Whispers Beneath the Backwaters - The Hidden Child - Part 9

 “Did you hear that?” Devika whispered.

The crying came again.

A little boy.

Weak.

Terrified.

“Amma… please…”

Arjun’s face lost all color.

That voice.

It sounded exactly like him as a child.

Kuttappan backed away slowly.

“No… no… it has started again…”

The crying continued upstairs.

Not supernatural now.

Real.

Human.

Meenu pointed upward quietly.

“She locked him there.”

Arjun grabbed the lantern and rushed toward the staircase.

This time Devika followed him.

Even Kuttappan came despite trembling violently.

The upper corridor felt colder than before. Water dripped steadily from the ceiling though there was no leak.

And all along the walls—

New handprints.

Tiny bloody child handprints.

Leading toward Arjun’s old room.

The crying came from inside.

“Amma…”

Arjun pushed the door open.

The room smelled of dust and old memories.

His childhood cricket bat still rested in one corner.

Faded schoolbooks.

Broken toys.

A tiny wooden elephant.

Everything untouched for twenty years.

But the crying had stopped.

Only silence remained.

Devika whispered, “There’s nobody here…”

Then Meenu walked straight toward the old cupboard.

Without hesitation she pointed below it.

“There.”

Arjun slowly moved the cupboard aside.

The wooden floor beneath carried deep scratch marks.

And hidden under an old rug—

A small trapdoor.

Kuttappan gasped in horror.

“No…”

Arjun pulled it open carefully.

Darkness waited below.

Along with a horrible smell.

Rotting earth.

Something old.

Something buried.

A narrow staircase disappeared beneath the house.

The crying returned.

Closer now.

“Amma…”

Devika held Arjun’s arm tightly.

“Don’t go down there…”

But he already knew.

Some terrible truth had waited beneath this house for decades.

Arjun took the lantern and descended slowly.

The underground passage was cramped and damp. Mud walls sweated water. Strange symbols had been scratched everywhere.

Some looked like prayer marks.

Others looked like nails dragged in desperation.

Then the passage opened into a hidden room.

Devika covered her mouth instantly.

Children’s things.

Tiny sandals.

Broken dolls.

Rusty anklets.

Dozens of them.

Arjun’s breathing became uneven.

At the center of the room stood a small wooden chair facing the wall.

And on the wall…

Hundreds of tally marks scratched into the mud.

As though someone trapped there had counted days.

Years.

Near the corner lay a child’s skeleton.

Tiny.

Curled up.

Still wearing a rusted silver anklet.

Devika burst into tears.

“Oh God…”

Arjun noticed something beside the skeleton.

An old photograph.

Half destroyed by moisture.

He picked it up carefully.

It showed his father standing beside a beautiful woman in white.

The same woman from the mirror.

And in her arms—

A little boy.

Arjun.

Behind him, Meenu whispered softly—

“She was your first mother.”