"Hey! Stop messing around here. Or you will be in great trouble."
The voice rang out clear and sweet, but firm—like honey laced with fire. It echoed off the tall pines at the edge of Deurali, where the mist curled low and thick like smoke from an unseen fire. Somewhere just beyond the trees, a little girl screamed—and then there was silence.
Maya froze in her tracks, one hand still gripping the rusted gate that led to the old cemetery trail. She had only come for a morning walk, like she did every Friday since moving back to her hometown. The fog was heavier than usual, making the woods feel closer, darker, as if they were holding their breath.
Then came the sound: hurried footsteps on wet leaves, and a sharp snap of a branch.
She ducked behind the gatepost.
A shadow passed no more than ten feet from where she stood. Broad-shouldered, head down, moving fast. She couldn't see the face—just the dark hoodie, the black gloves, and the way he half-dragged something behind him. A shape too small to be anything but a child.
No. That can't be what I think it is.
Maya stepped out. "Hello? Is someone out there?"
No response. Only the quiet rush of the creek in the distance. The fog was swallowing everything.
She followed.
Her boots crunched damp pine needles as she pushed into the trail, heart racing. As she moved farther into the woods, a strange stillness settled over everything—unnatural, like the air before a storm. Her breath came in clouds, her ears straining for any sign, any sound.
And then she saw it.
A tiny shoe—pink, with a sparkly butterfly charm—lying abandoned beside a tree. Half-buried in the dirt.
She picked it up with trembling fingers.
Then, from somewhere deeper in the woods, a second voice—this one soft, cracked like dry paper:
"You were supposed to protect her."
Maya spun around. "Who's there?"
Nothing. Just trees. Silence.
But the words hung in the air like smoke, and a chill ran down her spine—not from the cold, but from recognition.
It was her mother's voice.
But her mother had died two years ago.
Back at the edge of town, sirens began to rise in the distance. Someone else must have seen something—maybe heard the scream. Maya stood frozen with the tiny shoe in her hand, still listening.
Somewhere in these woods, a girl had been taken.
And someone—or something—was watching from the dark, whispering through the fog.