Chapter 1
I opened my eyes in my pitch-dark room. The clock showed midnight. I had fallen asleep on my bed, completely exhausted from the long day. I could hear the sound of the television coming from downstairs. I quietly went down the stairs. When I reached the living room, my mom and dad weren’t in their usual places.
“Mom? Dad?” I called out, but not a single sound came from the house.
Just then, a loud crashing noise came from the garden. My heart started pounding with fear. Instinctively, my hand went to my pocket—but my phone was upstairs. Not knowing what to do, I decided to go back up as quietly as possible.
When I reached the stairs, I noticed that the kitchen window facing the garden was open. I could hear faint voices coming from outside.
Where were my parents? Whose voices were those?
I listened more carefully.
“Are we ready?”
“Is anyone else in the house?”
“Did you check upstairs?”
Terrified, I stopped listening and hurried silently up the stairs. As I grabbed my phone from my room, I heard the stairs creak. Someone was coming up.
Panicking, I rushed out of the room and slipped into the storage room at the end of the hallway.
“Come on, girl, think fast Mira” I whispered to myself.
My eyes caught the laundry basket. I pulled out the clothes inside and climbed in, covering myself with the laundry.
Please, don’t let them hear anything, I thought.
The footsteps were getting closer.
“There’s another room upstairs.”
“It’s empty.”
“Are you sure? I don’t want any trouble later.”
The door brushed lightly against me. I held my breath. My heart was about to burst out of my chest. They could find me at any moment.
Then I heard a voice say,
“Okay, no one’s here. We can go now.”
“See? I told you,” another replied.
A thud followed—maybe one of them hit the other on the shoulder.
“Stop talking. They’re waiting for us,” the voice said.
And they went downstairs.
I waited another minute or two before carefully climbing out of the basket. I ran to the window facing the front of the house—no one was there. Then I moved to the one overlooking the garden.
There was a black van.
A tall man was walking toward it—he must’ve been nearly two meters tall. He was wearing a pitch-black jumpsuit that covered him completely.
The moment he turned his back, I pulled the curtain closed.
I was looking at him, but he wasn’t looking at me.
He was examining the house, window by window.
When his gaze reached the one I was standing behind, our eyes met—his eyes were nothing but darkness.
There was darkness where his eyes should have been.
