Vanished without a trace [A chilling suspense tale} - By Dyuti Sukumara
Written By: Dyuti Sukumara
Category: Story
Competition: Global Poetry and Creative Writing Competition 2026
The enigmatic narrative "Vanished without a trace [A chilling suspense tale}" by Dyuti Sukumara is a compelling entry in the Creative Writing category of the Global Poetry and Creative Writing Competition 2026. This gripping tale delves into the mysterious disappearance of a young girl from the quiet town of Ravenswood, weaving a chilling story that captivates and intrigues.
About the Work
Dyuti Sukumara crafts a suspenseful atmosphere filled with uncertainty and intrigue. The narrative style is hauntingly immersive, drawing readers into the enigmatic world of Ravenswood. The story's pacing builds tension, while the vivid imagery and unsettling clues create an eerie mood that leaves readers questioning the truth behind Emma Carter's disappearance.
Vanished without a trace [A chilling suspense tale}
Original Submission by Dyuti Sukumara
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11 Chapter 1
The Last Day Emma Carter Was Seen Remains a Mystery.
The town of Ravenswood was a quiet streets and peaceful nights until the day Emma Carter
disappeared. One moment she was walking home from school, and the next, she was gone without a trace.
No witnesses. No clues. No explanation.
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At first, people tried to convince themselves and assumed that it was a At first, people tried to
misunderstanding. Maybe she had gone to a friend’s house or maybe her
convince themselves and phone died and she simply hadn’t
assumed that it was a
checked in. But hours turned into full misunderstanding. Maybe she
days, then two, the uneasy truth had gone to a friend’s house or
settled over Ravenswood like a heavy fog: Emma wasn’t just missing. She
maybe her phone died and she had vanished.
simply hadn’t checked in. But Search parties combed every street hours turned into full days, then
she might have taken. Flashlights cut two, the uneasy truth settled
through the dense woods at the edge of the town, where the trees grew to
over Ravenswood like a heavy close together and the wind always fog: Emma wasn’t just missing.
sounds like whispers. Volunteers She had vanished.
called her name until their voices got hoarse. Nothing answered back except the rustling leaves.
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sounds like whispers. Volunteers called her name until their voices got hoarse. Nothing answered back except the rustling leaves.
By the third day, the police had cordoned off Emma’s usual route to her home.
Yellow tape fluttered the old iron bridge and the cracked sidewalk where her backpack had been last seen by a passing driver.
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Though even his details were uncertain. Witness statements contradicted each other. Some said she turned left. Others insisted she went right.
A few swore she never passed them at all.
And then there was the clock.
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On the morning of her
disappearance, Emma’s bedroom alarm clock had been still found ticking, though it had been unplugged from the wall.
That detail unsettled Detective Rowan Hale. Because unplugged things didn’t keep time.
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Not unless something – or someone – was still keeping it running And Ravenswood, for the first time in decades, began to wonder if Emma Carter hadn’t simply been taken...
...but chosen.
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Chapter 2
Chapter 2
The last sighting
The Last Sighting
Detective Rowan Hale hated
Detective Rowan Hale hated legends. legends.
Legends distorted facts. They turned evidence into folklore and witnesses
Legends distorted facts. They into storytellers. Yet after reopening turned evidence into folklore
the Emma Carter case, she found and witnesses into storytellers.
herself surrounded by nothing else. Yet after reopening the Emma
The rain hammered against the windows of the Ravenswood Sheriff’s
Carter case, she found herself office as Rowan spread old cases
surrounded by nothing else. across his desk.
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Forty-two years
Forty-two years of dead end. And one witness statement everyone has ignored.
The statement belongs to a woman who was identified as Martha Ellis, now eighty-seven years old and living alone on the edge of the village. Back in 1984, she had reported seeing Emma on the night she vanished. The report had been dismissed.
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Martha claimed she saw the twelve year-old girl going to Black Hollow at exactly 11:17 p.m.
Not running
Not struggling
Walking
As if she had somewhere she needed to be. Rowan drove to Martha’s house before sunrise.
The woman answered the door almost immediately, as if she was expecting her. Then she invited her inside. The house smelled like dust and cedar. “I lied to the police,” she said quietly.
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Rowan looked up.
“You lied?”
She nodded.
“Not about Emma. About what happened afterward.
The room felt suddenly colder. “What really happened?”
Martha’s hands trembled as she wrapped them around a cup of tea. “Emma wasn’t alone.”
A silence settled between them.
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“Who was with her?”
Martha gulped down.
“I don’t know.”
She stared into her cup.
go
“At first, I thought it was another
child. But when they passed under
.
the street light…”
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Her voice cracked.
“There wasn’t anyone there.” Rowan frowned.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean there should have been.” The old woman looked directly into her eyes.
“Emma was holding someone’s hand.”
The words hung in the room. “Someone invisible?”
“No.”
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Martha shook her head.
“Something that didn’t belong.” Thunder rumbled outside.
Rowan felt a chill crawl down his spine.
“What did it look like?”
“I only saw the shadow.”
“The shadow?”
“It stretched across the road before they reached the light. Too tall. Too thin. Like a person made from darkness.”
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Martha’s breathing accelerated. “And when the light touched it...it disappeared.”
Rowan opened the original witness report nothing about a shadow. Nothing about Emma holding a hand.
Nothing.
“Why didn’t you tell the police?” The old woman’s eyes filled with tears
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“Because the next morning I found something on my porch.”
She stood slowly and disappeared into another room.
Moments later she returned carrying a small wooden box.
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The lid creaked open as she opened it. Inside lay a faded yellow ribbon. A ribbon Rowan instantly recognized. Emma Carter had been wearing one in the school photograph taken the week before she vanished.
Martha’s voice dropped to a whisper. “It wasn’t there when I went to bed.” Rowan stared at the ribbon.
“You’re saying that someone left this for you?”
“No.” The old woman shook her head.
“Someone warned me.”
A knot tied around Rowan’s stomach.
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Attached to the ribbon was a folded piece of paper. Only for three words were written on it.
SHE WENT WILLINGLY.
Rowan felt blood drain from his face The note had never been entered into the evidence.
Never mentioned.
Never reported. The date written in the corner was the morning after Emma disappeared.
Forty-two years ago.
Outside, the wind suddenly howled through the trees.
Martha’s eyes darted toward the window.
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“They’re awake again.”
Rowan frowned.
“Who?”
The old woman didn’t answer. Instead, she pointed toward the woods behind her house.
The fog had thickened.
Shapes moved between the trees. Dark.
Silent.
Watching.
And for the briefest moment, Rowan thought she saw an outline of a young girl standing among them. A girl with a yellow ribbon in her hair.
Then she was gone.
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Leaving only the forest.
And the growing certainly that Emma Carter’s disappearance was never been a kidnapping.
It had been an invitation.
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Chapter 3
An Empty Room.
The note haunted Rowan for three days.
SHE WENT WILLINGLY.
Three words.
Three impossible words.
Every witness, every newspaper article, every fading memory in Ravenswood described Emma Carter as a victim.
A child stolen from her family. A girl who vanished into the night without a trace.
But the evidence was beginning to tell a different story.
Rowan hated where it was directing. 20
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nRowan hated where it was directing. On the fourth morning, Rowan visited the Carter’s house.
It sat at the end of the Willow Street, abandoned for nearly twenty years. The front yard had surrendered to weeds. Paint peeled of walls in long strips. Several windows were boarded shut.
The town called it cursed.
Rowan called it evidence.
After obtaining permission from the country, she stepped through the front door.
The smell hit her immediately. 21
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Dust
Mold
Age
The house seemed to be frozen in time.
Family photographs still hung crookedly on the walls.
Emma’s school portraits remained untouched.
A calendar from 1984 still hung in the room.
No one had truly lived here since the Carter’s left Ravenwood. The silence was oppressive. Every footstep echoed.
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Living room.
Dining room.
Kitchen.
Nothing unusual.
Until she reached the upstairs hallway.
There were four bedrooms. According to the original records, three belonged to the family members.
The fourth room was used for storage.
At least, that’s what the records claimed.
Rowan pushed open the first door. Master bedroom.
Empty.
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Second door.
Emma’s room.
The antique clock still sat on the dresser.
Silent.
Watching.
She closed the door.
Third room.
Storage.
Old boxes.
Broken furniture.
Nothing remarkable.
Then she reached the fourth door. Something immediately felt wrong. The doorknob was cleaner than everything else in the house.
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Not polished.
Used recently.
Rowan’s pulse quickened.
She slowly turned the handle. The hinges groaned.
The room beyond was completely empty.
No furniture.
No decorations.
No dust.
Nothing.
The floorboards were spotless. The walls were bare.
It looked less like an abandoned room and more like a room waiting for someone.
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Rowan stepped inside.
The temperature dropped instantly. Her breathing fogged.
A cold draft bushed against his neck.
She spun around.
Nobody.
The hallway behind her remained empty.
Yet she could have sworn someone had been standing there.
Watching.
The feeling lingered.
Rowan forced herself to focus. The room measured roughly twelve feet by twelve feet.
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No windows.
No closet.
No obvious purpose.
Stranger still, county blueprints showed that the room shouldn’t exist. She checked the plans twice.
The dimensions of the house didn’t match reality.
This space occupied an area where there should have been nothing at all. As if someone had hidden an extra room inside the structure.
A room nobody was meant to find. His flashlight swept across the walls. Then paused
Scratches.
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Hundreds of them.
Tiny marks carved into the paint. Not random.
Letters.
Numbers.
Names.
Dozens of names.
Some old.
Some surprisingly recent. Rowan crouched beside the wall. Emma Carter.
1984.
Beneath it
Lucas Reed.
1971.
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Sarah Holt.
1956.
Evelyn Price.
1933.
Name after name.
Date after date.
Stretching back nearly a century. His stomach tightened.
Most of the names matched missing person reports from Ravenswood’s history.
People who had vanished without explanation. People the town had forgotten. Near the bottom of the wall, one final inscription appeared. Unlike others, it looked fresh.
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The paint around it was still cracked. The letters seemed almost new. Rowan read it aloud.
“Who’s next?”
The floor beneath her creaked. A single sharp crack. Then another. She stepped back.
The center floorboard slowly sank inward. Dust erupted into the air. A hidden compartment revealed itself beneath the room.
Darkness waited below. Rowan aimed his flashlight inside.
At first, she saw nothing. Then the beam caught something pale.
A small wooden chair.
Positioned perfectly in the center of the hidden space, facing the wall. 30
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As though a child had been sitting there... Waiting.
And on the wall before the chair, written in faded black ink, where the same three words Martha Ellis had hidden for forty-two years.
SHE WENT WILLINGLY. Suddenly, from somewhere deep within the house, a clock began to tick.
Tick, tick, tick.
Rowan slowly checked her watch. 11:17 p.m.
The clock in Emma Carter’s room had started running again.
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Chapter 4
The Unanswered Call.
That was what unsettled Rowan most.
Rowan swallowed hard.
A cold draft slipped across the room despite the sealed windows. Then her eyes settled on the walls.
Written in faded black ink, barely visible beneath decades of age, were three words she had hoped never to see again.
SHE WENT WILLINGLY.
The words struck her like a physical blow. For forty-two years, those words had haunted the town of Ravenswood.
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Martha Ellis had discovered them for three years after Emma vanished. She had hidden them from everyone. The police, the newspapers even Emma’s parents.
Only a handful people of people knew they had ever existed. And Rowan was one of them.
Yet here they were. Exactly as Martha had described them. Exactly as they had appeared in the old photographs hidden in Martha’s attic.
Someone had recreated them. Or they had never truly disappeared. Neither possibility made any sense.
A sudden sound shattered the silence. Tick.
Rowan froze.
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Tick.
Another, then another.
Tick. Tick. Tick.
The sound echoed through the house. Slow, steady, impossible. Detective Nathan Hale looked up sharply.
“No.”
His voice was barely audible. The ticking continued.
Rowan’s stomach tightened. She knew that sound. Everyone in Ravenswood knew that sound. Emma Carter’s beside clock. A clock that had stopped forever at 11:17 p.m. on the night she vanished. The clock that countless investigators had tried and failed to
repair. 34
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The clock that sat motionless for forty-two years. Yet now it was running.
Rowan looked at his wristwatch. 11:17 p.m.…. the exact time. Not a minute earlier, not a minute later.
The room seemed to get colder. Neither of them spoke.
The ticking filled every corner of the house.
Tick. Tick. Tick...
Like a heartbeat slowly waking up from the dead. Then Rowan’s phone vibrated in her pocket. She nearly screamed.
The sudden sound felt wrong inside the silence.
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“ Her hands shook as she pulled it out. An incoming call
Unknown number. No caller ID. No location. No information whatsoever. Just a ringing phone. At 11:17 p.m. Hale immediately stepped closer. “Who is it?”
Rowan turned the phone toward him. His expression darkened. “Don’t answer.”
The phone continued ringing. The sound felt unnaturally loud. Each ring seemed to stretch longer than the one before it. Neither of them looked away. The display showed no number. No network. No indication that the call should even be possible. Ring, ring, ring
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Then it stopped. Silence returned. Rowan released a breath she hadn’t realised she was holding. The screen went black. For several seconds nothing happened. Then a
notification appeared.
NEW VOICEMAIL.
A chill ran down Rowan’s spine. “That’s impossible!” Nathan muttered.
“There was no connection!” The voice timestamp appeared. 11:17 p.m., duration: 17 seconds. The room felt much smaller. Neither of them wanted to hear it. But neither could ignore it. Rowan pressed play.
Static filled the speaker. A harsh 37
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cracking hiss. The sound of old recording. Then came the breathing. Slow, shaky, terrified.
A child trying not to cry. Rowan felt her heart stop. A voice emerged through the static.
Small, fragile. A little girl’s voice. “Please...”
The voice distorted. More static. Then another fragment.
“…. he’s still here ….”
Hale’s face had gone pale. Rowan’s hands trembled.
The voice continued, weak. Fading. “Tell my mother…”
A burst of interference swallowed the words. Then came the final sentence. Clearer than everything.
else. 38
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else.
“Tell my mother I didn’t leave willingly.” The recording came to a halt.
Silence. Absolute silence. Even the ticking had stopped. For several seconds nobody moved. Nobody breathed. Emma Carter had vanished when she was nine-years-old. And the voice on that recording belonged to a nine-year-old girl.
Not similar, not close, exact. Rowan knew because she had listened to Emma’s surviving home videos hundreds of times. The same voice. The same speech pattern. The same nervous hesitation. It was Emma. Or something pretending to be her. Neither answer was comforting.
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A floorboard creaked somewhere above them. Both investigators looked toward the ceiling. The sound had come from the attic. A long scrape followed. As if someone heavy had been dragged across the floor. Then another. Slow, deliberate. Nathan drew his flashlight. The beam shook slightly. “You heard that too?” Rowan nodded. The scraping stopped. For a moment everything was quiet. Then Rowan noticed something. The writing on the wall. The words seemed to be darker now. Fresher. As though the wet ink had begun seeping through the paint. A black droplet formed beneath the final word.
Willingly
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Rowan stumbled backward. “That’s not possible!” The room suddenly smelled of damp earth. The smell of freshly dug soil. A smell that had appeared repeatedly throughout the investigation. At every location connected to Emma’s disappearance. A smell that never led anywhere. A smell that always vanished before it could be traced. Then came another sound. A telephone ringing. Not Rowan’s, not Nathan’s. An old fashioned telephone. The shrill metallic ring echoed through the hallway. Ring. Ring. Ring. Ring. Both investigators turned toward the bedroom door. The sound was coming somewhere deeper in the house. A phone line disconnected decades ago.
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Yet it continued ringing. Patiently. Waiting. Nathan tightened his grip on the flashlight. “We need to see what that is.” Neither of them truly wanted to. But they followed the sound. Down the hallway. Past rooms untouched for decades. Past family photographs coated in dust. Past shadows that seemed to shift whenever they looked away. The ringing grew louder. Closer. Until they reached the end of the corridor. Emma’s old playroom. The door stood slightly open. The ringing came from inside. Nathan pushed it open. The room was empty. Except for one object. An antique black rotary telephone sat alone atop a small wooden table. Its cord dangled freely. Unplugged. Disconnected. Impossible. Yet it rang again. Ring, ring, ring, ring.
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Beside it rested a leather-bound diary. Its cover was stained with age. On the front, written in faded silver letters, was a single name. EMMA. Rowan’s breath caught. The missing diary. The diary police searched for forty-two years. The diary that had never been found, until now. The phone rang once more. Then fell silent. The receiver slowly lifted from its cradle. By itself. Neither the investigators moved, neither spoke. The receiver hung suspended for a moment. As though an unseen hand held it. Waiting, listening, inviting. Finally, Rowan stepped forward. With trembling fingers, she took the receiver.
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She pressed it against her ear. The line cracked. A low hum emerged from the darkness. Then a man’s
voice whispered. Clam. Cold. Close enough to feel against her skin. “I’ve been waiting for someone to answer.”
The connection died instantly. The house went silent. Then, from someone deep inside the walls. A child began to cry.
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Chapter 5
The Final Clue.
The child’s crying stopped as suddenly as it started begun. Silence flooded the house. Not ordinary silence. A kind that felt alive. A kind that listened. Rowan slowly lowered the telephone receiver. Her pulse thundered in her ears. Beside her, detective Nathan stared at the diary lying on the table. Neither spoke for several moments. The leather cover looked worn from age, its corners were frayed and cracked. Yet unlike everything else in the house, it wasn’t covered in dust. As if someone had been reading it. Recently. “Open it.” Nathan finally said. Rowan hesitated. Every instinct
told her not to. 45
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The phone call, the voice, the crying. Something about all of it felt deliberate. Like a trap. But Emma’s dairy had been missing for forty-two years. If answers existed anywhere, they were inside those pages. Carefully, she lifted the cover. The first page contained a child’s handwriting. Neat, careful. The writing of a girl trying very hard to be grown-up. My name is Emma Carter. If somebody finds this, please don’t let him take it away again. Rowan exchanged glances with Nathan. A chill crawled up her spine. “Again?”. The word felt important. She turned the page. Most entries were ordinary. School. Friends. Arguments with her older brother. Stories about her dog. The innocent world of a nine years old. Yet as the dates approached October 1984 the month Emma -
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disappeared, the entries changed. The handwriting became uneven. Nervous, scattered. Emma began writing about a man. Not by name. only as “the smiling man.” The smiling man watches us. The smiling man comes at night. The smiling man says nobody notices him. The smiling man says that’s why he wins. Rowan’s stomach tightened. “What does that mean?” Nathan asked. “I don’t know.” But she wasn’t sure she wanted to. They continued reading. The entries became increasingly disturbing. Emma claimed she saw the man everywhere. At the church, at the grocery store, outside her school, walking past her home, always smiling. Always watching. Yet whenever she pointed him out
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To someone else. Nobody saw him. Nobody remembered him. One entry had been underlined repeatedly. He’s hiding where everyone can see him. That’s why nobody can see him. Rowan froze. The sentence echoed in her mind. Something about it felt familiar. Then she remembered. The voice on the phone. “I’ve been waiting for someone to answer.” The same confidence. The same certainty. As if the speaker knew something no one else did. A sudden gust of wind rattled the windows. The playroom door slammed shut behind them. Both investigators jumped. Nathan rushed toward the door. The handle wouldn’t move. The door was locked from the outside. “Very funny.” Nathan shouted. No answer came.
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Only silence. Rowan’s attention returned to the diary. A folded piece of paper had slipped from between the pages. Yellowed with age. Rowan unfolded it. At first glance it appeared to be simple drawing. A child’s sketch of Ravenswood. The school, the church, the library, the town square. But then something strange. Tiny circles had been drawn around certain figures. People standing in the background. People nobody would normally notice. People who appeared repeatedly. The same man. Again. And again, and again. In every drawing. Standing somewhere different. Watching. Smiling. Her blood ran cold. The figure wasn’t hidden. Quite the opposite. He was in plain sight. Visible in every scene.
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Yet so neglected that no one would think to look at him. “Look at this.”, rowan whispered. Nathan studied the drawings. His face slowly lost colour. “Those aren’t drawings.” “What?” He pointed toward one page. A sketch of the church fair. Dozens of tiny figures crowded together. Among them stood the smiling man. Behind him was a banner displaying a date. A date 1982. Two years before Emma vanished. Another different drawing showed a school concert. A different date. 1981
A different date.
1982
Another.
1983
The man appeared in all of them.
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For years. Always present. Always unnoticed. Hidden in plain sight. The room suddenly felt colder. Then Nathan grabbed the diary. His eyes widened. “What is it?” He flipped the inside cover. A photograph had been tucked into a hidden pocket. An old black-and-white picture. A group photo. Ravenswood historical society. Taken in 1968. Nearly sixty years. Dozens of faces stared back at the camera. Teachers, business owners, town officials, families. And there, standing in the back row, was the smiling man. Rowan’s breath caught. He hadn’t aged. Not a single day. The same face, the same smile. The same eyes. Impossible. Nathan immediately had been written on the back. Not by Emma. The handwriting belonged to
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an adult. Four words. Dark, sharp, deliberate. Find what everyone missed. A loud crash echoed somewhere downstairs. Both investigators spun toward the door. Another crash followed. Closer. Something was moving through the house. Heavy footsteps. Slow, measured. Ascending the staircase. One step at a time. The footsteps stopped outside the playroom. The locked doorknob slowly began to turn. Click, click, click. Someone or something was trying to come inside. Rowan clutched the diary. Her eyes fell upon final page she hadn’t noticed before. Emma’s final entry. Written the night she disappeared. The handwriting shook violently across the paper. Some words were
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barely legible. Yet once sentence stood out. Written larger than all the others. Written as if Emma had desperately wanted someone to understand. He’s not hiding in the house. The doorknob stopped moving. Silence filled the hallway. Then another sentence appeared beneath the first. One rowan could have sworn wasn’t there a moment ago. Fresh black ink slowly spread across the page. Forming words before her eyes. He’s hiding in the town. And beneath that a final message. One that made rowan’s heart stop. You’ve already met him...
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Chapter 6
The Conclusion.
The words seemed to burn themselves into Rowan’s mind. For several seconds she simply stared at the diary. Unable to breathe. Unable to think. Unable to look away. Outside the playroom door, the footsteps had stopped. The house was filled with silence once more. But somehow that silence felt worse. Because now, it felt expectant. As though something was waiting to see what they would do next. “Rowan.” Detective Nathan’s voice sounded distant. “Rowan, we need to move!” She finally looked up. The diary still lay open in her hands. The fresh ink glistened on the page. Impossible. Forty-two years old, yet written
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seconds ago. the message remained unchanged. You’ve already met him. A terrible realization began forming. Not a certainty. Not yet. Just a possibility. And the possibilities could be dangerous, especially in
Ravenswood. “How many people have been connected to Emma’s case?” she asked. Nathan frowned. “Hundreds.” “No. not the case.” She looked back at the diary. “The people who kept appeared.” “The ones in the
photographs.” “The ones who were there every time.” Nathan’s expression shifted. He understood. The smiling man hadn’t hidden himself. He had blended in. which meant the answer wasn’t buried in some forgotten basement or locked inside an
abandoned house. It was hidden among people.
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The ones everyone trusted. The ones nobody questioned. The ones who belonged. A loud crack echoed through the room. Both investigators jumped. A photograph from 1968 had split down the middle. Neither of them had touched it. Yet the paper had torn itself directly across the smiling man’s face. And behind the photograph, something else appeared. A second image. One that had been concealed beneath the first. Rowan carefully lifted it free. Her stomach dropped. It was another group photo. This is a brand new one. Much newer. only five years old. The annual Ravenswood Founder’s Day
celebration. Hundreds of townspeople crowded together in the town square. Children, teachers, police officers and volunteers. Everyone smiling for the
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camera. At first nothing seemed unusual. Then Rowan noticed the circles. Tiny circles. Drawn in red ink. Just as Emma had done in her diary. One circle. Then another. Then another. Each highlighting a different person. People standing in different locations. Different ages. Different families. Different occupations. No visible connection. Except one. Every circled person had
disappeared. Over the years. Not just Emma. Others too. A teenager who vanished since 1993. A teacher missing since 2001. A local mechanic who disappeared without an
explanation. A woman whose car was found abandoned near the river. Cases separated by decades. Cases everyone believed were unrelated. Yet every victim stood somewhere in that photograph. Marked, chosen,
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And in the very center of the image stood a familiar face. Not smiling. Not threatening. Just ordinary. Someone Rowan had spoken to countless times. Someone the entire town trusted. Someone who had helped investigate Emma’s disappearance. Someone who had attended every memorial service. Every search effort. Every anniversary gathering. The person stood beside a banner that read. Ravenswood remembers Emma Carter. Rowan felt her blood run cold. “No…” Nathan snatched the photograph from her. The colour drained from his face. Neither spoke. Neither needed to. For the first time, the pieces fit. Not perfectly, but enough. Enough to understand why nobody had found the smiling man. Because they had never had searched for the smiling man.
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They had searched for a stranger, shadow or something obvious, perhaps? Instead, he had become a part of the town itself. Part of history. Part of the grief. Hidden in plain sight. A sudden fluttering sound erupted from the book. The pages started turning on their own. Faster and faster. As if an invisible hand were desperately searching for something. Then it stopped. One final page. It wasn’t a diary entry. Rowan swore she never saw that page. The paper was glued to the back cover. Rowan slowly lifted up the paper out of curiosity. It was an old map of Ravenswood. It was covered with dates, pictures, and names. And there was a red circle. It was not the Carter’s house or the river. A place which is not even connected to Emma’s disappearance. It was the beneath the courthouse. Rowan stared with pure confusion. Apparently, it was the oldest building in Black Hollow. The place no one has gone to.
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Until now. At the bottom was Emma’s message. A final entry. The handwriting was shaky. Desperate. As if she was running out of time. He keeps every detailed secret there. Including the truth. Another sentence followed. One written so hard that it literally tore the page. If you find this, don’t trust anyone until you find what’s below. The room suddenly trembled. The house seemed to shudder around them. Then another sound came. But it was a child’s voice. But right now, it is much closer. It whispered into the ears of Rowan. “Rowan...” Rowan jerked. The child’s voice sounded as if it was relieved. “You are finally looking into the right place.” For the first time it sounded hopeful. As if Emma had waiting for someone to understand. Then the words spoke again. Three final words. “The key survived.” The diary snaped shut. A metal box struck through a wood piece. Once.
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Sharp. Deliberate. Clink! A sound emerged out of the key which dropped out of the metal box from the attic. It was a hidden key, which was waiting to be found and where it belongs to.
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About the Competition
The Global Poetry and Creative Writing Competition 2026, hosted by Hashtag Kalakar, is a prestigious event celebrating the art of storytelling. It invites writers from around the world to showcase their creativity and engage audiences with their unique narratives. This competition is a platform for emerging talents to share their voices and explore diverse literary forms.
We extend our heartfelt thanks to Dyuti Sukumara for sharing "Vanished without a trace [A chilling suspense tale}" with us in the Global Poetry and Creative Writing Competition 2026. Your contribution adds depth and intrigue to this year's competition, and we appreciate your storytelling prowess and commitment to the craft.
About Hashtag Kalakar
Hashtag Kalakar is a creative platform dedicated to providing artists, writers, singers and other creative talents with opportunities to showcase their work and reach wider audiences through competitions, features and creative initiatives.
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