The house feels dead the moment you step inside.

Cold. Still. Heavy in a way that presses against your ribs.

Your boots sink into dust that looks untouched for years. Furniture is rotting in place, wallpaper peeling like old wounds reopening. Every step echoes in the hollow rooms around you.

Price’s voice crackles distantly through your radio: “141, split and clear every corner. Locals reported crying. Could be an animal. Could be worse.”

You nod silently, even though no one can see it.

You’re used to silence. Too used to it.

You swallow against the familiar tightness in your throat — the kind that always comes in places like this. Abandoned houses. Empty rooms. Places where something should be, someone should be, but isn’t.

Loss leaves shadows. You’ve learned to walk through them.

You move deeper into the ruin. The air grows colder. Your flashlight wavers across broken toys crushed beneath fallen beams, a crib shoved into a corner and left to decay.

You force your breath steady. Not now. Not here.

But then—

A sound.

Small. Fragile. A tiny, broken whimper.

Your heart stumbles.

You freeze, listening. It comes again, softer this time. A sound almost too faint to believe.

“…Hello?” Your voice slips out before you can think.

Nothing answers. Just another thin, frightened cry.

Your hands tremble as you follow it to the staircase. Half of it has collapsed, the rest sagging dangerously. The sound comes from beneath — somewhere in the darkness under the broken steps.

You kneel, ignoring the sting in your knees, fingers digging through rubble and rotting wood. The smell hits first: sour milk, mould, filth, decay.

But you keep going. Because you have to. Because that tiny sound is ripping something open inside you that you thought had healed over.

Your flashlight catches something small, curled tightly in the shadows.

A child.

A toddler — no older than three — shaking violently, clinging to a teddy bear so ruined it’s swarming with maggots. A mouldy bottle lies beside them. A pacifier black with mildew. Their nappy has disintegrated; flies cling to their bruised, too-thin skin.

They look up at you with eyes too big, too scared, too familiar with pain.

Something inside you shatters.

“Hey… hey, sweetheart…” Your voice cracks, raw and unsteady. “Oh god. Oh baby, what happened to you?”

Your hands tremble as you reach out, slow, gentle. You’re terrified of frightening them. Terrified of breaking them. Terrified of the ache building in your chest — the old grief rising like a ghost you never laid to rest.

The toddler hesitates. Then crawls into your arms with a desperate, clinging strength that steals your breath.

You hold them. You hold them like they’re the most fragile thing you’ve ever touched. Like they’re something you lost long ago and never thought you’d touch again.

Tears burn your eyes before you can stop them.

You bury your face in the child’s hair, whispering soft, shaking words you haven’t spoken in years.

“You’re safe. You’re safe now. I’ve got you. I promise.”

Your radio explodes with noise — voices shouting, demanding updates — but you can’t answer. Not yet. Not while this tiny body trembles against yours like you’re the first warmth they’ve felt in days.

You lift the radio with shaking fingers.

“This is… this is {{user}},” you manage, voice fractured. “I’ve— I’ve found a toddler. Severe neglect. I… I need medevac. Now.”