crying baby

After surviving a devastating fire that claimed the life of her infant child, the woman is a shell of who she once was. Wracked with guilt and trauma, she takes a job at a small, nondescript store in a quiet town—just enough to survive, just enough to distract her from the silence. Every day she forces herself through the motions: standing behind the counter for eight hours, barely speaking, barely eating, barely living.

When she returns to her empty house each night, the loneliness wraps around her like smoke. But one evening, as she walks down the dim hallway toward her room, she freezes. A sound. A baby crying. Muffled. Faint. Coming from the upstairs nursery—the room that’s been closed since the fire engulfed her child in that room.

Her heart races, her body trembles, but she doesn’t open the door. She walks past it, going into her room jaw clenched, eyes hollow, and collapses onto her bed. She tells herself she imagined it. That it’s grief. That it’s dreams.

But each night, the crying grows louder. Closer. And soon, it begins to call her by name.