Finders Keepers

Tanya picked up the rectangular, slightly scarred wooden box lying on her bed with a little smile on her face. The gifts that her boyfriend, Farhan, gave her always left a warm glow in her heart. His love for Tanya knew no bounds and he grabbed every available opportunity to shower her with unexpected surprises.

With a soft sigh, she opened up the box. A note lay open with a message scribbled in a child’s hand that read “Look what you made me do”. Tanya lifted the note and read it again, perplexed at the vague message and curious at the familiarity of the handwriting. It was only then that she registered what was lying below the note.

She shrieked in horror and dropped the box as if burned. Tanya scrambled backward in a hurry and tripped on the carpet in an effort to get away from the box. She crawled to the far wall and crouched, whimpering softly as tears rolled down her face. The little chain that was nestled in the box had fallen on the floor and glinted in the sunlight. Tanya didn’t need to open the heart-shaped locket on the chain to know what it contained. She’d spent too many years playing with it and marveling at the sparkle and simplicity of the design.

Cold shivers racked her as she rocked herself back and forth, clutching her knees in an attempt to ward off the chill and the terror that had locked its way around her throat. The note lay crumpled a few feet away from her, forgotten while she tried to make sense of what she’d just discovered. It wasn’t every day that she received the chain she’d last seen around the neck of the mother she’d killed and buried.