I’m just a regular police officer from a northern state in Mexico, near the U.S. border—nothing out of the ordinary. I don’t investigate homicides or have access to super strange cases. I don’t do anything like what you see in movies; I’m usually assigned to traffic duty or security at events where Civil Protection requires our presence.
But that didn’t save me from getting involved in something so horrible that it keeps me up at night, unable to sleep, wondering whether it’s a good idea to share this before an imminent end.
I know the information is sensitive and obviously illegal, even if I’m telling it to a group of strangers on anonymous forums online, keeping both the people involved and the locations anonymous.
Everyone knows perfectly well that this country’s biggest tragedy—what this country suffers from—is insecurity, mainly due to organized crime. Whether the government is to blame or not, I’m not interested in debating that. Everyone has their own opinion.
Sorry for the long introduction, but I need it to properly tell you my story.
One night I was on traffic patrol with my partner, whom I’ll call Andrés. Everything was normal until we stopped someone for speeding in a gray van. We chased him for a couple of blocks because he wouldn’t slow down. We turned on the siren, the lights—until finally he did.
From the moment I stepped out of the patrol car and walked toward the driver’s window, I could see in the rearview mirror that he was moving nervously. For a second, we made eye contact through the mirror. I could see the terror in his eyes. It was enough warning for me to approach cautiously. I placed my hand on the weapon at my belt, ready to draw. That’s when the door suddenly burst open and the man jumped out of the vehicle.
A short man, messy hair, dressed casually. I immediately took a defensive stance.
To be honest, we’re not exactly known for having great training. People joke about us, call us “Maruchan” because we’re basically instant cops—we go through a six-month theoretical and practical course, and after that they think we’re ready to work. We have basic defense knowledge, nothing special.
So when that man suddenly threw the door open, catching me off guard, my first reaction was to run and hide behind the van. Cowardly? Probably.
I watched Andrés get out of the patrol car running, pass right by me at full speed, chasing the man. I just stood there, not knowing what to do, looking around.
That’s when I heard banging coming from the back door of the van—the exact place where I had been hiding seconds earlier. It scared me. I stepped back, took a breath, drew my weapon, and opened the door.
It was dark, but I could see small points with the faint light from the streetlights—like owls in the dark: eyes.
I immediately pulled out my flashlight and shined it inside the van. There were at least a dozen people… small people. They all shut their eyes from the light, mostly girls. Their legs and hands were tied, and their mouths were covered with tape. Their terrified eyes looked at me, begging for help.
I just stood there like an idiot, trying to process what I was seeing. I couldn’t move. I felt something unnatural—I can’t explain it—like something was forcing me to close the door and go back to work as if I hadn’t seen anything. I turned off my flashlight; it seemed to bother them.
My partner arrived, out of breath, and stood next to me.
“What the hell?” he asked, panting, barely able to get the words out.
“Did he get away?” I didn’t look at him, still lost in those small points in the dark.
“Yeah, I couldn’t catch him,” he said, trying to catch his breath. “But he dropped his phone. I think we can find him with this.”
I was still stunned, in disbelief. He noticed my state and stepped closer to my side. I said nothing, letting him discover it for himself.
“Holy shit!!!”
I heard him curse over and over while I kept fighting my own mind.
“I’m going to report this,” my partner said, handing me the phone of the man who had escaped.
That’s when I finally snapped out of it.
I looked at it. It was unlocked, with Google Maps open. I zoomed in on the screen, searching for the location—it was heading somewhere in the middle of nowhere. Maybe I’m not good with combat tactics, but I do have experience with technology. I checked his search history and found so many places that made my blood run cold: orphanages, churches, schools, hospitals, and many locations in the middle of nowhere.
I think I understood the modus operandi: he would pick up the kids from those places, then deliver them to locations sent to him that same day. Those locations changed every time to avoid drawing attention.
“They’re coming,” Andrés said, returning with a worried expression. He approached one of the girls and carefully removed the tape from her mouth so as not to hurt her. She started crying horribly, terrified.
“Easy,” Andrés tried to calm her. “You’re okay now, you’re safe.”
There was something in his voice… was he lying?
I heard sirens in the distance. Backup was on the way. These were my last seconds to check the phone before an investigator took it. I went through messages and calls, looking for anything useful. I pulled out my notebook and wrote down some numbers, coordinates, names. Andrés watched me do it—I could tell from his face he didn’t approve, but I didn’t care. Something immediately caught my attention: a phrase repeated constantly in the messages.
“Wants to observe.”
I wrote that down too. I put my notebook away just as a patrol car pulled up beside us. A couple of agents from the State Investigative Police got out. I had never seen them before—not unusual. Different agencies working in the same city, too many agents to know them all.
I thought more patrol cars would start arriving—federal, state, municipal, National Guard. The area would be secured… but that didn’t happen. They were the only ones who showed up.
“You can leave now,” they told us. It sounded more like an order than a suggestion. “We’ll take it from here.”
I hesitated, until my partner patted me on the shoulder. I looked at him.
“Let’s go,” he said. I could see the urgency on his face to get out of there.
I had no choice. I got back into the patrol car. Andrés started the engine and we drove away. It was silent. I couldn’t get what I had just seen out of my head.
“That thing,” Andrés broke the silence, “throw it away.”
I didn’t need him to explain what he meant—I knew perfectly: the notes I had taken from the man’s phone.
“Where are you going?” I interrupted when he made a U-turn. “Aren’t we going to look for that guy?”
“No. We’re going back to the station, and I’m going to give you some advice: don’t say or ask anything about what we just saw. And I’ll repeat it—whatever you wrote down, throw it away, burn it, and forget about it.”
My blood was boiling, but it was the most sensible thing. Like I said, we’re not trained in combat or tracking; we just know how to check for badly parked cars and leave tickets on windshields. But what bothered me the most was his refusal to dig deeper into the case. I spent that whole afternoon thinking about what I had seen. I don’t have access to files or investigations, but I had something: some phone numbers and a lot of curiosity.
I finished my shift and left the station without saying goodbye to anyone. I checked Facebook pages from my city—amateur journalists who rush to scenes to livestream. Nothing. As if nothing had happened.
I stopped at an Oxxo, bought a SIM card and a cheap phone, and went home.
I added the number I had written in my notebook. I thought about what I should say. I remembered the image of those small points in the dark, those eyes staring at me in terror, and what I had seen in the messages: “Wants to observe.”
“I also want to observe.”
Send.
I sat there for a few minutes holding the newly bought phone, sweating, breathing heavily, my heart pounding loudly.
My mind drifted, almost shutting down, until a sound and vibration snapped me back to reality with a terrible jolt. The lock screen showed an SMS notification. My heart was racing.
An image. It was very dark, but I could see a person. I couldn’t see his face—it was hidden in shadow, positioned so the light wouldn’t reach it. But I could see a necklace around his neck. It looked like a rosary, but the “mysteries” were too large; it was framed so that it stood out in the foreground. He wanted me to notice it.
That’s when I did. My stomach twisted.
They were eyes.
The man had a necklace made of eyes. Eyeballs hanging by the optic nerve, tied together with what looked like a thin cord.
I focused so much on that that I didn’t notice what was behind him: two faint glowing points. I turned my screen brightness all the way up and barely made out a chair—and on it, a small child tied up. I could see those terrified eyes, identical to the ones I had seen earlier while on patrol.
Another message.
A string of numbers and digits that made no sense… until I saw how it started: bc1q.
Bitcoin…
Could it be that those stories I saw in creepypasta videos online weren’t just real—but happening in my city, right under my nose?
I remembered Andrés’ warning. It was clear he knew more. And the way those state agents kicked us out of the scene… and the silence in the news.
On top of that, the person was sending me an SMS. That could easily be traced by telecom operators… but he didn’t care. It made no sense to ask for money in Bitcoin while sending the address via SMS.
Or maybe it’s simply complicity from the authorities.
I sat there like an idiot, staring into nothing, with no intention of sleeping. I knew I wouldn’t be able to.
Then another message came, giving me the same shock as before.
A video.
My fingers trembled as I brought it closer to my phone.
The lights in my room began to flicker slightly. I felt a horrible cold air and a bad feeling invading my space.
I gathered my courage.
I pressed play.
The man was in frame again. I could see his chest, that disturbing necklace. He moved his hand toward the first eye.
“In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit…”
“First mystery…”
The image turns blurry. It’s censored… and thank God it is, because what I hear is a horrible scream from a small person. I’m gripping the phone tightly. Even though I can’t see anything, I can imagine what’s happening.
I don’t know how long it lasted, but the screams made me sick. I dropped the phone, stood up, tried to reach the bathroom but couldn’t. I vomited. My half-digested dinner spilled into the hallway.
I heard the phone again.
This time the sound was different. It was ringing. I could feel it vibrating too.
I picked it up. Almost as if something forced me, I pressed the answer button.
“You still want to observe…”
