Julie Chan Is Dead

Julie Chan is a young woman of Chinese descent who works as a cashier at a supermarket. Julie has an identical twin sister, Chloe. Julie and Chloe were orphaned as children; after this tragedy, Chloe was adopted by an affluent, white family, but Julie went to live with their biological aunt and was raised with much less privilege. Chloe only reached out to Julie once: She showed up at Julie’s work, staged an emotional reunion, and gifted Julie a house. Chloe filmed this entire encounter and used it as content for her popular social media account. Julie was very hurt that Chloe never made any further effort to stay in touch. Because of Chloe’s fame, people sometimes mistake Julie for her sister, which always leaves her upset and bitter.

Julie receives a phone call from Chloe: The sound is garbled. Coughing and moaning, Chloe refers incoherently to a mistake before the line goes dead. Chloe does not respond to any of Julie’s subsequent calls or texts.

Julie can’t stop worrying about the mysterious phone call from Chloe. She decides to check Chloe’s Instagram feed, even though she usually avoids this content because it leaves her jealous and unhappy.