The morning mist clung to the streets as Robert and Tom moved from house to house, questioning neighbors, scanning alleys, looking for anything that might point to Ethan's trail.
Most doors opened only a crack. Faces peered out—wary, pale, unwilling to speak. Fear had made the town silent. Fear… and something else.
At the edge of Main Street, an old woman stopped them. Her eyes were clouded with age, but sharp enough to pin Robert where he stood. She clutched a rosary tight, the beads clicking in her shaking hands.
"You won't find him on the roads," she whispered. "None of them. The ground swallows them."
Tom stiffened. "What do you mean?"
But the woman only muttered a prayer, backing away before he could ask again.
Robert frowned, scanning the earth beneath their feet. Cracks in the cobblestones. A faint hollow echo when the wind shifted. He had the sudden, unnerving sense that the town wasn't built on solid ground at all—that something hollowed beneath it.
Beside him, William walked in silence, his eyes darting toward the woods at the far edge of town. The boy's jaw was still tight, his anger toward his father simmering just below the surface, but Robert noticed something else too: a strange unease, as though William felt something watching them.
The sheriff's car pulled up then, gravel crunching beneath its tires. Sheriff Dyer stepped out, his face haggard, his eyes shadowed from too many sleepless nights.
"Robert. Tom." His voice was flat, heavy. "You won't like what we just found."
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Sheriff Dyer motioned for them to follow. His jaw was tight, his steps heavy as he led them down a narrow back road toward the edge of town, where the woods pressed close and the ground turned rough.
No one spoke. Even Tom, desperate to ask, kept his silence, dread tightening his chest with every step.
They stopped at a break in the trees, where the soil was loose and black, as if freshly disturbed. Several deputies stood nearby, their faces pale, eyes avoiding the fathers as though they carried guilt.
Robert's gaze swept the ground—and froze.
Half-buried in the dirt lay a shoe. Small. Scuffed. The kind a boy would wear.
Tom fell to his knees, clawing at the earth with his bare hands. When he pulled the shoe free, his sob tore through the stillness.
"Ethan's…" His voice cracked, breaking apart. "This is Ethan's!"
Robert's stomach knotted. He crouched low, brushing his hand across the soil. It wasn't just loose—it was hollow. When his palm pressed down, the ground gave the faintest echo, like striking the lid of a box.
He looked up sharply at the sheriff. "What's under here?"
Dyer swallowed hard, his eyes avoiding Robert's. "That's what we're trying to figure out. Every time a child goes missing, we find… places like this. Buried signs. Clothes, toys, sometimes nothing at all. But the ground—" He gestured helplessly. "It sounds the same. Empty."
Tom gripped the shoe to his chest, rocking slightly, his tears falling into the dirt.
William stood a few feet back, arms still crossed, but his face was pale. His eyes weren't on the shoe. They were on the ground itself—because he swore he'd just felt it shift.
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The deputies exchanged uneasy glances, none daring to touch the ground. One of them muttered under his breath, "Best leave it," but fell silent when the sheriff shot him a warning look.
Robert pressed his palm against the soil again. It was faint, almost imagined—but he could swear he felt a vibration, like a soft pulse. Alive.
He pulled his hand back quickly, hiding the shiver that ran through him. "We need to dig," he said, steadying his voice.
The sheriff hesitated, then shook his head. "Every time we've tried… the earth fills back in. Like it doesn't want to be disturbed." His lips tightened around the last words, as if even saying them felt dangerous.
Tom clutched Ethan's shoe so tightly his knuckles turned white. "I don't care what it wants," he hissed. "My boy is down there. I'll tear the ground apart with my own hands if I have to."
William shifted uneasily, eyes still fixed on the soil. He leaned closer to his father, whispering so only Robert could hear.
"Dad… it's listening."
Robert turned sharply to him, but William's face was deadly serious. His son wasn't guessing—he knew.
The forest around them was too quiet. No birds, no wind, just the faint hollow beneath their feet, waiting.
Robert rose to his full height, his jaw set. "If the ground is listening," he said softly, almost to himself, "then it knows we're coming."