I found a little boy crying, barefoot in the car park but no one knew him.
He stood beside a black sedan, sobbing so hard his tiny frame shook. His feet were bare, the back of his neck red from the sun, and his small fingers clutched the door handle desperately, as if he believed the car would open if he cried loudly enough.
I scanned the car park. No one was running. No one called for him.
I crouched beside him.
“Hey, little one, wheres your mum or dad?”
He cried harder.
“I want to go back inside!”
“Inside where?” I asked gently.
He pointed at the car.
“The film! I want to go back to the film!”
I wondered if he meant the cinema, just further down in the shopping centre. I tried the doorlocked. Inside, nothing: no car seat, no toys. Just emptiness.
I picked him up and walked toward the cinema, asking if hed come with anyone. He shook his head slowly.
“My other dad.”
I froze.
“Your other dad?”
He nodded.
“The one who doesnt speak with his mouth.”
Before I could ask more, a security guard rolled up on his buggy. I explained the situation.
We walked with the boythrough the food court, the play area, the security office. Every parent we passed gave the same answer:
“Sorry, hes not mine.”
Staff finally checked the CCTV.
Then everything turned strange.
No one had brought him.
No one had walked in with him.
Hed just appeared.
One framenothing.
The next, he was there, barefoot beside the black car.
Then the guard pointed at the screen.
“Wait look at his shadow.”
I leaned in.
The boys shadow was holding someones hand.
I went cold. On screen, the boy stared at the camera, but his shadow seemed alive. Stretched unnaturally behind him, far too large for the time of day. It gripped the hand of something unseen.
The guard slowly backed away, pale.
“Just a glitch, you think?” I whispered, not believing it myself.
He didnt answer.
The boy watched the screen calmly, as if he already knew.
“He came back,” he said simply.
“Who came back, little one?”
He looked at me.
“My other dad.”
He reached out, touching the pixelated face of his shadow-self.
Then he turned toward the security door.
And in that moment the lights flickered.
The air conditioning cut out, the neon strips buzzed. And in that near-silence came a metallic scrape from the hallway.
The boy smiled.
“He found me.”
The guard and I shot to our feet.
“Wait, wait! You cant”
But the child was already leaving, walking barefoot and calm, as if following a thread we couldnt see.
I chased after him, frantic, but in the corridor he was gone.
Only the black sedan remained, parked in a restricted area, its engine still warm. This time the door was slightly open.
The guard hung back, too shaken. I stepped closer.
On the passenger seat: a single childs shoe.
And stranger still, the inside of the windscreen was smudged with tiny handprints. But the car was empty.
I backed away slowly.
The guard called the police. But when they arrived, the car had vanished. No cameras caught it leaving.
The boy was never found.
But sometimes, in certain car parks people swear they hear muffled sobs and see the shadow of a figure reaching for a smaller one.
