Lucas stood frozen in his room, his mind clouded with panic and uncertainty. The lifeless body lay only a few feet away, an unnerving reminder of the mess he was now caught in. He knew he couldn’t call anyone—his past had taught him that much.

  Flickers of an old case, long buried and forgotten by others, clawed their way back into his thoughts. The same creeping dread, the same feeling of helplessness—it was all too familiar.

  For a brief moment, as Lucas stood in the quiet, his mind drifted back to a time he thought he'd locked away. There was a time when he had once been married—a time when he believed he’d found his own version of happiness. They were content, or at least, that’s what it seemed on the surface. But as with so many things in Lucas’s life, a shadow soon crept over them.

  Their arguments had started small, just everyday misunderstandings at first, but they grew louder, sharper. Neighbors had become aware, voices carrying through thin walls, fueling a sense of tension that he couldn’t shake.

  Suddenly, those arguments ceased, replaced by an unsettling silence. Neighbors, who had once overheard their conflicts, began to notice something was off. They stopped hearing her voice altogether. It was as if she had evaporated into thin air, leaving behind only whispers of concern. Lucas tried to dismiss it, feigning surprise when questions arose, but deep down, he felt the weight of their scrutiny.

  In a moment of clarity amidst the chaos, Lucas knew he had to act—he had to present himself as the caring husband, genuinely worried about his wife’s sudden disappearance. He practiced the lines in his head, rehearsing a facade of panic and concern. “Where could she be?” he would exclaim, as if he hadn’t spent countless hours replaying the moments leading up to her vanishing act.

  When the neighbors approached him, he donned a mask of anguish, his voice trembling as he recounted their last moments together. “I don’t know what happened,” he would say, eyes wide, mimicking the horror that should have been there. And then, propelled by a surge of urgency, he made his way to the police station, heart pounding. As he walked, he clutched the folder of documents that detailed their life together, a flimsy shield against the encroaching shadows of doubt.

  “Please, she’s my wife,” he insisted, words tumbling out in a rush, desperately trying to convince them—and himself—that he was just a frightened husband, lost without the love of his life. Yet, deep within him, an insidious thought gnawed: was he acting to protect her, or was he merely performing to save himself?

  The case had fallen into the hands of Sergeant Samuel, a seasoned officer with a reputation for solving even the trickiest investigations. When Samuel arrived at the scene, he took in every detail with a calm, measured gaze. The neighbors’ stories were full of whispers about arguments and sudden silences, but Samuel was already searching for more. He knew that appearances often hid the truth.

  As he observed Lucas standing uneasily before him, Samuel's instinct kicked in. The man’s story seemed straightforward, yet something felt off. There was a subtle tension in Lucas’s words, a lingering hesitation, as if he were holding back. Samuel didn’t ask many questions yet, letting Lucas's account settle in the air, while he silently sized him up, noting every flicker of expression and shift of stance.

  With a quiet intensity, Samuel began his work, gathering statements from neighbors and piecing together the fractured timeline of the wife’s disappearance. For him, this wasn’t just a case—it was a puzzle, and he intended to uncover every piece.

  Samuel’s investigation led him down a winding path of missing clues and whispered suspicions. His search for Lucas’s wife seemed to reach a dead end—until he spoke to a local shopkeeper who claimed to have seen her on the last day anyone did. She’d been on a quiet, desolate street at the edge of the city, just a stone’s throw from the shadowy woods that loomed beyond.

  As the shopkeeper was shown her photograph, the shopkeeper remembered it clearly: Lucas's wife had walked alone, her eyes fixed ahead, as though something was drawing her toward the forest. But the reason why remained a mystery. After that moment, no one saw her again. She disappeared into the shadows, vanishing without a trace. No body, no belongings, nothing to tell Samuel what had happened to her.

  Despite meticulous searches, the forest offered no hints, as if it had swallowed her whole. And yet, Samuel couldn’t shake the feeling that something—or someone—was hiding just out of sight.

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  Determined to uncover the truth, Samuel returned to the neighborhood where Lucas lived. The neighbors were quick to share their memories of the day Lucas’s wife disappeared. They recalled seeing her leave the house alone, her steps hesitant, almost reluctant. But as for Lucas himself, he was only seen briefly in the morning and again in the evening. No one could say for certain where he had been during the hours in between.

  When Samuel confronted Lucas, he insisted he’d been home all day. Yet, the neighbors’ fragmented accounts left too many questions unanswered, raising a haze of uncertainty around Lucas's alibi. Something about his story felt incomplete, a thread left dangling.

  Suspicious, Samuel requested permission to search Lucas’s house. His gaze scanned every corner, and then he noticed it—a small, narrow window at the back of the house, easily missed by a casual observer. The window led to a discreet path, one that would allow someone to slip in and out without catching the attention of prying eyes.

  A troubling possibility took shape in Samuel’s mind: had Lucas used this hidden route to leave unnoticed and then return, crafting his alibi to look solid? The evidence was circumstantial, nothing concrete to tie Lucas to his wife's disappearance. Yet, the more Samuel pieced things together, the more he felt he was circling a truth just out of reach, tangled in shadows.

  The investigation stretched on for over a year, a relentless pursuit of answers that seemed to dissolve with each passing month. Throughout it all, Samuel's suspicion of Lucas never wavered. In his gut, he felt certain that Lucas held the key to the mystery—yet every lead turned to dust, and every theory led him in circles. The elusive truth remained just out of reach, like a faint shadow slipping further into obscurity.

  Despite Samuel's tireless efforts, the case started to fade from prominence. Without solid evidence, it became harder to justify the resources and attention it once commanded. The community, which had once whispered about Lucas’s involvement, gradually fell silent. People moved on, new stories took over, and memories of Lucas’s missing wife grew hazy, slipping into the forgotten corners of the town's history.

  Samuel, however, couldn't shake the feeling that he’d overlooked something critical. But with the world around him letting the mystery drift into obscurity, he was left to wonder if he’d ever find the answers he sought—or if Lucas's secret would remain buried forever.

  As the case began to fade into memory, Lucas wore his sorrow like a well-practiced mask. To some, he appeared genuinely grief-stricken, a man trapped in the pain of his wife's disappearance. Others saw something colder beneath the surface, a hint of calculation in his gestures and the timing of his melancholy. Was he truly broken by loss, or was this an elaborate performance to keep suspicions at bay? The neighbors could never agree, their opinions divided between sympathy and suspicion.

  Eventually, Lucas announced he could no longer endure the house where everything reminded him of her absence. He left quietly, moving to a small, isolated home on the edge of another town. This new place lay at the end of a quiet street, bordering a dense forest—a perfect backdrop of solitude and shadow. Lucas settled into this new life, hoping to disappear into obscurity, though fate—or something darker—had other plans.

  Returning to the present, Lucas stood motionless in his dimly lit house, staring down at the lifeless body sprawled across his floor. His pulse thudded in his ears as he tried to process the surreal sight before him. He had no idea who this person was or how they had ended up here. Lea was nowhere to be found, her absence leaving him alone with an unimaginable dilemma.

  In that instant, a decision settled over him like a heavy cloak: he would handle this himself. No police, no neighbors, no outsiders—he’d clean up this mess without a trace, burying any evidence and ensuring no one would ever link him to this stranger’s fate. Lucas knew all too well the risks, but he was prepared to take them. His resolve tightened, each choice deliberate, as he steeled himself for what he was about to do.

  In the quiet hours of early morning, around 1 a.m., Lucas slipped into the shadows of his garage, where an old, unused car sat gathering dust. It had been sitting there for years, more for appearance than purpose. He owned another vehicle for actual use, and this rusting relic was little more than a disguise—a perfect shield, he realized, for what he was about to do.

  Taking a breath, he pushed the old car aside, its wheels creaking over the concrete, until he had just enough space. He grabbed a shovel, the cold metal biting his hands as he began to dig. The hours passed in tense silence, every scrape of the shovel against the hard earth echoing in his ears. He worked with calculated movements, glancing over his shoulder from time to time, ensuring no sign of light crept from the windows.

  By the time he finished, nearly three hours had passed, and a deep pit lay before him, hidden in the dim shadows of the garage. Carefully, he lowered the body into the hole, shoveling the earth back in with painstaking precision, covering all traces. When he was finished, he wiped the sweat from his brow, his hands trembling slightly. He slid the old junk car back over the freshly turned earth, its weight pressing down like a final seal on his grim secret. Satisfied that no one would ever suspect what lay beneath, he took one last look and silently retreated, leaving no sign that anything was ever amiss.

  As dawn crept over the horizon, Lucas surveyed his surroundings with a weary gaze. His house was spotless—every surface wiped, every trace meticulously erased. The evidence of his dark work was hidden, buried beneath the floor of his garage, masked by the decaying frame of an old car. He moved carefully through each room, checking once more to be certain nothing could betray him if someone came knocking.

  The first rays of sunlight filtered through the blinds, casting long shadows across the room, illuminating his exhaustion. He hadn’t closed his eyes all night, but even as fatigue pulled at his body, there was a grim satisfaction in knowing that the deed was done. The secret was buried deep, concealed in a place no one would think to look.

  Yet, as he looked out into the emerging day, a new worry gnawed at him, lurking just beneath the surface. Lea. Her absence unsettled him. Questions circled in his mind, darkening his sense of relief. What if she returned and revealed everything? What if she, out of fear or recklessness, spoke to someone about the body? She could be a loose thread—a thread that, if pulled, could unravel everything.

  The thought of Lea’s possible betrayal filled him with dread. He couldn’t control her actions, couldn’t predict what she might do. The uncertainty weighed on him as heavily as his own exhaustion, casting a shadow over the new day.

  To be continued....