A little girl stood in the middle of the hall. Tiny, tearful, her hands trembling. She clenched her fingers as if she were holding onto something invisible.

The officer lowered himself onto one knee in front of her.

“Alright… do you want to tell me what happened?” he asked gently.

The girl sniffled.
“I… I…”

The words got stuck in her throat.

Behind her, her father exhaled nervously:
“Please… just say it…”

Her mother was barely holding back tears:
“She hasn’t eaten… hasn’t slept for three days…”

The officer nodded and leaned a little closer:
“I’m here to help you. No one is going to hurt you. Just tell the truth.”

The girl slowly lifted her eyes.

“And if I tell you…” she whispered, “…will you take me away?”

He froze for a moment.

“That depends on what happened…” he replied carefully.

Silence fell.

Thick. Heavy.

Then—

“I saw it…” the girl breathed.

The officer frowned:
“What exactly did you see?”

Her tears started falling faster.

“There was a man… he was lying there… and he wasn’t moving…”

Her father turned pale:
“What man?..”

Her mother stepped forward:
“What are you saying?!”

The girl shook her head, as if trying to stop the words—but she couldn’t anymore.

“I wanted to help… I really did… but then… I did something bad… something very bad…”

The officer was no longer smiling.

He slowly stood up.

“Where did this happen?” he asked quietly.

The girl glanced around… as if afraid someone might be listening.

Then she leaned closer and whispered into his ear.

And in that instant, his face changed.

Abruptly.

He went pale… his eyes widened.

His hand moved instinctively to his radio.

“All units…” his voice turned sharp.

Her parents exchanged terrified looks.

“What’s going on?!” her father shouted.

The officer looked at them slowly.

And said the words that made the mother’s legs give out:

“Your daughter just described a location we’ve been searching for for three days…”

A pause.

Then he added, almost in a whisper—

“…and what she did there.”

…

He stopped speaking.

The room seemed to shrink.

The mother clutched the wall:
“What… what did she do?..”

The officer looked at the girl.

“What did you do to the body?”

The mother cried out:
“Stop! She’s just a child!”

But the girl couldn’t stop anymore.

“I didn’t mean to…” she whispered. “He was already like that… I just thought that if…”

“If what?” her father cut in.

She closed her eyes.

“If I helped him… he would wake up…”

Silence.

“I found him near an old house… it was dark… and it smelled strange…”
“He was lying there… his eyes were open… but he wasn’t looking at anything…”
“I called to him… he didn’t answer…”

Her father covered his mouth.

“And then…” the girl began to shake, “…I remembered a cartoon… when something is broken… you can fix it…”

The officer stepped forward sharply:
“What did you do?!”

She looked straight at him.

“I tried… to put him back together…”

The mother collapsed.

The father staggered back.

The officer stood frozen.

“You… touched him?” his voice was hoarse.

The girl nodded.

“I turned him over… he was heavy… and there was a lot of blood…”

The air felt thick.

The officer gripped his radio tightly:
“Unit, move out. Now. Location confirmed.”

The father rushed toward him:
“Wait! She doesn’t understand!”

The officer looked at him.

“You don’t understand… she described details that were never released to the public.”

The mother whispered:
“What details?..”

The officer turned back to the girl.

“Were you there alone?”

The girl froze.

Then slowly shook her head.

“No…”

“Who was with you?”

Silence.

The girl stared into a dark corner of the room.

“Him…”

Her father turned sharply:
“Who is ‘him’?!”

But the girl didn’t look at them.

“He said I did the right thing…”
“He said… the man isn’t alone anymore…”

The officer grabbed her shoulders:
“WHO IS HE?!”

And in that moment…

the girl smiled.

Slowly.

Unnaturally.

And whispered:

“He’s standing right behind you…”

…

The radio slipped from the officer’s hand.

And behind him…

someone… took a step.