"Hello!"
A female investigator knocks on a door, but no response comes her way.
"Is anyone home?" She knocks on the door once more, harder this time.
No one seems to be home. The two investigators decide to leave and come back later; perhaps the woman they are looking for will be back by then. They don't leave though, as one of them hears a sound coming from inside the apartment. It sounded like something fell.
"Did you hear that?"
"Yeah," one of them says and pulls her weapon out. "There's someone inside."
The other one kicks the door in and they enter the apartment.
Their eyes fixate on a baby lying on the floor, having fallen over in a cradle.
"Why isn't the baby crying?"
One of them rushes to attend to the baby while the other searches the rest of the apartment. A minute goes by and the two meet once more.
"There is no one else around."
The other investigator is crying, holding the baby in her arms.
"What's wrong?"
"The baby is dead. She died days ago, actually, of starvation," she says, still crying.
"What? How can a mother just leave a baby alone, for days."
"So those reports by concerned neighbors were true after all."
"I'm appalled."
© Innocent Mwatsikesimbe
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