Captain Lívia slowly stepped out of the police car as the spring rain softly tapped on the sidewalk. The Aranyhegyi Road was almost deserted at dawn – eerily quiet.
The houses stood dark, as if each one was hiding a secret, with only a few windows casting a faint glow.
The amber light from the street lamps shimmered on the damp, gleaming cobblestones, like the last memories of the night fading away slowly.
Sándor, the experienced detective nearing retirement, yet still weary from years of service, grumbled as he closed the car. Glancing at the notes in his hands, he said:
– Here we are. A passerby spotted the little girl at four in the morning. She was coming up the hill all alone.
Lívia furrowed her brow in disbelief as they walked toward the bench, cordoned off with police tape.
– Alone? At this hour? – she asked, watching the girl sitting on the bench, surrounded by the night’s darkness.
The girl, fragile in appearance, didn’t seem to be more than eight years old.
Her wet clothes clung to her body, her hair hung in matted strands over her face, and her eyes… were empty, as though she had seen too much to still be a child.
Two officers stood beside her, one of them attempting to offer her a hot drink, but the girl wasn’t crying. She only stared blankly into the nothingness.
Lívia approached and slowly crouched in front of the girl.
– Hey, little one. My name is Lívia. I’m a police officer. Can you tell me your name? – she asked softly, trying to offer some comfort.
The girl trembled, then whispered barely audibly:
– Erika.
– That’s a beautiful name. Do you know where you are?
The girl paused, then answered with a trembling voice:
– Here… I came back. But I don’t know how\… – Her eyes fluttered, and she fell silent for a moment. – I didn’t want to… I stayed down there. In the dark.
Sándor crossed his arms and moved closer to them.
– Do you remember where you came from? Where’s the house you were at?
Erika slowly looked up, and there was a fear in her eyes that shouldn’t be there in a child’s gaze: not just terror, but something much deeper, darker.
Something she couldn’t express in words.
– The house is on the hill. Where the lady lives. The one who doesn’t move. The one who watches.
Lívia and Sándor exchanged a glance, and for a moment, a cold shiver ran down their spines.
– What lady? – Lívia asked, trying to suppress the fear rising within her.
– She doesn’t talk. She just whispers. But not with her mouth. She talks inside my head. When we’re in the basement. With the others. – Erika’s voice shook, and she could barely speak. – And she always says: don’t tell anyone.
The air seemed to freeze as these words left the girl’s lips. In the background, the sound of a siren cut through the night like the beginning of a new nightmare.
Someone from the neighboring house was watching them through the window, but when Sándor looked up, the curtain slowly drew back, as if the watcher had hidden.
– This is going in a very bad direction – muttered Sándor. – This kid… she’s not lying. Her eyes tell everything.
Lívia nodded and made a firm decision:
– Let’s take the child to the station and check out that house. Now.
Erika clung to Lívia’s arm when she lifted her. The girl’s skin was cold, as if frozen in place. And there was something else – a strange, soft whisper, not coming from her. As if someone else was present in the air.
As they sat in the back seat, the girl spoke again:
– Don’t go back there. Down there… they’re still there.
Lívia shivered and sensed that something dark was beginning to unfold before them.
Erika’s quiet, chilling words shed light on a new clue:
– The others. The ones who can’t leave. The ones who don’t even remember their names anymore.
At the police station, under the dim light of the overhead bulbs and the faint hum of the neon lights, a bad premonition followed them.
Erika sat wrapped in a blanket in the interrogation room, while a child psychologist tried to comfort her. But the girl’s expression gave away nothing.
She only gripped the cup of tea in her hands, as though it were the only thing holding her to reality.
Lívia watched them through the glass as Sándor entered, holding a map.
– We found the house. At the top of the hill, at the edge of the forest.
The building appeared empty from the outside, and neighbors said no one had lived there for years. But listen, four different witnesses saw an old woman at the window over the last two weeks.
Lívia’s eyes flashed when she looked at the map, but something felt even more wrong.
– What if everything didn’t happen here? What if Erika didn’t just run away? What if she disappeared years ago, and now\… has returned?
Sándor thought for a moment.
– Like she escaped from a prisoner’s hold?
– Or something much, much worse.
During the search of the house, as they moved toward the basement, they discovered a strange door that seemed to lead to another world. Behind it, a mysterious scene began to unfold.
It was as if something had occurred that transcended both time and space. The door opened slowly, and behind it stood an old woman, who said:
– You shouldn’t have brought her back. Erika already belongs to me.
The woman smiled and vanished into the darkness, as the shadows of the children also disappeared without a trace.
Later, three weeks after, Erika was playing in the yard of the orphanage, but something was strange about her. She always swung the same way, as if she weren’t in the present, but in another world entirely.
Lívia visited her, but after each visit, she felt that Erika no longer belonged to her. In the girl’s eyes, someone else looked back, someone who lived behind the walls.
