Viktor was lying on his back, the blanket was neatly covering his body, and his eyes were closed.
But the moment Elena looked down at the floor, she felt as though the world was collapsing beneath her feet.
The chalk line had been erased.
In several places, it was completely broken, and right beside it were clearly visible footprints from bare feet.
Elena slowly knelt down.
The footprints belonged to an adult. They started near the bed and led directly toward the door.
The woman turned sharply toward her husband.
Viktor was still completely motionless.
She gently lifted the blanket and examined his legs. They looked just as thin and motionless as usual.
But on one of his feet, she noticed a small dark stain.
Elena took a wet wipe and tried to clean it.
It was nothing more than ordinary dirt.
A shiver ran down her spine.
How could dirt have gotten onto the foot of a man who hadn’t left his bed in almost three years?
All day long, Elena couldn’t calm down.
She kept thinking about her daughter’s words, the footprints on the floor, and that strange stain on her husband’s foot.
As night fell, she made a decision.
She installed a small security camera in the bedroom, pointing it toward the bed and the entrance door.
She didn’t tell Sofia anything because she didn’t want to frighten the child.
At around two in the morning, Elena’s phone began to vibrate.
The camera had detected movement.
The woman opened the live video feed and stared anxiously at the screen.
At first, nothing was happening in the bedroom. Viktor was still motionless beneath his blanket.
But a few seconds later, the door slowly opened.
An unknown man dressed in dark clothing entered the room.
Elena felt her heart begin to race.
The stranger quietly closed the door behind him and walked toward the bed.
He leaned over Viktor, watched him carefully for a few seconds, and then pulled a small object out of his pocket.
Elena zoomed in on the image.
It was a syringe.
The woman almost screamed.
Without thinking twice, she immediately called the police. Then she woke up her daughter, took her into her own bedroom, and locked the door.
A few minutes later, movement appeared on the screen.
The stranger left the bedroom, walked down the hallway, and disappeared behind the storage room door.
Elena suddenly remembered the strange noises she had been hearing for several weeks. Sometimes, in the middle of the night, she would hear quiet footsteps, creaking floorboards, and doors slamming shut.
Each time, she had convinced herself that it was simply the old house making noises.
But now, everything was becoming clear.
The police arrived and carefully searched the house. Eventually, they discovered the man hiding in the storage room.
He turned out to be a former construction worker who had carried out renovations in Elena’s house a few months earlier.
When the job was finished, he had kept a duplicate set of keys. He also knew that the woman lived alone with her young daughter and her seriously ill husband.
But the most horrifying details emerged during his interrogation.
For several weeks, the man had been secretly breaking into the house at night. He stole money, jewelry, and other valuables, which he hid in the storage room.
However, Viktor sometimes made involuntary sounds that could attract the burglar’s attention. So the intruder had injected him with an unknown substance several times to suppress any possible reactions.
That night, when Sofia had spotted a figure standing beside the bed, it hadn’t been her father at all.
The little girl had seen the stranger leaning over Viktor and, in the darkness, had mistaken him for her dad.
The footprints on the floor had been left by the burglar. As for the dirt on her husband’s foot, it had appeared when the stranger accidentally touched him with his dirty hand.
Viktor was immediately examined by doctors and taken to the hospital.
Fortunately, the doctors were able to provide him with the necessary treatment in time.
Elena later learned that the criminal had planned to continue his nighttime visits until he had taken every valuable item from the house.
But there was one thought that disturbed Elena more than anything else.
For all those weeks, a stranger had been able to enter their home freely while she and her little daughter slept.
He had walked through their hallways, entered her husband’s bedroom, and done things to him that the entire family knew absolutely nothing about.
And if Sofia hadn’t asked that strange question at the dinner table that day, Elena might never have discovered the truth…
