A Circus of Tales || Short Story Collection

Behind the Orphanage's Door

CW: Potential disturbing imagery, child murder. Please proceed with caution. This is also very rough since it's just me brain dumping an idea that I thought of. 

More information at the end of the story

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The Saints' Home for the Children had been abandoned for as long as anyone can remember. Yet somehow, it still housed one of the strangest mysteries this city held.

I removed my hat from my head and stared at the gates ahead of me. This orphanage has been abandoned ever since the civil war at least thirty years ago. And yet, twenty years ago, the deceased bodies of four children were found. Three teenagers reported their findings to the cops after entering the orphanage's perimeters to skip school. The four children were roughly the same ages, spanning from six years old to nine years old, and were unsurprisingly orphans. They had no connections to one another, and the best assumption was those four were friends.

Both the cops and private investigators tried their best to solve what happened, but it ended up being a cold case.

Twenty years ago, I was still a child. I was around the same age as those children. The thought that these were children just like me during that time sent shivers down my spine.

Everyone was convinced that this was going to be an unsolved case. That we won't be able to find answers, and it was going to be one of those stories adults tell to their own children so they would behave. And besides, these children were orphans with no known connections to anyone else. It wasn't like we would be giving justice to anyone. And for all we knew, the people that killed them might be dead.

But those were still innocent lives that were lost. If we weren't going to solve this case, then we wouldn't be giving them justice. And it could also act as a warning for criminals. That, no matter what they do, we're going to solve what happened. We're going to solve the crimes they committed. And if they try escaping with death, the hell that will greet them afterwards would be worse.

With that in mind, I pushed the gates in front of me to open. Their creaking sound made me flinch, but I still pressed forward. The first thing I noticed was that the front lawn had overgrown grass, and some of them clung to my pants. As I reached the actual building's front door, I paused in my steps.

I bent down and picked up a stuffed bunny on the ground. Perhaps it was white in the past, but now it was caked in both dirt and moss. Even the smile that the bunny once had had worn with age, and the only thing staring at me now was its beady, cracked eyes. There was a tag sewn onto it, and I pulled it to read what was written in it.

Lyka Avera.

Ah, one of the victims of the incident years ago. Poor child. I couldn't remember how she died, but she didn't even have her toy to comfort her in her last moments.

Regardless, I bent down again and placed it back where I found it, then pushed the door to the orphanage open. Just like the gate, it also creaked. The first thing that greeted me was dust, making me fan it away from my face. A dusty cobweb fell down from the top of the door, and I felt some of it land on my hair. I groaned and brushed it away, then entered the building.

It was surprisingly bright inside. The roof had collapsed in multiple areas, letting rays of sunlight enter. The scent of dust mixed with the smell of aged wood, making me sneeze.

In front of me was a set of stairs, and even those, too, had planks missing in some places. I grabbed my phone and turned it on, then searched for the images and notes I had saved.