had posted photos of her apartment once or twice. Maybe Scissors had appeared in a thread somewhere.

But the chipped mug? The candle burn? She hadn't shared those.

She opened Reddit. No new HysteriaCast activity. No mentions on the horror subreddits. No viral campaigns. Just the same quiet grave the show had occupied for half a decade.

She tried to screen-record the episode for proof. Her phone crashed mid-recording. She rebooted and tried again. The episode was still there, but locked now. No share icon. No way to copy the file.

She emailed both hosts. One bounceback. One auto-reply that read only:

“Thanks for listening.”

That night, as she lay in bed with her headphones beside her pillow and her heart pounding in her chest, her phone buzzed once.

A new notification.

Episode 58 – The Listener

Leah didn’t touch the new episode for an hour. She left her phone on the nightstand, face down, pretending not to look at it. But she couldn’t stop looking.

Eventually, she gave in. There was no intro this time. No plucky transition music. No sarcastic banter. Just the sound of a low hiss, like tape rolling.

Then a voice—Nora’s, but slower. Softer. Intimate in a way that made Leah’s spine tighten.

“She’s lying in bed,” the voice said. “The room smells like rain and dust. She hasn’t eaten today.”

Leah’s throat went dry.

“She thinks this is a game. She thinks she still has choices.”

Leah sat up slowly.

“She reaches for her phone,” the voice said. “Thumb hovering just above the screen. Heart racing. Not from fear, but recognition.”

Her breath caught in her chest. She was being described in real time.

The voice continued, patient, gentle, “Her cat is still missing. She doesn’t know yet that Scissors never left.”

Leah looked at the closet door. It was cracked open. Dark inside.

“She’s listening now. She hears herself listening. And she’s starting to wonder if this is still her story.”

Leah’s hand shook.

“Her name is…”

She slammed her thumb on the pause button.

Silence.

The phone vibrated once.

Her lock screen lit up.

Autoplay Next in… 5… 4…

She stared at it, frozen. The next episode was already queued. The screen flickers. The voice is waiting. A new title glows from her phone screen:

Episode 59 – You

The phone begins to count down.

3… 2…

The air is too still. The room too quiet.

***

The story won’t move until you do,
and your choice determines how it ends.
The title for the new episode stares at you.
What does Leah do? 

👉 Press play
🛑 Delete the app
🌀 Try to wake up