Every morning began the same way. The poor mother woke before dawn, held a bouquet of fresh flowers tightly to her chest, and walked down the cold, damp path to the small fenced area where her sons rested. They had left the world far too early — so small, so helpless.

After the divorce, she and her ex-husband had agreed to raise the boys together. On weekdays, the children lived with their mother because the school and kindergarten were nearby, and on weekends the father took them to spend time together. It had always been this way, and no one could have imagined that one ordinary day would destroy everything.

That day, the father was driving home with the boys. Everything was calm — a familiar road, little traffic. But at that exact moment, the accident happened. The car was crushed like a tin can, and according to the rescuers, no one survived.

For the woman, the world collapsed. Days blurred into fog, nights felt endless. She stopped living — she merely existed, spending all her time in the cemetery, talking to the two stone photographs she touched with trembling fingers.

But on that dark, foggy day, something happened — something she could never have expected.

She was standing by the grave, crying and barely feeling the cold, when suddenly a boy appeared beside her — a stranger, wearing a blue jacket and a striped hat. He looked at her timidly and asked:

“Ma’am, why are you crying?”

She lifted her red, swollen eyes and whispered:

“I lost my sons… sweetheart.”

The boy looked at the photos on the gravestone and quietly asked:

“These boys… are they your children?”

“Yes…” she nodded, not understanding where he was going with this.

He went silent for a moment, then said something that made her breath catch:

“But they’re alive. They live with me.”

The boy stood calmly in front of her, as if he were saying something completely ordinary. Then he added something that made the mother freeze in terror 

“Come, I’ll show you,” he repeated.

The woman felt everything inside her collapse. But instead of fear, a strange coldness settled in — the kind that comes when a person has already lived through the worst and can’t fall any further.

“Alright… lead the way,” she managed to say.

The boy walked confidently through the cemetery and toward the exit. She could barely keep up.

“Where are you taking me?”

“Home.”

She stumbled.

“Whose… home?”

“OURS,” the boy replied calmly. “Your children live there. I’ll show you.”

They left the cemetery gate, followed the path, and crossed a small old bridge. The boy turned into a quiet neighborhood and walked straight toward one of the houses.

“It’s here,” he said.

“Sweetheart…” the woman began to cry. “You don’t understand… my sons died in the accident. They were found… there was a funeral… documents… everything…”

The boy looked at her as if he had heard that same story a hundred times.

“They didn’t die.”

He knocked on the door.

“They rarely come out. Because they’re kept in the basement.”

The woman felt her heart seize.

“W-what did you say?..”

At that moment, the door cracked open, and a frightened little girl appeared — about the same age. She looked at them and whispered:

“That’s their mother… I told them you would come…”

She glanced nervously over her shoulder, as if afraid someone might hear her, then added:

“They’re downstairs. They cry at night. They asked me to tell you to save them.”

The woman nearly collapsed.

“WHO is keeping my children?!”

The girl’s eyes widened, and she whispered:

“The people who took them out of the car on the day of the accident. They… they lied to you. They were never buried. They were kidnapped.”