A little girl was running.Not too long ago, I watched them promising each other to meet again.The sound of laughter echoed through the woods—high-pitched, distant, and wrong. Not the laughter of joy, but something older, something buried in the cracks between childhood and grief. I couldn’t see them, but I could feel them. The little girl and the boy.“Come find me!” the girl’s voice called, sing-song and airy.The trees twisted around her, tall and shadowed, the moonlight slicing through their branches like blades. My feet crunched over dead leaves, my breath ragged. I didn’t know why I was chasing them—only that I had to.Then I saw them.Two children, no older than six or seven. The girl wore a white dress smeared with earth. The boy’s hands were clasped over his eyes, counting, forehead pressed onto a tree trunk. The girl giggled and ran, vanishing into the woods.“One... two... three...”His voice was hollow.I tried to call out, but no sound came. My feet felt rooted. A cold w
Last Updated : 2025-08-19 Read more