It started out like any other evening. The city was calm, glowing under the soft amber of the streetlights. People moved about their nightly routines — a man walked his dog, a woman carried groceries home, two friends chatted near a corner store.
A gray police SUV rolled slowly along the sidewalk, its blue stripe reflecting the lights. Inside sat Officers Kowalev and Melnikova.
“Pretty quiet tonight,” Kowalev muttered with a yawn, eyes scanning the street.
“Too quiet,” Melnikova smirked. “Calm like this usually doesn’t last.”
She barely finished her sentence when the building door ahead flew open. A little girl — maybe five years old, blonde hair tangled, wearing bunny pajamas, barefoot — ran straight toward them. Her face was pale with panic.
Kowalev braked hard, and both officers jumped out.
“Hey, sweetheart, are you okay?” Melnikova knelt down to her level.
“You… you’re the police, right?” the girl stammered, breathing heavily.
“That’s right. What happened?”
“There’s… there’s a man under my bed,” she whispered. “He’s wearing a mask. I saw him.”
Kowalev frowned. “Where are your parents?”
“Mom’s in the bathroom. I called for her, but she told me to stop making things up…”
The officers exchanged a look. It sounded like a child’s imagination, but her eyes — wide, wet, trembling — told a different story.
“What did the man look like?” Melnikova asked gently.
“He wore all black. A mask, like a ninja. I woke up and saw him crawling under my bed. He thought I was asleep…”
“And you ran out here?” Kowalev pressed.
“I hid in the closet first. Then I saw your car from the window and ran.”
Melnikova nodded. “Alright. Let’s check it out. Better safe than sorry.”
The apartment was on the third floor. The girl’s mother — a tired woman in a robe, embarrassed and worried — met them at the door.
“I didn’t hear anything,” she insisted. “She’s been having nightmares lately. She’s always saying something’s hiding in the corner.”
The officers searched the bedroom with flashlights. Nothing. Empty space under the bed.
“Maybe he escaped already…” the girl whispered from the doorway. “But I swear, I saw him.”
Kowalev was about to laugh it off, but Melnikova raised her hand. “Wait. Let’s check the street cameras. Her fear looks too real.”
Minutes later, they were reviewing the footage — and suddenly, everything made sense.
About fifteen minutes before the girl ran outside, another building nearby had been robbed. Two masked men in black fled the scene carrying bags. On a different camera, during their escape, one of the men spotted the patrol SUV, panicked, and disappeared around the corner. Seconds later, he was caught on camera climbing a drainpipe and slipping into a third-floor window.
The very window of the girl’s apartment.
“There he is…” Melnikova whispered. “That was right before she came running.”
In the final clip, the man could be seen leaping out a different window on the opposite side of the building and vanishing into the night.
The police caught him the next day. His partner, arrested that same night, had quickly given him up in exchange for a lighter sentence.