The hum of fluorescent lights filled the supermarket like a synthetic heartbeat. Officer Daniel Reyes moved down the cereal aisle with his usual quiet purpose, clipboard in hand. It was supposed to be a routine community patrol—smiling at cashiers, checking cameras, making small talk. A day for paperwork, not heroics.
Then came the sound—a squeaky cart wheel, a faint rhythmic tremor that broke the monotony.
That’s when he saw her.
A little girl in a bright pink dress, her small hand tucked inside the grip of a man in a gray shirt. They looked ordinary, almost painfully so. But when her eyes lifted to his, the world around them blurred into silence.
She raised her hand.
Five fingers outstretched. Thumb tucked into her palm. Fingers folding down over it.
A distress signal.
The silent plea for help he’d seen circulated in training videos and safety campaigns—a gesture meant to whisper, I’m not safe.
Reyes froze for a heartbeat. Then instinct took over.
The Encounter
He adjusted his stance, voice measured. “Sir, a quick word?”
The man turned. Mid-forties, average build, clean-shaven. Nothing overtly suspicious except for how calm he seemed. “Is there a problem, officer?”
Reyes smiled faintly. “Routine check. Everything alright here?”
“Of course.” The man’s tone was smooth, but his knuckles whitened around the shopping cart handle.
Reyes crouched, meeting the girl’s gaze. “Hey, sweetheart. What’s your name?”
Her lips parted. No sound. Her eyes darted toward the man—then back to Reyes.
The officer stood, eyes narrowing. “Sir, can you let go of her hand?”
The smile faltered. “Officer, I don’t know what—”
“Now.”
The single word echoed like thunder under the sterile lights.
The Shift
The man let go. Slowly. Too slowly. His hands stayed visible, but his eyes… they flicked past Reyes, toward the end of the aisle. Calculating.
Then came the crash.
Something toppled behind them—a shelf display of canned beans. A woman screamed.
The man moved first, grabbing the girl and lunging sideways. Reyes caught only the pink flash of her dress as they slipped through a side corridor toward the stockroom.
“Stop!” Reyes shouted, sprinting after them.
The chase blurred through sterile hallways and swinging doors. The air smelled of cardboard and freezer coolant. Reyes’ radio crackled, his breath steady but hard. The man shoved through an emergency exit, dragging the girl toward the rear parking lot.
Then—silence.
Reyes rounded the corner, gun drawn.
The girl was alone.
The Vanishing Man
She stood trembling beside a dumpster, one shoe missing, cheeks streaked with tears.
“It’s okay,” Reyes said softly, lowering his weapon. “You’re safe now.”
Her lips quivered. “He said… you’d come.”
The words froze him mid-step. “What?”
“He said you’d come today.”
Before Reyes could respond, the side door burst open—two more officers rushing in. They swept the lot, searched the area, reviewed the CCTV. No trace of the man.
Footage from the front cameras showed him entering the store with Emma. But not leaving.
He had vanished.
The Interview
At the station, Reyes sat across from Emma, offering her warm cocoa. She looked small beneath the interrogation room’s harsh lights.
“You did good today, Emma,” he said gently. “Can you tell me who that man was?”
She frowned, thinking. “His name’s Mr. Gray.”
“Do you know his real name?”
She shook her head. “He said… not to tell anyone until you came.”
Reyes stiffened. “Until I came?”
She nodded. “He said you’d understand.”
“Understand what?”
She leaned forward, whispering, “That you forgot me.”
The Memory
The room tilted. For a heartbeat, the sound of the HVAC faded. Her words crawled into Reyes’s chest, into the cracks of a memory he didn’t know he had.
He’d been a detective before patrol duty. Two years ago. A kidnapping case gone cold. A six-year-old girl named Emma Keller. Taken from a park. Never found.
He had promised her mother—I’ll bring her home.
He remembered the pink dress in the case file photo.
But this girl wasn’t Emma Keller. Not exactly. Her face was similar, but older by months—eyes too knowing, voice too calm.
“Emma…” he murmured, throat dry. “Do you remember your mother’s name?”
She looked up, eyes glinting. “You told me she was gone.”
The Revelation
Reyes stumbled out of the room, sweat slicking his temples. He pulled up the old case file on his phone, hands trembling.
Case #47A-Keller-0224.
Suspect description: Male, gray clothing, unconfirmed identity. Possible accomplice noted—Detective Daniel Reyes (under internal review for evidence tampering).
He stopped breathing.
The memory unraveled further now, threads pulling loose.
The park. The man in gray. A gun.
A deal—one that went wrong.
A little girl crying in the backseat of a car.
And then—silence.
The Return
He turned back toward the interrogation room—but it was empty.
The cocoa sat untouched. The chair still swayed slightly, as though she’d just risen from it. The camera light above the mirror blinked red—then blacked out entirely.
The monitor feed in the observation room showed a flicker: the same aisle, the same supermarket. Emma standing there in her pink dress, hand raised in the silent distress signal.
Looping. Again and again.
Reyes grabbed his radio. “Dispatch, I need—”
But the line was dead. Static filled his earpiece, morphing into a whisper.
“She said you’d come.”
He spun around.
The man in gray stood in the doorway. Eyes calm. Almost kind.
“What are you—” Reyes began, but the man raised a hand.
“Not what, officer. When.”
The world stuttered. The lights flickered. The station dissolved into colorless static, like the hum of the supermarket’s fluorescent bulbs replaying themselves.
And in the next blink—Reyes was back in aisle seven. Clipboard in hand.
The squeaky wheel echoed again.
There she was—Emma. Pink dress. Holding the man’s hand.
She looked up.
Raised her palm.
Five fingers open.
Thumb folding in.
Fingers curling down.
The Loop
He froze.
Didn’t he do this already?
The man turned. “Something I can help you with, officer?”
And when Reyes looked down at his own hand, he realized he was gripping the same clipboard—only now it was stained with fingerprints not his own. And across the top, where his name should’ve been typed neatly, three words had been scrawled in a child’s handwriting:
“Help me again.”
The lights hummed louder.
The aisle stretched.
And the loop began anew.