Kidnapping

Finding it suspicious, Valentin decided to look for the source of the sound. He searched around the house but he couldn't hear anything similar. If it's not from the house, then it must be from someone else's house.

Valentin took the elevator and got out on the floor below his penthouse. The entire floor was dedicated to his penthouse, so it must be from one of the apartments downstairs. He knocked on the first door, the house right below his. He waited a long minute before a tired granny opened the door.

"Hi, Granny. I'm sorry to disturb you this late at night. My water pump leaked, and I wanted to make sure that your house wasn't affected. May I come in to check?" Valentin lied.

"Of course, please do," the granny replied innocently and kindly let him in. If it were anyone else younger, they would've been more cautious of a stranger who wanted to enter their home late at night.

Realizing that the grandma wasn't on guard, he thought that maybe the muffled sound came from another house. He wanted to check quickly before moving on to other houses. The light coming from the bathroom attracted his attention. He opened the door carefully and saw a boy tied up with a thick, rough rope. His mouth was also blocked with a white piece of cloth.

The boy struggled as he saw a ray of hope. He was making the same muffled sound that Valentin heard. The kid seemed to be only in elementary school. Relieved to have found the source of his worry, he removed the cloth from the boy's mouth and untied his rope. Aside from the rope marks, the boy didn't have any visible injuries.

"What are you doing to my grandson?" the granny asked, on guard.

"Why would you tie your grandson up?" Valentin asked. Who would do that to a kid?

"He was too loud and couldn't stop running around. That's why I tied him up so that he wouldn't disturb the neighbours," the granny explained.

Valentin could see that the granny was agitated. As if she'd had enough of the kid who didn't listen to her.

"My grandson didn't used to be like this," the grandma murmured as she bit her nails nervously. Her grandson would always smile at her sweetly and share his snacks with her. Not like the boy she tied up in the bathroom. He had no patience towards his grandma and always thought of escaping from her house. Her grandson used to love coming to her house.

The kid shook his head violently and yelled, "You are not my grandma!" The child turned towards Valentin and hid behind him. "Can you take me home? I don't want to stay in this scary place anymore."

The boy was about to cry. He had had enough of the granny who kidnapped him out of nowhere. He had been stuck in her house for three days. All they did was eat, watch TV and sleep. When he missed his parents, he tried to escape, but the granny tied him up and locked him in the bathroom.

Hearing the little boy's words, the granny's wrinkled eyes were filled with tears. How come his grandson didn't recognize her anymore?

"Why are you saying that, my grandson? I'm your grandma, don't you recognize me anymore?" she asked sadly.

The kid tugged on Valentin's pants and begged him to take him away. Tears streamed down the little boy's round cheeks. He had to hold on to the man. What if the tall man thought he was a liar? Most adults wouldn't believe a child's words. Even his parents sometimes didn't believe what he said. He missed his parents.

Valentin wasn't the usual adult. The moment he saw the boy being tied up, he thought that something was wrong. Realizing that the granny might have some kind of memory issue or mental illness, Valentin called the cops.

When the police arrived, Valentin explained the situation to them. The police looked closely at the young boy and realized that he was the boy who had gone missing. His parents had been searching for him everywhere.

After looking at camera footage around the neighbourhood, they understood that the grandma had kidnapped the boy straight after he came out of elementary school. From their talk with the granny, they concluded that she was thinking that the boy was his grandson.

The granny's daughter rushed over to the scene and apologized for the inconvenience and her mother's strange behaviour. She explained that her mother must have mistaken the boy for her deceased son. When her son passed away, he was also around this age. After her son's death, her mom hasn't been well. She would often have hallucinations about her grandson. The woman apologized again to the police and the boy's parents. The kid must have been afraid.

The woman was ashamed of herself. She was too busy with work, so she didn't have time to visit her mother. She never knew that her hallucinations would lead her to kidnap and hurt someone else's child.

The police decided not to pursue the granny legally since she wasn't mentally stable and was too old to go to prison. Since she kidnapped a kid and had slight violent tendencies, the police decided to send her to a psychiatric hospital. It was to prevent her from kidnapping other children again.

When the cops dragged the grandma outside of her home, the granny looked back at the kid and cried, "My grandson!" She would sometimes have a clear mind, but she wanted to rest in her illusions. It was less painful that way. She would get to see her grandson every day. To everyone else, she might be mentally ill, but to her, it was her refuge. How she wished that her old life would end so that she could see her grandson again.

The kids' parents thanked Valentin again and again. If it weren't for him, they wouldn't have found their son this soon. Valentin told them that anyone would have done what he did. He only hoped that the kidnapping wouldn't be traumatic for the kid.