It was already past midnight when I received the call. 🌙 The night was quiet, unusually still, and the glow of my patrol car dashboard felt like the only light left in the world. A faint voice came through the radio — hesitant, broken by static. The report was brief: strange noises coming from an abandoned farmhouse near the highway. It wasn’t part of my assigned route, but something deep inside me stirred — a sense of unease that felt almost like memory. Without hesitation, I turned the wheel toward sector C-9.
The road stretched endlessly into the dark. The beam of my headlights cut through the mist, revealing broken signs, empty fields, and silence so heavy it seemed alive. When I reached the property, the old farmhouse stood crooked, its windows like hollow eyes staring into nothing. I stepped out, and the smell of damp earth and rotting wood hit me. Every instinct told me to stay away, but duty — or maybe something else — pushed me forward.
The front door creaked open on its own, letting out a slow groan. My flashlight swept across dusty furniture and peeling wallpaper. I called out, “Police! Anyone here?” Only the echo answered. Then I heard it — a soft, rhythmic sound, like something tapping from below. My pulse quickened. Following the noise, I found a door at the back of the hallway, sealed with a rusted chain. I pulled once, twice, and it snapped.
The stairs groaned under my weight as I descended into the dark. The air grew colder with each step, thick with the smell of iron and mold. My light flickered, revealing fragments of something scattered on the floor — a shoe, a torn ribbon, the edge of a small blanket. Then, in the corner, I saw him. A boy. 👦 Barefoot, trembling, eyes wide open but strangely empty. He didn’t cry or move. He just stared at me, frozen between fear and disbelief.
I wrapped my jacket around his thin shoulders. His skin was icy cold, his breathing shallow. I whispered, “You’re safe now,” but even as I said it, I wasn’t sure I believed myself. He didn’t speak a word. I carried him out, pushed him gently into the back seat, and drove toward the hospital with the sirens silent. 🚓 The boy sat there motionless, his reflection flickering in the rearview mirror — pale, almost ghostlike.
At the hospital, chaos erupted — nurses rushing, doctors shouting, lights blindingly white. Yet through all the noise, the boy remained silent, his gaze drifting from face to face as though he didn’t see any of them. When they took him in for examination, I stood by the door, unable to move. Something about his silence frightened me more than any scream could.
The next morning, I came back. He was awake, sitting upright in bed, staring at the rain streaking down the window. When I walked in, he turned slowly and whispered, “Hi.” Just one word, but it hit me like a thunderclap. I sat beside him, asked his name, where he lived, who had taken him. He hesitated, then whispered, “Uncle.” The word trembled on his lips.
He said “Uncle” would bring other children sometimes. Some stayed a night, some longer. He never knew where they went after that. Sometimes, in the dark, he could hear them crying. Sometimes they just disappeared. 😔
Later that day, we returned to the house with the investigation team. The basement was colder now, emptier somehow, but traces remained — small clothes, broken toys, a doll’s head half-buried in the dirt. Then we found an old computer. On its screen were dozens of files, each labeled with a date and a child’s name. The air left my lungs. 💔
The news spread fast — “The Black House Case,” they called it. The town was horrified, people locking doors, whispering prayers. But to me it wasn’t just a case. It was a pair of frightened eyes that still haunted my mind. When they caught the man the boy called “Uncle,” he said almost nothing. During interrogation, he only smiled and asked, “Do you really think it ends with me?”
His words gnawed at me for weeks. Something didn’t add up. When I checked the patrol records, there was no dispatch from sector C-9 that night. No call on record. My name wasn’t listed as on duty in that area. So who had spoken through my radio? 📻
I went back to the farmhouse. Or what was left of it. The building had burned down days earlier — a “faulty wiring” incident, the report claimed. But I found something half-buried among the ashes: a small metal box, still warm. Inside was a tape recorder. I pressed play.
Static at first. Then a voice — my own voice. “Unit 47 responding to call. Child secured. Awaiting extraction.” The words sent a chill up my spine. The timestamp showed two days before I had even gone there. My mouth went dry. I played it again. The voice was definitely mine.
I raced to the hospital. When I reached his room, it was empty. Sheets thrown aside, window open, curtains fluttering. The nurses swore he had been asleep minutes earlier. The security footage? Corrupted. Only static from midnight to 3 a.m.
For months, I searched for him. Abandoned buildings, shelters, every road out of town. Nothing. Each night, I heard the echo of his small voice — Hi. Sometimes I dreamed of the basement. Sometimes of that tape playing endlessly. I started to believe I hadn’t rescued him at all. Maybe I had brought him back to where he belonged.
Then one evening, a small brown envelope appeared on my desk. No sender, no stamp. Inside was a photograph — the boy, smiling in a sunlit field. On the back, written in shaky childlike handwriting: “Thank you for finding me again.” 🕯️
The picture looked old, faded at the corners. The date printed on the back was three years before the night I met him. My heartbeat quickened when I noticed something else — a figure standing in the background, half-blurred. A man in uniform. My uniform. Same badge number.
I stared until my vision blurred. I remembered the voice on the tape, the words I had never spoken, the call that never existed. I understood then — I hadn’t stumbled into the case. I had been part of it all along. A cycle repeating itself, a loop with no beginning.
That night, I drove back to the site of the old farmhouse. The air smelled of rain and ash. The wind whispered through the weeds. I stood where the basement had once been, holding the photograph until it trembled in my hand.
Somewhere in the distance, a faint sound echoed — the laughter of a child carried on the wind. 🌒 My heart tightened. I placed the photo on the ground, turned off my radio, and whispered into the night, “You’re safe now.”
And just before the wind died, I heard a voice — soft, familiar, almost warm. “Hi.” 🚨😱💔😨🕯️
