Chapter 4 Shattered world

The door creaked open.

Maya stepped into the apartment, her movements slow and hesitant, almost fearful. The brass doorknob felt cold beneath her palm, still damp from the rain that had followed her home. She paused in the doorway, listening for the impossible.

Silence.

No sound of running feet across the cold floor. No squeal of, "Mom, you're home! Look what I drew!" No cartoons humming from the living room, not even the familiar jingle of that annoying princess show Anna loved so much.

Just silence... thick, unbearable, pressing against her eardrums like cotton.

She closed the door behind her with a soft click and leaned against it, as if it were the only thing keeping her upright. The entrance light flickered, casting long, fragile shadows across the floor. The air inside felt different now, too still, too empty, like the very life had been drained from the place. Even the usual scent of Anna's strawberry shampoo seemed absent, replaced by something stale and hollow.

"Anna?" she called again, one last time, already knowing there'd be no answer. Her voice cracked on the second syllable, betraying the composure she'd fought so hard to maintain at the police station.

She moved through the apartment, eyes darting around, half-hoping, half-dreading. Anna's tiny sneakers still sat by the door, the pink ones with the glittery unicorn on the side that she'd begged for at the store last month. Maya had said they were too expensive, but Anna had given her that look, the one with the wide brown eyes and the slightly trembling lower lip.

"Please, Mommy? I'll be extra good, I promise."

And Maya had caved, of course. She always did.

Now those same sneakers sat there, laces still tied in the careful double-knots Maya had taught her, as if Anna had simply stepped out of them and vanished into thin air.

Her favorite drawing pad lay open on the couch, the last sketch unfinished, two stick figures holding hands beneath a crooked sun. Maya recognized the taller figure immediately: herself, with the long brown hair Anna always drew in careful strokes, and the smaller figure with pigtails. At the bottom, in Anna's careful eight-year-old handwriting: "Me and Mommy at the park."

Maya pressed a trembling hand to her mouth, tasting salt.

The kitchen smelled faintly of tomato sauce leftovers from early morning's spaghetti breakfast. One plate still sat in the sink, where Anna had left it after complaining about the vegetables. Maya could still hear her daughter's voice, high and indignant: "I don't like tomatoes, Mom! They taste sore!"

"And that's why they're the best." Maya had said, trying not to laugh.

Maya could hear her daughter's voice so clearly in her head, it felt like a ghost brushing past her, whispering secrets she couldn't quite catch.

The dining table still held Anna's open workbook, a pink pencil beside it with bite marks near the eraser, a nervous habit Maya had been trying to break her of. The math problems were half-finished, Anna's neat numbers marching across the page in rows. Problem seven was circled in red crayon with a question mark: "7 + 8 = ?"

Maya's throat tightened. Anna had been struggling with addition lately, growing frustrated when the numbers didn't come easily. Just yesterday, she'd thrown her pencil down in exasperation.

"I hate math! It's stupid!"

"Hey," Maya had said gently, settling beside her at the table. "Math isn't stupid. It's just... tricky sometimes. Want to try using your fingers?"

Anna had rolled her eyes but held up her small hands anyway, carefully counting on her fingers until her face lit up with understanding. "Fifteen! It's fifteen!"

"That's right, sweetheart. See? You're smarter than you think."

The space felt hollow, as if everything, the warmth, the energy, the presence that made this place home, was gone.

And that's when the wall inside her crumbled.

Maya collapsed onto the living room floor, right next to the sketchpad. Her knees hit the carpet with a dull thud, and she barely felt the impact. The first sob broke free from her chest, raw and painful, like something tearing inside her. And then another. And another.

Tears she'd kept locked behind professionalism, behind motherly instinct, behind the false composure she'd worn like armor finally erupted. She cried until her lungs burned. Until her hands ached from clutching her knees. Until her face was buried in the carpet that still held a faint stain from the juice box Anna had spilled last week.

"I'm sorry, Mommy," Anna had said, her bottom lip quivering as she stared at the spreading purple stain. "I didn't mean to."

"It's okay, baby," Maya had whispered, pulling her into a hug. "Accidents happen. We'll clean it up together."

But they never had gotten around to cleaning it properly. Maya had always been too busy, too tired, always promising "tomorrow" or "this weekend." Now she traced the faded stain with her finger, wishing she could go back to that moment, wishing she could hold Anna again and tell her it really was okay.

"Where are you?" she whispered to the empty room. "Where are you, honey?"

Her cries echoed through the small apartment, bouncing off the walls like a haunting lullaby. She wasn't just crying out of fear, she was crying from guilt. From helplessness. From the gnawing voice inside her that kept asking: What did I miss? What didn't I see?

Had there been signs? Warning bells she'd ignored because she was too caught up in deadlines and bills and the mundane chaos of single motherhood? She thought of this morning, God, was it only this morning?when Anna had asked that question.

"Mom, will you come today to pick me up?" She'd asked, barely touching her breakfast.

"I would've loved to, sweetheart, but mommy is busy," Maya had replied, barely looking up from her phone as she scrolled through work emails.

"Uh-huh," Anna had mumbled, picking at her pasta.

Why hadn't she agreed? Why hadn't she put the phone down and really looked at her daughter? Maya's chest tightened with the weight of every missed moment, every distracted "mm-hmm" when Anna was trying to tell her something important.

The shadows in the room seemed to press in tighter, like the walls were listening but offering no comfort. The apartment felt smaller now, suffocating, as if the very air was trying to squeeze the life out of her.

Maya curled into herself, rocking slowly, trying to remember every detail, what Anna wore that morning, how she smiled when she waved goodbye at the door, the way her braid kept slipping over her left shoulder. She'd been wearing her favorite jacket, the one they'd bought together last Christmas.

"See you later, Mommy!" Anna had called, her voice bright and cheerful as she skipped down the hallway toward the staircase. "Love you!"

"Love you too, baby," Maya had called back, already turning back to her laptop. "Have a good day at school!"

Those might have been the last words they ever spoke to each other.

The memories were everywhere. They were all she had right now.

And for the first time since this nightmare began, Maya allowed herself to fully grieve not just for Anna's absence, but for the growing dread that maybe... something terrible had happened.