PART 1 
The rain continued to fall on the shantytowns in the south of the city.

The dirty water ran through the dark alleyways, heavy with the smell of mold, garbage, and the desperation of people the world had long forgotten.

Inside a dilapidated shack, made of rotten wood and rusted corrugated iron, a weak fluorescent light flickered endlessly beneath the low ceiling.

Its pale glow was reflected on the damp cement floor.

And in the middle of that floor, a little girl knelt.

She was so thin that the oversized T-shirt hanging from her body looked more like a blanket than a garment. Mud covered her knees. Her black hair was soaked and tangled from the rain.

But what she clutched to her chest wasn't a toy.

It was two cans of baby formula.

Her small hands trembled with fear and cold.

In front of her stood a man in an expensive black suit.

His polished leather shoes clashed with the squalid shack.

He remained motionless.

His cold gaze was fixed on the little girl.

"Did you take this from my shop?"

His voice was calm.

It wasn't loud.

But it was enough to make the little girl cry even harder.

She clutched the cans of baby formula with all her might, as if they were about to be snatched away.

"Please… forgive me…"

Her voice broke.

"I'll pay you back when I'm older…"

The man frowned slightly.

He had met all kinds of people in his life.

Liars.

Manipulators.

People who pretended to suffer to get money.

But he had never heard words like that spoken with a look like his.

They weren't the eyes of a thief.

They were the eyes of someone who had reached their breaking point.

Outside, the distant wail of an ambulance siren echoed faintly through the rain.

Water continued to drip from the broken roof onto the frozen ground.

The man glanced down at the cans of powdered milk.

Then he looked back at the girl.

"Do you live here?"

The girl didn't answer right away.

She simply lowered her head.

Her shoulders trembled slightly.

Then, in a shaky whisper, she said,

"My little brothers are very hungry..."

Those words froze the air inside the shack.

The man's expression changed slightly.

The girl slowly turned her head toward the dark corner behind her.

An old fan hummed weakly in the background.

A dirty curtain moved gently in the breeze.

And for the first time,

he saw what was hidden behind it.

A woman lay motionless on a thin mattress that barely separated her from the cold floor.

Her face was pale.

Her lips were dry and chapped.

She didn't move.

Beside her,

lay a worn cardboard box.

Inside were two newborns wrapped in thin blankets.

One of them let out a weak cry.

The sound was so faint it was almost painful.

The little girl wiped her tears with her dirty sleeve.

"Mommy hasn't gotten up for two days..."

Two days.

The man froze.

He had signed contracts worth millions of dollars.

He had frequented the most luxurious hotels in New York.

They said he was heartless.

But in that precise moment...

he was unable to utter a single word.

His gaze fell upon the little girl's bare feet, purple with cold.

Then, slowly, he looked back at her tear-streaked face.

She was still clutching the cans of powdered milk to her chest.

As if they were the only thing keeping her family alive.

She wasn't asking for money.

She wasn't asking for pity.

She was only begging to be allowed to take milk home.

A heavy silence settled over the shack.

The silence was so profound that they could hear the faint hum of the fluorescent light above their heads.

The man walked slowly past her.

He approached the motionless mother.

He knelt beside her.

And gently placed his fingers on her wrist.

Alive.

But weak.

Very weak.

He immediately pulled out his phone.

For the first time in years…

his hand trembled slightly.

"Call an ambulance right away."

His voice was hoarse.

"Right now."

The little girl slowly looked up.

Her red, swollen eyes opened in disbelief.

She stared at the man, as if she didn't understand what was happening.

He turned to her.

For a long time.

The coldness in his gaze had completely vanished.

Only a deep sadness remained.

Then he bent down slowly.

He carefully removed his expensive coat and placed it over the two newborns inside the cardboard box.

And for the first time in years, the man stopped caring about getting his coat dirty.

Outside, the sound of ambulance sirens was getting closer and louder.

But the little girl wasn't crying anymore.

She was simply clutching the two cans of powdered milk to her chest.

As if she were holding her family's last hope.

PART 2 — THE NAME THAT APPEARED AT THE HOSPITAL

The ambulance doors closed beneath the rain.

The little girl remained motionless in front of the shack, still clutching the two cans of infant formula. Her eyes followed the man in the black suit as the paramedics placed her mother on a stretcher.

“What is your name?” he asked.

The girl hesitated.

“Sofia.”

“And your mother?”

“Elena.”

The man nodded and pointed toward the vehicle.

“Get in. Your brothers are coming with us too.”

Sofia instinctively stepped back.

“The police…”

“No one is going to arrest you.”

“But I stole from your store.”

The man looked at the cans pressed against her chest.

“Tonight, you didn’t steal milk,” he replied. “You tried to keep your family alive.”

Those words made Sofia press her lips together to keep from crying again.

Minutes later, the ambulance was speeding through the flooded streets of the city. Red and blue lights reflected across shuttered windows while Sofia sat beside the cardboard box where her brothers slept.

The man sat across from her.

His name was Alexander Cole.

He owned a chain of supermarkets, hotels, and residential buildings. His name appeared in financial magazines and in headlines about multimillion-dollar acquisitions.

But Sofia knew none of that.

All she knew was that this man had covered her brothers with a coat that probably cost more than their entire shack.

When they reached the hospital, the doctors immediately took Elena away.

A nurse carried the babies.

Sofia tried to follow them, but Alexander gently stopped her.

“Let them work.”

“Are they going to die?”

The question came out so softly that it was barely audible.

Alexander crouched until he was at her eye level.

“Not if we can prevent it.”

For the first time, he did not speak like a businessman.

He spoke as if he were making a promise.

An hour later, a doctor appeared in the hallway.

“The mother is suffering from a severe infection, dehydration, and extreme exhaustion. If she had waited a few more hours…”

He did not finish the sentence.

Sofia lowered her head.

Alexander closed his eyes for a moment.

“Do whatever is necessary,” he ordered. “I will cover all the expenses.”

The doctor immediately recognized him.

“Mr. Cole, there is something else.”

He handed him a folder containing the patient’s provisional information.

Alexander glanced absentmindedly at the first page.

Then he froze.

Name: Elena Martinez.

Date of birth: October 14.

Place of birth: St. Gabriel Hospital.

Alexander stopped breathing.

“Are you certain these details are correct?”

“The girl confirmed them. We also found an old identification card in the patient’s pocket.”

The doctor handed him a card damaged by moisture.

Alexander took it.

The photograph showed a much younger Elena.

But it was not her face that paralyzed him.

It was the small silver pendant around her neck.

A crescent-shaped medallion.

Alexander knew that medallion.

He had ordered two identical ones twenty-seven years earlier.

One for his wife.

And one for the daughter they had told him died at birth.

His fingers began to tremble.

“Where is the patient?”

“In intensive care.”

Alexander walked down the hallway as if he could hear nothing else.

Sofia ran after him.

When they reached the room, Elena lay connected to several machines. Her face looked even paler beneath the white hospital lights.

Alexander stared at the woman’s neck.

There it was.

The other half of the medallion.

He approached slowly.

With trembling hands, he pulled out a small chain hidden beneath his shirt.

His piece fit perfectly with Elena’s.

Sofia looked at him without understanding.

“Why do you have the same thing as my mother?”

Alexander did not answer.

At that moment, Elena slowly opened her eyes.

Her unfocused gaze moved around the room.

When she saw Alexander, her expression changed.

She did not look surprised.

She looked afraid.

A deep, ancient fear.

“You…” she whispered.

Alexander leaned closer.

“Who are you?”

Elena began breathing with difficulty.

“I should never have been found.”

“Why do you have that medallion?”

A tear rolled down Elena’s cheek.

Then she spoke a sentence that made Alexander feel as if the floor had vanished beneath him.

“Because your daughter never died.”

The machines began sounding an alarm.

Doctors rushed into the room.

Sofia was pulled back into the hallway.

Alexander remained behind the glass, watching them try to stabilize Elena.

And in the middle of the chaos, he noticed something no one else seemed to see.

A man in a gray coat was watching from the far end of the corridor.

When Alexander looked directly at him, the stranger turned and disappeared.

But before leaving, he deliberately dropped a black envelope onto the floor.

Inside was a single photograph.

A photograph of Sofia leaving the supermarket.

Taken hours before Alexander had found her.

And on the back, a handwritten message:

“If you discover who the girl is, you will lose far more than your fortune.”

PART 3 — THE SEALED ROOM

Alexander did not show the photograph to Sofia.

He slipped it inside his jacket and immediately asked the hospital’s head of security to review the cameras.

The man in the gray coat did not appear on any recording.

Not entering.

Not leaving.

It was as if he had never been there.

That same night, Elena was stabilized, but she remained sedated. The doctors could not say when she would wake.

Alexander arranged a private room for Sofia and the babies.

He also had clean clothes, warm food, and everything they needed brought to them.

When a nurse tried to throw away the two empty formula cans, Sofia refused.

“They’re mine.”

“We can give you new ones,” the nurse said.

“I don’t want new ones.”

Alexander understood that to her, those cans were not trash.

They were proof that she had managed to save them.

He sat beside her.

“You can keep them.”

Sofia watched him for several seconds.

“Did you know my mother?”

“I don’t know yet.”

“She said you were her father.”

Alexander swallowed hard.

“She said my daughter never died.”

“Did you have a daughter?”

The question pulled him twenty-seven years into the past.

To a private hospital.

To a room where his wife had cried uncontrollably.

To a doctor who would not look him in the eye.

To a small sealed coffin they were never allowed to open.

Alexander had accepted the tragedy because he had been too broken to question it.

But now he was beginning to remember details.

A death certificate signed in different ink.

A nurse who disappeared the next day.

His father’s insistence that there be no investigation.

His father.

Richard Cole.

Founder of the family empire.

A man who had been dead for fifteen years.

Alexander rose abruptly.

“I need to check something.”

Before leaving, he assigned two private guards to the hallway.

Then he drove to the old family mansion, which had remained closed since Richard’s death.

The rain had stopped, but thick fog covered the gardens.

The house smelled of old wood and dust.

Alexander went directly to his father’s study.

Everything was still the same.

The oak desk.

The heavy curtains.

The family portraits.

And behind a bookcase, a small door Alexander had seen locked throughout his entire childhood.

His father had always said it was an old storage room.

That night, Alexander called a locksmith he trusted.

The lock gave way after several minutes.

The door opened with a groan.

There was no storage room behind it.

There was a windowless chamber.

Photographs, medical reports, and newspaper clippings covered the walls.

All of them were connected to Elena.

There were pictures of her in an orphanage.

At a public school.

Working in a laundry.

Pregnant.

Entering the shack with Sofia.

For twenty-seven years, someone had been watching every step of her life.

Alexander moved forward in horror.

On a table, he found a file marked with a single word:

HEIRESS.

Inside were forged adoption documents, payments to doctors, and transfers made to different people.

The last payment had been made only three months earlier.

That meant someone was still protecting the secret long after Richard’s death.

Alexander studied the names of the beneficiaries.

One immediately caught his attention.

Victor Hale.

His chief attorney.

His friend of twenty years.

The man who managed every legal matter connected to the Cole family.

At that moment, his phone vibrated.

It was Victor.

“Alexander, I just heard what happened at the supermarket. Are you all right?”

Alexander stared at the file in his hands.

“Perfectly.”

“Where are you?”

“At home.”

There was a brief silence.

“At your apartment?”

Alexander looked around the secret room.

“No. At my father’s mansion.”

For one second, Victor stopped breathing on the other end of the line.

It was enough.

“Alexander,” he said at last, “get out of there.”

“Why?”

“Because there are things you do not understand.”

“Then explain them.”

“Not over the phone.”

The call ended.

At the same moment, the lights in the mansion went out.

Alexander was left in complete darkness.

From downstairs came the sound of a door opening.

Then footsteps.

Slow.

Controlled.

Someone had entered the house.

Alexander turned on the flashlight of his phone.

The footsteps stopped.

He looked at the file again and noticed a small hidden compartment at the back.

Inside was an old recording.

He placed it into a player he found on the table.

His father’s voice filled the room.

“If you are hearing this, it means Elena has been found.”

A chill ran through Alexander.

“Do not trust Victor. But do not trust the woman claiming to be your daughter either.”

The recording continued:

“The girl named Sofia is the key. Her birth was no accident. And the person searching for her knows the secret that could destroy our family.”

The tape stopped.

The footsteps began climbing the stairs.

Alexander turned off the flashlight.

A shadow appeared on the other side of the doorway.

And a familiar voice whispered:

“Give me the file, Alexander.”

It was Victor.

But he was not alone.

PART 4 — THE TRUTH ABOUT SOFIA

Alexander held the file against his chest as two men appeared behind Victor.

They wore no uniforms.

They did not need to.

Their posture made it clear they had not come to talk.

“Have you been watching Elena?” Alexander asked.

Victor slowly closed the door.

“I was trying to protect her.”

“Protect her from whom?”

“From your father. And later, from the people who inherited his secrets.”

“You inherited his secrets.”

Victor shook his head.

“I inherited his fear.”

Alexander looked at him with disgust.

“My daughter was sent to an orphanage while you were being paid to remain silent.”

“You do not know the whole story.”

“Then talk.”

Victor made a gesture, and the two men stopped.

“Elena is your daughter.”

The confirmation struck Alexander with unexpected force.

“Your father ordered them to declare her dead because she was born with an irrevocable claim to part of the family fortune. Your wife had signed an inheritance structure he could not control.”

“Did my wife know she was alive?”

“Not at first.”

“At first?”

Victor lowered his eyes.

“Years later, she discovered the truth.”

Alexander remembered his wife, Margaret, who had died in a car accident when Elena was only six years old.

“Did my father silence her?”

Victor did not answer.

That silence was a confession.

Alexander stepped toward him.

“What does Sofia have to do with this?”

Victor looked at the file.

“Sofia is not only Elena’s daughter.”

“I already know that.”

“No. You do not.”

Victor pulled out a photograph and placed it on the table.

It showed Elena several years earlier standing beside a young man with dark hair.

Alexander recognized him.

Daniel Ward, son of Senator Thomas Ward.

Daniel had disappeared four years earlier without a trace.

“Sofia is Daniel’s daughter,” Victor said. “That makes her the heir to two powerful families.”

“Why would anyone want to harm her?”

“Because Daniel discovered a network of shell companies used to divert millions from a fund intended for social housing. The money ended up financing the same slum neighborhoods where Elena was forced to live.”

Alexander felt sick.

“Was my company involved?”

“Your father’s company. And the Ward family.”

“Did Daniel keep evidence?”

“Yes.”

“Where?”

Victor looked directly at him.

“With Sofia.”

Alexander frowned.

“She knows nothing.”

“That is exactly why she is still alive.”

A sharp sound came from downstairs.

One of Victor’s men checked his phone.

“We have company.”

Victor went pale.

“They found us.”

“Who?”

“The same people who photographed Sofia.”

The mansion windows lit up under the headlights of several vehicles.

Victor took the file from the table, tore out a page, and handed it to Alexander.

It was a report about the two formula cans.

A small hidden compartment had been discovered inside the metal base of one of them.

“Daniel left instructions before he disappeared,” Victor explained. “He said that if anything happened to him, Elena had to hide the key somewhere no one would ever look.”

Alexander understood.

The cans.

Sofia still had them at the hospital.

He pulled out his phone and immediately called the head of security.

No one answered.

He called again.

Silence.

Then a video call came in from an unknown number.

Alexander answered.

The hospital room appeared on the screen.

The babies’ beds were empty.

Sofia sat motionless in a chair with a hooded figure standing behind her.

The stranger’s face was hidden.

“Mr. Cole,” a distorted voice said. “You have something that belongs to us.”

Alexander gripped the phone.

“Let her go.”

“Bring the file and the key.”

“I do not have any key.”

The figure placed a hand on Sofia’s shoulder.

She was not crying.

She looked directly into the camera.

“The girl knows where it is,” the voice replied.

Alexander studied Sofia’s face.

She slowly moved her lips.

No sound.

Two words.

Do not come.

The call ended.

Alexander turned toward Victor.

“I am going to get her.”

“That is exactly what they want.”

“She is my granddaughter.”

Victor looked at him gravely.

“Then there is something you need to know before you go in there.”

“What?”

“The man controlling all of this is not a stranger.”

Victor opened another folder and pulled out a recent photograph.

Alexander felt the blood drain from his face.

The man standing beside Elena at a train station was someone Alexander had buried eighteen years earlier.

His younger brother.

Jonathan Cole.

“He is alive,” Victor said. “And he has been waiting for years for Sofia to find the key.”

PART 5 — THE BOX BENEATH THE CITY

The hospital was partially dark when Alexander returned.

A technical alarm sounded somewhere in the building, but the hallways of the private wing were empty.

Too empty.

Victor walked behind him.

“Walking through the front entrance is madness.”

“Sofia is inside.”

“That does not mean she is still here.”

Alexander stopped outside the room.

The private guards lay unconscious on the floor, breathing but unable to respond.

On Sofia’s bed was one of the formula cans.

The other was gone.

Alexander picked it up.

The metal base appeared normal, but when he pressed it, he found a false plate.

Inside was a small brass key and a folded piece of paper.

The message was written in a child’s handwriting:

“Mom said that if they came for us, I should look for the blue door beneath the city.”

Victor read the note.

“The old service station.”

“Where?”

“Under the financial district. It was closed decades ago. Your father bought the tunnels through a shell company.”

Alexander stared at him.

“How do you know so much?”

Victor remained silent.

“Because Daniel asked me for help before he disappeared,” he admitted at last. “And because I was the one who took Elena out of the hospital when she was born.”

Alexander froze.

“You sent her to the orphanage.”

“It was that or leave her with your father.”

“And you never told me?”

“Your father threatened to destroy anyone who went near her. When he died, Jonathan took control of the network.”

Alexander closed his eyes, trying to organize decades of lies.

“Did my brother cause Margaret’s accident?”

Victor did not answer.

He did not need to.

Hours later, they descended through a maintenance entrance hidden beneath an abandoned building.

The tunnel smelled of rust and damp stone.

The walls were covered with old railway signs.

At the end of the corridor stood a blue door.

Alexander inserted the key.

The lock opened.

On the other side, they found an underground chamber lit by emergency lamps.

There were filing cabinets, hard drives, photographs, and boxes filled with bank documents.

Sofia stood in the center of the room.

Beside her, the two babies slept inside an improvised crib.

And standing in front of them was Jonathan Cole.

Older.

Thinner.

But alive.

“Brother,” Jonathan said. “You took long enough.”

Alexander stepped forward.

“Let them go.”

Jonathan smiled.

“Always so direct.”

“Why did you fake your death?”

“Because our father was willing to eliminate anyone who knew about his secret accounts.”

“Did you kidnap Sofia?”

“I brought her here to protect her.”

Victor gave a bitter laugh.

“Your men attacked the hospital.”

“My men arrived afterward. The attackers belonged to the Ward family.”

Alexander looked at Sofia.

“Did he hurt you?”

The girl slowly shook her head.

Jonathan raised the missing formula can.

“Daniel hid a code inside it, not a key. The physical key opens this room. The code opens the accounts.”

“Where is Daniel?”

Jonathan’s smile disappeared.

“Alive.”

Sofia lifted her head.

“My father is alive?”

“Yes,” Jonathan replied. “But if we open the accounts, they will know exactly where to find him.”

Alexander looked around at the walls filled with evidence.

“How much money is there?”

“More than two billion dollars diverted over thirty years.”

“And who controls the accounts now?”

Jonathan pointed toward a screen.

A list of names appeared.

Politicians.

Bankers.

Businessmen.

Judges.

And at the bottom, a name Alexander never expected to see.

Elena Martinez.

“That is impossible,” Alexander said.

“Your daughter did not end up in that neighborhood by accident,” Jonathan replied. “She was following the money.”

Sofia looked confused.

“My mother does not know anything about banks.”

Jonathan crouched beside her.

“Your mother knows far more than she has ever told you.”

At that moment, a red light began flashing above the door.

Victor checked his phone.

“They found the entrance.”

Footsteps echoed from the other side of the tunnel.

Many of them.

Jonathan placed the can on a metal reader.

“When I open these accounts, the entire network will be exposed.”

Alexander looked at the babies.

Then at Sofia.

“Do it.”

Jonathan entered the code.

A countdown appeared on the screen.

Ten.

Nine.

Eight.

Sofia stepped closer to Alexander and took his hand for the first time.

Seven.

Six.

Five.

The blue door began shaking beneath repeated impacts.

Four.

Three.

The screen suddenly changed.

ACCESS DENIED.

Then another message appeared:

“BIOMETRIC AUTHORIZATION REQUIRED.”

“Whose?” Alexander asked.

Jonathan went pale.

“The person who created the system.”

A photograph appeared on the screen.

Elena.

At that exact moment, Alexander’s phone rang.

It was the hospital.

He answered immediately.

A nurse’s voice trembled on the other end.

“Mr. Cole… your daughter has disappeared.”

Alexander stared at Elena’s image on the screen.

“What do you mean, disappeared?”

“Someone helped her leave. But she left a note for you.”

“What does it say?”

The nurse remained silent for a moment.

“It says: ‘Do not try to find me. I was the one who started all of this.’”

The blue door burst open.

Several figures entered the chamber.

And walking at the front of them was Elena.

She was no longer wearing a hospital gown.

She wore a black coat.

Her face was still pale, but her gaze was steady.

In one hand, she held the medallion.

In the other, an access device.

Sofia stepped toward her.

“Mom…”

Elena did not answer.

She looked directly at Alexander.

“I am sorry,” she said. “But if you want to save Sofia, you will have to let the world believe that all of us are dead.”

PART 6 — THE DEATH THEY WERE MEANT TO REPRESENT

Sofia wanted to run to her mother, but Elena raised a hand.

"Don't come any closer yet."

The girl stopped, hurt by the coldness of her voice.

Alexander stepped between them.

"You just got out of intensive care. Who are those people?"

The figures who had entered with Elena closed the blue door. One of them connected a device to the security system; another spread out maps of the underground network on the table.

"People who have been trying to keep Sofia alive for years," Elena replied. "They don't work for Jonathan or Victor. They work for Daniel."

Sofia's eyes widened.

"Did Dad send them?"

Elena didn't answer directly.

She placed her device on the biometric reader. The screen recognized her pulse and displayed hundreds of encrypted accounts, but she didn't open them.

“The system is connected to an emergency protocol,” she explained. “If we try to release the evidence, those in charge will receive an alert. In less than an hour, Daniel will be located.”

Alexander stared at her in disbelief.

“You know where he is?”

“I know where he was six months ago.”

“Why did you keep all this a secret?”

“Because everyone who knew the truth ended up disappearing.”

Jonathan took a step forward.

“Including Margaret.”

Elena glared at him with icy hardness.

“Don’t say my mother’s name like you care.”

Alexander felt the sting of those words.

It was the first time Elena had openly acknowledged that he was her father.

“You said the world should believe we were dead,” he reminded her. “How do you plan to do that?”

Elena pointed to the tunnels.

“This chamber has an exit to the old fuel depots.” In twelve minutes, a controlled explosion will take place. The hospital records will prove I was here. The cameras will show you came in. Afterward, we'll find enough remains to close the investigation.

Victor paled.

"Remains of whom?"

Elena remained silent.

One of her companions opened a metal box. Inside were clothes, personal belongings, and biological samples.

Alexander recognized his spare watch, which had been stored in the mansion for years.

He also saw a child's bracelet identical to the one Sofia wore on her wrist.

"You've been planning this for a long time," he said.

"Since before Sofia was born."

Sofia stepped back.

"Did you know they were coming for us?"

Elena knelt, though the pain forced her to lean on the table.

"Your father discovered that certain people were looking for a descendant who could unite the two family lines. Cole and Ward. You were that person."

"For the money?"

"Not just for the money."

Elena took the second can of milk and turned its base. Under the metal plate was a transparent surface with a dried drop of blood.

"Daniel didn't just hide a code. He hid a sample."

Jonathan approached.

"Whose?"

"Sofia's."

Alexander frowned.

"Why does the system need her blood?"

Elena connected the base to the reader.

The screen displayed a genetic sequence and, below it, a phrase:

PROJECT LAZARUS — MATCH CONFIRMED.

No one spoke.

Sofia looked at her mother.

"What does that mean?"

Elena closed her eyes.

Before she could answer, all the screens changed simultaneously.

The face of an aged man appeared, sitting in a white room.

Daniel Ward.

Sofia let out a sob.

"Dad..."

Daniel looked directly at the camera, as if he could see it.

"Elena, if you're seeing this, it means Sofia has opened the vault."

The image flickered.

"Don't let Alexander find out what it was created for."

Alexander turned to Elena.

"Created?"

A countdown appeared above the door.

00:02:00.

Elena grabbed Sofia's hand.

"We have to go."

"Not until you tell me what it means," Alexander demanded.

Elena looked at him, tears welling in her eyes.

"It means Sofia's birth was planned twenty-five years before Daniel and I met."

And then, from inside the wall, the cry of another child began to be heard.