He Came Out of Nowhere, Holding Something in His Hands — I Wish I’d Never Seen It (2 of 3)

I slammed the brakes, the car screeching so hard our seatbelts locked. We stopped barely ten feet from him. The man didn’t flinch. He just stood there, perfectly still, his face shadowed beneath the glow of the headlights. He wasn’t wearing a jacket, though the air was cold enough to bite.

For a second, nobody moved.

Then — slowly, almost mechanically — he started walking toward us. Step by step. His shoes dragged slightly against the asphalt. I could feel my heart in my throat. My sister’s hand gripped my arm so tight it hurt.

“Don’t open the window,” she hissed.

As he came closer, the headlights caught his face. He looked exhausted — pale, unshaven, eyes unfocused, like someone who hadn’t slept in days. And then I saw what was in his hands.

He was holding a pair of tiny, pink baby shoes.

I couldn’t breathe. My mind tried to make sense of it — maybe he dropped them? Maybe he was lost? But something about the way he clutched them, pressing them against his chest like they were made of glass, made my skin crawl.

He stopped right in front of the car. For a heartbeat, everything went silent — no wind, no crickets, nothing. Then, he raised his head and looked straight at me.

“Please,” he said, barely audible through the closed window. “She won’t wake up.”

My sister gasped. I froze.

I cracked the window down just an inch. “Sir, do you need help?” I asked, trying to keep my voice steady.