One morning, the moment Karu opened his eyes, he knew something was off. The apartment felt… hollow. Too still. Too quiet. He shuffled into the kitchen, expecting the usual—some kind of cold breakfast waiting on the counter, the faint smell of something his mom cooked before rushing out the door.
But there was nothing.
No bowl. No plate. Not even a note.
The fridge hummed like it was mocking him, empty in all the wrong ways. His mom never forgot to leave food. Not once. Even on her worst days, even when she came home exhausted, she always made sure he had something to eat before she left again.
A cold prickle crawled up his spine.
Something was wrong.
He felt it instantly—like a tiny alarm going off in his chest. But he pushed the feeling down, burying it under excuses. Maybe she worked late. Maybe she overslept. Maybe she didn't want to wake him.
Maybe, maybe, maybe.
Karu stood there in the quiet kitchen, trying to convince himself everything was normal… even though nothing felt normal at all.
The rest of the morning drifted by in a strange, uneasy blur. Karu tried to shake off the feeling from earlier, turning on the TV and letting the noise fill the apartment. One hour passed. Then two. The cartoons didn't help. His mind kept circling back to the empty counter, the missing breakfast, the silence.
Eventually his stomach growled loud enough to break through the static in his head. He sighed, grabbed a scrap of paper, and scribbled a note for his mom:
Hey mom, I went outside to get food.
He stuck it on the fridge and headed for the door.
But the moment he cracked it open, something stopped him cold.
A smell.
Sharp. Sour. Wrong.
It drifted in from the alley behind the building, riding the breeze like a warning. Karu hesitated, his hand still on the doorknob. Curiosity tugged at him—uneasy, reluctant curiosity—but it tugged all the same.
He stepped outside.
Behind the apartment, the air felt heavier. The smell grew stronger with each step, turning his stomach. Eighteen steps. That's all it took before he noticed something dark on the ground near the dumpster. Something that shouldn't have been there.
His heart thudded.
He moved closer.
The dumpster lid was slightly open, just enough for the smell to spill out. Karu swallowed hard and pushed it up.
A wave of stench hit him, forcing him to turn his face away. When he looked back, his breath caught in his throat.
There was a body inside.
And even before his mind could fully process it, before he could make sense of the shape, the clothes, the familiar outline—
He knew.
It was his mom.