I was doing my usual grocery shopping when I suddenly found a little girl sitting in my cart. She looked up at me with big, scared eyes and whispered, “Don’t give me back, I’m scared.” At that moment, I knew my life was about to change.
My career was steady, and my life was well-organized. I took pride in the independence I had built over the years. Being single didn’t bother me. I enjoyed the freedom and simplicity of my life, without many responsibilities beyond my job and daily routine.
My daily routines, though simple, brought me comfort. After my sister Melissa lost her job, I let her stay with me. She was family, after all. She had a tendency to take control of things, but I hoped she’d get back on her feet soon.
That day started like any other. I went grocery shopping, as I did every week. The simple act of shopping made me feel in control.
Walking through the aisles, I focused on my list. Halfway through, I turned to grab a box of cereal, and when I looked back at my cart, there was… a little girl!
She was sitting in the basket. I blinked, confused.
“Hi! Where’s your mommy?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” she whispered, gripping the cart tightly.
I froze, trying to understand what was happening. I looked around, expecting to see a parent nearby, but there was no one.
“What’s your name?” I asked gently, crouching to her level.
“Lily,” she whispered softly.
I looked around again, but the store was full of busy strangers. What should I do? Leave her and wait for someone? But what if no one came?
“Well, Lily,” I said softly, “let’s find someone who can help us, okay?”
I slowly pushed the cart, scanning the aisles for her parents. After 20 minutes, it was clear—no one was coming for her.
Just as I was about to call the police, she looked up at me with tear-filled eyes and whispered, “Don’t give me back, I’m scared.”
Before I knew it, I had taken her home.
Everything felt surreal. Lily, a scared little girl, sat at my kitchen table, eating a sandwich, her eyes following me as if I was her only safety.
The front door opened, and Melissa walked in. I knew this wouldn’t go over well.
“What is this?” she asked, her eyes locking on Lily.
“I found her at the grocery store,” I explained, trying to stay calm.
“Found her?!” Melissa exclaimed. “You can’t just bring home a child! Do you even know where she came from?”
“No, but she was alone,” I replied. “I couldn’t leave her there.”
“You can’t fix everything, Rachel. This is a bad idea.”
“I called James,” I said, mentioning my detective friend. “He’s looking into it. We’ll figure it out.”
Melissa sighed in frustration but muttered nothing else. My focus stayed on Lily.
The next morning, my fears came true. There was a knock at the door. Social services had arrived.
Melissa acted fast, as she always did when worried. I knew I couldn’t keep Lily, no matter how much I wanted to.
“We’ll take her into care,” a social worker said gently.
I looked at Lily, who was clutching the table.
“I… I just need a minute,” I stammered.
I knelt by Lily. “Sweetie, you have to go with them for now. They’re going to help you.”
Her big eyes met mine. “Please, don’t give me back. I’m scared.”
Her words broke my heart, but before I could say more, the social workers took her away.
Suddenly, my phone rang. It was James, his voice serious.
“Rachel, I found something. Her name’s Lily. She’s run away from home before, but they’ve never found anything wrong.”
“Do you have their address? Send it to me, please.”
Later, Melissa began criticizing me again. “This is why I called social services. You’re acting impulsively.”
“A mess? You think this is a mess?” I snapped. “Lily needed help, and I wasn’t going to abandon her. Maybe focus on your own life before judging mine.”
Melissa stayed silent. I grabbed my keys and left, determined to figure things out.
When I arrived at Lily’s house, something felt off. The house was neglected, the yard overgrown. I knocked, and a pale woman opened the door—Lily’s mother, Gloria.
“I’m Rachel. I’ve been caring for Lily,” I explained.
At her daughter’s name, Gloria’s expression filled with sadness. She let me in.
“I know I can’t take care of her anymore,” Gloria admitted, her voice heavy with defeat.
“Gloria,” I said gently, “you love her, but she needs more right now. Let me help.”
Gloria wiped her eyes. “I tried… after her father died.”
“You don’t have to do this alone. I’ll care for her while you get back on your feet. We’ll figure this out together.”
“You’d do that?” she asked.
“Yes. Lily needs to be safe. I’ll take care of her for now, and when you’re ready, she can come back.”
Gloria nodded, and we talked about a plan for her to visit Lily and work toward getting her back.
Just then, social services arrived. Lily ran to her mother, hugging her tightly.
“I’m here, baby,” Gloria whispered. After a few moments, Lily walked back to me.
I spoke with social workers and Gloria about the plan. Lily would stay with me temporarily, and we would reassess Gloria’s situation in a few months.
“It’s time to go, sweetie,” I said, holding Lily’s hand.
Gloria gave her a nod. “Be good, okay?”
From that day on, life changed for both of us. Lily adjusted, and we found comfort in new routines.
One night, she asked, “Will I see Mom again?”
“Yes, sweetie,” I assured her. “When she’s ready. And until then, you’re safe here.”
Through this journey, I learned that love sometimes means knowing when to let go and trust in the future.
12 People Who Were Right to Trust Their Gut Feeling
Listening to what your intuition is telling you might just keep you safe from harm or sorrow. That’s what people online found out the hard way, when trusting their gut feeling meant a completely different outcome in a serious situation. Their stories are an important reminder for us to believe in our own inner voice.
- I would always walk down the hallway in the night without turning the lights on. One night I get to the end of the hallway and have a sudden urgent feeling that I need to turn the lights on.
I go all the way back to my room and turn the hallway light on and go back.
Just in front of where I had decided to turn around was a huge and deadly Taipan snake making its way from one room to another across the hallway. If it had bitten me in the dark they wouldn’t have been able to get me the correct antivenom. © risska / Reddit
- I was mowing my backyard with a ride-on mower, and I began to get an overwhelming feeling of being watched. I started looking around and thought I saw a figure in the upstairs window. I tried ignoring this as no one was home and continued with mowing when I started to feel an unbearable sense of dread.
This made me immediately stop. As I did so, the ground in front of me gave way forming a 15-foot wide 12 foot deep sinkhole. If I hadn’t stopped immediately I likely would have been crushed by the tractor. © MujimIsYou / Reddit
- My wife and I rented a really nice cabin in Big Sur, California, for a few nights. She woke up panicky and crying (which she never does) over a bad dream. I had an awful feeling after waking up and told her we could go for a drive.
The further we went, the better we felt. We ended up staying in Monterey for the night. The cabin we were at burnt down. I still get chills writing this years later. © Unknown user / Reddit
- I asked my mother to take me home early from boy scout camp because I was afraid of bears. A bear ravaged the camp the night I left. Luckily, it didn’t hurt anyone. It just tore everything up from what I was told. © SenatusRomanus / Reddit
- I’m a firefighter. We got called out to a tree fire started by fallen power lines. We pull up in the truck, and I’m trusting that my driver and crew leader are doing their job and have good situational awareness. We get out of the truck, and we’ve parked next to a set of power lines (not fallen). It’s a very windy night and I can see the lines swinging, so I voice my concerns to my crew leader who says it’ll be fine.
We get our hose out (risk of the tree fire catching onto a house outweighing potential risk of arcing plus the line disconnected when it fell) and I’m on the branch ready to start putting it out with two others near me when I get a chill. I look up to see the lines swinging violently and yell, “everyone move”. As the three of us sprint and dive out of the way we hear a thwip and crack and sure enough the line we were under came loose and stayed connected to the power pole. If I hadn’t got that chill chances are we would all have died. © DYESMOD / Reddit
- My daughter was a year and a half at the time. She had a cold, but bedtime went off without a hitch. I woke up in the middle of the night that night, really uncomfortable and anxious. Something was off, and I couldn’t put my finger on it. I got up, had a midnight snack, tried to calm my nerves. I decided to check on my kids, who shared a room, before trying to go back to sleep.
I get in there, and immediately I hear a light sound coming from her crib—wheezing. It was so quiet, there was no way to hear it outside of the room. I got her up and saw that her breathing was fast and labored. I took her to the hospital, where she ended up with an overnight stay, oxygen, and nebulizer treatments because her oxygen had dipped. She was diagnosed with Reactive Airway Disease due to the cold (which triggered an asthma attack). © Thr33wolfmoon / Reddit
I was riding my motorcycle with a friend on the back. We were going down a country road behind a truck hauling a bunch of old car tires when all of a sudden I decided we shouldn’t be there, so I slowed way down to let the truck go ahead of us. Just as I did, one of the tires fell off the truck and landed right where we would have been. © d***eyeAZ / Reddit
- When I was two or three, I had nightmares. One night I woke up, went to my foster parents’ room, and informed them that there was a bee under my pillow. “No, there’s not, Arwen. Go back to sleep,” they said. Cue the rivers of tears. Finally, my foster mom goes into my room, switches my light on, says, “There aren’t any bees in here. Look!”
As she picks up my pillow lo and behold, a bee flew out. My mom shooed the bee out the window as I was sobbing hysterically. She gave me the strangest look and asked how I knew the bee was there. I had no idea. My nightmare was completely unrelated. © Unkown user / Reddit
- I was like 5 or 6 when my mom and sisters wanted to go for a drive out of town. I cried and cried because I just didn’t want to go with them for some reason, and decided to go with my other sister in her car. Turns out, my mom and other sisters ended up crashing, and they said, “If you were in the car, you would’ve had to sit in the middle, and you would’ve died.” Luckily my family was okay though. But I sure did feel really cool after that. © SnowLeopard000 / Reddit
- I was driving on the road one night and I saw a car in the middle of the road with two people lying on the ground. My gut feeling was that something is suspicious here, and I decided to act on it by driving past the car and the two people.
I stop to take my phone out and call the police and I look at my rearview mirror to see the two people lying on the road stand up with five other people coming out of the bushes. © Naweezy / Reddit
- I met this cute girl on Halloween night, so I invited her to a party I was going to later. She drove with me to the party and I took her two friends too. We talk a little, but we ended up working the room and got split up. I had this sudden overwhelming urge to find her and I ended up getting a little worried.
Some guy had moved in and had brought her outside and taken her to a semi private area underneath a patio balcony. I didn’t really care what he thought, grabbed her by the hand, acted like it was important and led her out of the party and in to the front yard. We both heard a massive crash as the very large patio collapsed above where she was standing three minutes before.
I know most certainly that if I hadn’t grabbed her, she wouldn’t exist today. I ended up marrying her, and imagining how it almost never happened in such a dreadful way terrifies me. © Unknown user / Reddit
- My mom tells this story a lot. She was working in an office, and she suddenly had a powerful urge to leave her cube, just to leave and be somewhere else for no reason. Not a minute later, a fifteen-foot-wide section of the ceiling collapsed, burying the floor in metal and plaster. © Kaleon
/ Reddit
We all have personal stories we’re afraid to share because they sound unbelievable. But some people feel better sharing them anonymously online. We gathered a few of those eerie stories in this article, and they prove that anyone can be deeply affected by spooky situations.
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