The meeting at his advertising firm was supposed to start in fifteen minutes, and he was still ten blocks away. He cursed under his breath as he turned sharply into a narrow back alley, hoping to bypass the main road, which was choked with traffic. Rain had just stopped, leaving the pavement slick and gleaming under the overcast sky.

His phone buzzed again — the third time in two minutes. “Probably the client,” he muttered, eyes darting toward the passenger seat where his phone lay hidden beneath a pile of papers and a half-eaten sandwich.

He reached over, eyes off the road for just a second.

That was all it took.

The Sound That Changes Everything
A sickening thud jolted the car. Ivan slammed the brakes. The tires screamed, and the car jerked to a halt. For a moment, everything went silent. Then his heart began to pound so loudly it drowned out the noise of the world.

He stumbled out of the vehicle, panicked, already mouthing prayers he hadn’t uttered in years.

There, lying motionless in front of his car, was a little girl. She couldn’t have been older than six. Her pink coat was damp, her hair sticking to her cheeks. No blood. No visible wounds. Just a terrifying stillness.

Ivan knelt beside her.

— Hey… hey! Can you hear me?

Nothing.

With trembling hands, he lifted her into his arms and laid her gently in the back seat. His mind raced. Hospital? Police? He didn’t even know where he was exactly — this shortcut had taken him into an unfamiliar part of town.

He started the car, but before he could put it into gear, he heard a faint sound.

Breathing.

She Woke Up… and Gave Him Something
The girl stirred. Her eyes opened slowly. Ivan let out a shaky breath of relief.

Then she reached into her coat pocket.

— What are you doing? Are you okay? — he asked, still shaken.

She didn’t answer. Instead, she pulled out a small, dirty object wrapped in wax paper and extended it toward him.

Ivan hesitated, then took it.

It was a locket. Old, gold-plated, scratched with age. He opened it with effort.

Inside was a photo — faded, black and white. Two boys. One of them was unmistakably Ivan himself, at age ten. The other was his older brother… who had vanished twenty-two years ago.

A Brother Lost to Time
Ivan felt his vision blur.

His brother, Mark, had disappeared when Ivan was just thirteen. No one knew what had happened. There had been searches, police investigations, public pleas. His parents had died without ever knowing the truth.

And now, this random child, lying unconscious just moments before, was holding an object that had vanished with Mark.

— Where did you get this? — Ivan asked, voice hoarse.

The girl blinked at him, and in a small voice said:

— He told me to find you. He said you’d know what to do.

Ivan’s hands were shaking now.

— Who told you?

— The man under the bridge. He said his name was Mark. He gave me food. He said I should find Ivan. That’s you, right?

The Journey Begins
Everything Ivan thought he knew collapsed in an instant.

He didn’t go to his meeting. He didn’t call the police. Instead, he drove. Aimlessly at first, then with purpose. He remembered the old bridge near their childhood neighborhood. It had long been abandoned, a haunt for the homeless and forgotten.

Was that where Mark had been all this time?

He didn’t want to believe it. He couldn’t.

But the girl — Maya, as she later told him — knew things she couldn’t possibly know. His birthday. The name of their childhood dog. The exact scar on his right hand from when he fell off his bike.

Mark was alive.

And he was watching.

What the Girl Was Hiding
Later, at a diner where Ivan fed Maya a hot meal, she revealed something else. Something far more terrifying.

— He said people are still looking for him. Bad people. He said he saw things he shouldn’t have seen. That’s why he ran.

Mark, it turned out, had been caught up in something dark — something that had cost him his identity, his life, and decades of hiding.

— He said he didn’t want to bring you into it, but he also said… if I didn’t find you now, you’d be in danger too.

Ivan sat back, the weight of it all crushing his chest. He had hit a girl, nearly killed her. But she hadn’t appeared by chance.