The wind had returned.
So had the cry.
This time, I was awake when it started. My wife lay beside me, her brows furrowed even in sleep. She clung to me in her dreams, as if she knew—somehow—that this night was different.
The sound came in waves—sometimes near, sometimes far. It drifted on the wind like a song too old to remember, too quiet to ignore.
I slipped out of bed and opened the door to the yard. A gust of cold air struck me, sharp as broken glass. I stood there, barefoot on the wooden floor, listening.
The wind howled between buildings.
And somewhere inside it… a child's cry.
It wasn't constant. It faded in and out, as if the wind was hiding it, teasing it. One moment behind me, the next far off. Then below. Then nowhere.
Then I thought of the basement.
That black mouth beneath the slope. The door that never had a light. The ramp that no one walked down. It was always just… there. Waiting.
I walked toward it.
The air felt heavier with every step. The wind no longer whistled—it moaned, and the cry was part of it. Part of the air. Part of the earth.
The basement was supposed to be for bicycles. But no one used it. No one even spoke about it. Not the neighbors. Not the manager. It was a hole in the ground beneath our feet.
And tonight, it felt like it was breathing.
I stood at the top of the ramp. Below me, shadows pooled like ink. The crying stopped.
Or maybe I couldn't hear it anymore over the pounding of my heart.
Basements are just graves with permission.
And something was calling from inside this one