“Oh, Amity! We’re home!”

A key slid into the doorway as Ella opened the door.

“Maybe she’s asleep,” Gunther said.

“Nonsense, dear. It’s 2 pm, and it’s a Sunday. She wouldn’t be asleep at this time. Amity, honey!”

Gunther stepped past her, heading to the stairs, and Elizabeth to the kitchen. He stepped up to Amity’s room, and knocked on the door.

No response. The door had an easily defeated lock, and while he knew about it, nobody else did, and he never took advantage of it until now. Pulling the knob up, he twisted away from the intended direction, then slammed it the other way. The lock gave, and it opened to reveal an empty room.

The window was crooked, and half open still.

“Amity..?”

He took a look around. The bed was unmade, and the immediate area wasn’t very tidy. Clothes on the ground, and a few pieces of blue rock.

“Uh, Ella?”

“Yeah?” Elizabeth called out from the bottom of the stairs.

“Come to Amity’s room. Now,” he urged. Maybe 30 seconds later, she arrived, and immediately blew up when she saw the room.

“What the hell is this? Where is she? The window’s open, the room is a mess, right near her bed, which is unmade might I add… Wait… It’s only messy near her bed, and the window doesn’t look like it was put back down… did someone kidnap her??”

Gunther sighed.

“I’m not sure, baby. Maybe she tried to sneak out, even though we weren’t home? I’ll call her…”

The phone rang once…

A muffled song tried its best to get attention from under the pile of clothes.The phone rang again…

The song still continued.The phone was hung up.

The song stopped, half a second later.

“Was that… her phone?”

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Ella picked it up, and it indeed was Amity’s.

“Gunther, come on. We’re making a missing person report. Now.”

He agreed, and they stepped into the car to head to the police station.

The sirens blared in the couple’s ears as they stepped into the cool lobby of the station, greeted by a receptionist with a lengthy line as she finished another man’s business.

“Oh, this is going to take ages! Who knows what could happen to her in the time we can’t report it?!” Ella whisper-screamed.

The receptionist heard the distressed mother’s call, and beckoned her over.

“Hey, if you’re trying to file a missing persons report, you can head inside. First door on the left, he can sort you out.”

Ella thanked the desk girl, and went inside.

She immediately spotted the door, with a metal board attached to it that had the name “Mr. Brunswick, Head of MPI.”

Knocking on the door, she heard the gruff voice summon her inside, and she opened the door, allowing Gunther to step in first before her.

“Hello, Mr. Brunswick.”

“Hello! Please, take a seat.” He gestured to the open chairs in front of his desk.

The goateed man stepped forward and slid into a chair, his wife following beside him.

“So, what seems to be the matter?”

“Well, we have a missing person report to file. Our daughter, Amity.”

“Amity, huh? Last name?” He asked, while pulling up a computer.

“Rune. Amity Rune. We think she got taken from our house while we were on vacation. She wanted to stay home.” Ella wiped her eyes with her arm.

“How old is she?”

“Fourteen.”

“Yeah, there’s nobody by that name under 18 in my system. Did you just move to the country?”

“No, no, we’ve been here our whole lives. Never moved outside the USA either.”

“This is very odd…”

Gunther piped up, finally.

“Uh, it might be under the name Seth…”

“Why would it be under a different name?”

"It's a long story... Just run the name."

"Hmm.. I do have a Seth here, same age as her. Is this what she looks like?"

An old picture from a few years ago, showing her with a shorter haircut and a miserable expression.

"Yeah, that's her... but that picture's old. Gunther?"

“Oh, I think… Here, a school picture. It got taken just a few days ago, so I still had it on me.”

He took it, and placed it in a scanner. It pulled up on the display and he moved it to the registry.

“Amity is in the missing children’s registry, and we will handle spreading the word and investigating. If you don’t mind, tell me when you last saw her?”

Ella answered. “She was in the house when we left for vacation, on the 14th. We were out for a week.”

“Hmm, alright. Do you know who would’ve last seen her?”

“I’m not sure… She doesn’t really talk to anyone but her closest friends.”

“Who are they?”

“Their names were… uh… Himiko, Raleigh, and Katie.”

“Really? Himiko Singe, Raleigh Aventine, and Katie Patterson?”

“I think so, yeah.”

“Those kids… have all been reported missing as well. Himiko and Katie’s parents both mentioned Amity…”

“What..?”

“Yeah, they’ve been missing since the 18th, so I suspect your daughter went missing on that same day.”

“So…”

“So we have a bit of a better lead. Does your house have security cameras? They could catch her going in or out.”

“Yeah, actually. We have a video doorbell, and some cameras mounted to watch the backyard.”

“Can you release the footage for those?”

“I can see the camera on the app, so if you want, I can send it to you somehow.”

“Please save the videos as an MP4, then let me attach it to the computer. What plug does your phone use?” The officer reached into a bin beneath his desk as Ella opened the camera app.

“Type-C.”

“Alright, here. Plug it in when you’re ready.”

Ella transferred the video files to the computer, and shortly after were sent on their way.