My wife had been seriously ill, bedridden for months. When she was near de:ath, her breathing shallow, she held my hand tightly and whispered:
“Love… don’t be sad… in the closet… there are five million pesos… I saved them for you and our son…”
Hearing her words, I felt a surge of joy. Our entire life together, saving peso by peso—and I never imagined she had managed to gather such a large sum.
As soon as she closed her eyes forever, tears streamed down my face, but a small hope ignited inside me: at least we had that money to secure our son’s future.
That same night, unable to resist, I rushed home, my heart pounding. I opened the old wooden closet and, with trembling hands, searched every compartment. Finally, in the bottom corner, I found a metal box secured with a padlock.
I was about to break it open when suddenly—bam!—the closet door swung violently, and something black, foul, and rotten tumbled onto me.
The stench was unbearable. I staggered back, paralyzed. In the dim light, I realized it wasn’t money… but dec0mp0sing hu.m.an re.m.ai.ns wrapped in an old burial cloth.
I shook from head to toe. Before I could recover, a small, moldy notebook slipped out of the box.
On the first page, I recognized my wife’s handwriting:
“Love, if you’re reading this, it means I’m gone. Those five million… are the price of a secret I’ve kept for ten years. Don’t dig any deeper, because if you do, there will be no way out for our family…”
My blood ran cold. Her last confession wasn’t comfort—it was a warning.
I sat on the floor, notebook trembling in my hands. Page after page told of a past I never knew: ten years earlier, when my wife became entangled with a powerful group in our city.
She wrote of a rainy night when a hooded man stormed into the house, thrust a heavy bundle into her arms, and hissed:
“Keep this, in place of your husband’s debt. But remember… this secret goes with you to the grave.”
When she unwrapped it, she nearly fainted: inside was part of a human body—and an envelope filled with money.
At first, just a few hundred thousand. But over time, more kept coming. A payoff for silence. She never dared spend it. She hid it all, along with that cursed “evidence.” Every time she saw it, she trembled… but fear kept her from destroying it.
The last page read:
“Forgive me. I planned to take this secret with me, but I fear they’ll return. If that day comes… take our son far away. Never come back.”
My chest tightened as I closed the notebook. Faces and moments from the past suddenly made a sinister kind of sense.
Outside, the neighbor’s dog barked furiously… then stopped. Silence.
The front door vibrated softly, as if someone had knocked. My stomach turned to ice. I looked toward my son’s room, then back at the still-open box.
Without thinking, I stuffed the notebook into my jacket, shoved the box to the back of the closet, and forced myself to breathe.
Another knock came—slow, heavy.
I walked to the door, my hand trembling as I pulled it open.
The hall light revealed a figure standing in shadow, face hidden.
In a deep, rasping voice, they spoke only three words:
“It’s time.”
In that instant, I knew nothing would ever be the same—for me, or for my son.
