The city was just beginning to stir. Traffic lights flickered lazily through the foggy morning air, and the streets were slowly coming to life. But what happened that day on a desolate industrial street would plunge an entire precinct into a nightmare no one saw coming.

Sergeant Alex Rudenko, a seasoned officer with years of patrol experience under his belt, was sipping lukewarm coffee and cruising down 3rd Gravel Street when he spotted something utterly bizarre. Right there — on the sidewalk, under a dimly buzzing streetlamp — stood a coffin.

Not a box. Not a prop. A full-sized, lacquered wooden coffin with brass handles. There were no flowers, no mourners, no hearse — just a solitary coffin as if someone had dropped it from the sky.

Alex brought his patrol car to a halt, flipped on the emergency lights, and stepped out. His hand instinctively rested on his holster. Something felt off — deeply, unnervingly off.

He walked toward the coffin. The lid was slightly ajar. Every instinct told him to stop, to wait for backup. But he couldn’t. Curiosity—or maybe dread—pulled him forward. He placed his fingers on the lid and slowly opened it.

Inside was not a body. Not a mannequin. But a hyper-realistic human-sized doll, crafted from silicone, with lifelike skin, real human hair, and delicate features. Resting in its hands was a smartphone. The screen blinked with a notification.

Alex picked it up. A message glowed on the lock screen:
“She is not the first. She won’t be the last. The next coffin appears on Sverdlov Street at 5:00 AM.”

Stunned, he called for backup. Forensics arrived within the hour. The doll, the coffin, and the phone were taken into custody. Preliminary findings chilled the entire department: the coffin contained trace DNA from a woman in her 20s–30s, but no matches were found in any criminal database. Whoever was behind this had erased nearly every trace of themselves — almost.

Two days later, at precisely 5:00 AM, a second coffin appeared. This time on busy Sverdlov Street, in full view of multiple surveillance cameras. But every single recording was corrupted. Files missing. Logs wiped clean. It was as if the cameras had been blind — or controlled.

Inside this coffin was another hyper-realistic doll. But in its hands was a worn-out magazine. Certain pages had been slashed, others glued together. On the cover were faces — cut-out photos of young women reported missing over the last five years. One caption stood out in bold red marker:

“They’re watching. You’re next.”

Panic began to brew inside the department. The media got a whiff of “unusual activity,” but most details were kept under wraps. Investigators were scrambling, and Alex couldn’t shake the feeling that whoever was behind this wasn’t just mocking the system — they were orchestrating something bigger.

Then came the third coffin.

This time, it appeared on a downtown corner in broad daylight. Passersby saw it. Cameras recorded everything — or so it seemed. Yet again, the footage was either corrupted or wiped clean minutes before the appearance.

But this time, the nightmare deepened.

During forensic examination, a small message was discovered scratched on the inner lid of the coffin. Faint. Barely visible. Carved in desperation:

“I’m here. I’m alive. Please help.”

That doll wasn’t a doll.

She was real.

The woman inside — 27-year-old Irina Novikova — had been reported missing over a year earlier. Vanished on her way home from work. No witnesses, no CCTV, no leads. Now, she had been found — buried alive, drugged, and left to suffocate inside a coffin placed like a grotesque art piece for someone’s amusement. She didn’t survive.

The city was now officially on alert. Task forces were assembled. Psychologists consulted. Criminal profilers drawn in. They concluded one thing: the perpetrator was intelligent, meticulous, and above all — performing.

These were not random acts.

This was a message.

Then it stopped.

Weeks passed. No new coffins. No new messages. But the fear lingered. A psychological war had been waged — and the city had lost the first battle.

Today, police officers in that district start every shift with a silent glance around. Every back alley, every shadow, every parked van sets off quiet alarms in their minds. Because somewhere out there, someone knows exactly how to bypass the system. How to toy with fear. And how to hide in plain sight.

And every now and then, just before dawn, Sergeant Rudenko finds himself driving by that same spot where it all began.

Just in case.

Because the fourth coffin may already be waiting.