The sun was low, shadows stretching across the parking lot, when I froze at the security monitor. A barefoot toddler stood near a black sedan—alone. But the footage showed something impossible: a shadow of a small hand held by a larger one, leading him there.
We played it over and over. Same eerie image. Same empty space where no one stood.
I crouched beside the boy. “Can you tell me more about your other dad? Does he have a name?”
He shook his head. “No. He talks in my head. I think about going… and we go.”
His voice was calm. Innocent. Unnerving.
No one in the growing crowd recognized him. Police arrived, watched the footage, talked to the boy, took our statements—but they looked as unsettled as we were.
They made sure he’d be safe. Cared for. But as I walked away, I couldn’t stop thinking about that shadow—guiding him from nowhere, like a whisper from a world we can’t see.
