The Window Wasn't Locked – Haunting Short Crime Story by Khusshh
The Window Wasn't Locked
Intro:
Some stories aren’t written in bold headlines or solved with flashing red and blue lights. Some live quietly in the shadows, told in fragments and unfinished sentences. This one isn’t loud. It’s soft. Sleepy. Like something whispered just before the dream ends — or the guilt begins.
%20(1).png "The Window Wasn't Locked – Haunting Visual of a Vanished Memory and a Silent House")
i don’t know why i’m writing this now. maybe it’s guilt. maybe it’s just 3:47 a.m. and i haven’t slept right in months.
they say trauma comes back in pieces. like broken glass under your skin. little flashes. i keep remembering the way the air felt that night — too still. like the whole block was holding its breath.
we weren’t supposed to be there.
but we were.
mira dared me. "come on," she said.
"no one lives there anymore."
but she was wrong.
the window wasn’t locked. i remember because it opened too easy, and my stomach dropped like it knew something. we stepped inside and everything smelled like mothballs and silence. old couches. blankets that hadn’t moved in years. there was a photo on the mantel. a woman. smiling. too big. it didn’t match the room.
we thought it was abandoned.
but then the upstairs light flicked on.
i thought it was a motion sensor.
it wasn’t.
mira laughed. loud.
and someone answered.
a voice. not loud, not angry. just…
“you shouldn’t be here.”
i ran. i didn’t wait.
i didn’t turn back.
but mira…
she stayed.
i don’t know if it was curiosity or pride.
or just a second too long.
i waited at the corner. thought she was behind me.
but minutes passed. then sirens.
then questions.
“why were you there?”
“why did she go in?”
“why didn’t you stop her?”
i said i didn’t know.
but i did.
they never found her.
only her bracelet, in the hallway.
and the window — shut.
every night since then, i dream the same thing:
i go back. the house is quiet.
but the photo on the mantel is different now.
it’s mira.
and she’s smiling too big.
Summary
"The Window Wasn't Locked" is a soft-spoken, memory-soaked crime story that drifts between dream and reality. It’s about the quiet kind of horror — the one that never makes headlines, but changes everything. A missing girl. A bad decision. And a silence that grows louder every night.
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Author’s Note
Some stories don’t need endings. Just someone to remember them.
Thank you for reading.
~ Written by Khusshh
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