sonder.

a photograph.

All that was left was a photograph. The smashed frame and broken glass were all that was left of the Smiths.

It was an ordinary sort of morning, birds chirping, bees buzzing. Rogerston was a typical white picket fence suburb where nothing out of the ordinary seemed to happen. Children went to school, parents went to work. The Smiths were like every other family that lived in Rogerston. But on this seemingly ordinary morning, something was definitely abnormal.

The children hadn't shown up to school, and neither Mr. nor Mrs. Smith had shown up to work. None of them had called in sick either. And then again the next day. And again the day after that. It wasn't until the 4th day of them being missing that an officer went to check in on them, only to find the house completely deserted.

The ground floor was clean, with no sign of forced entry. Kitchen clean, no note, car still parked in the driveway. In fact, for a moment, it seemed as though the Smiths had disappeared without a trace. That was until an officer heard the faint sound of humming from a bedroom upstairs.

2 officers went up. Nothing seemed wrong. The master bedroom was spotless, bed made, not a pillow out of place. On the desk, the pens were all in their place, books collecting dust on the shelf.

The humming however continued. The officers followed the sound into one of the children's rooms. The TV was on. Playing the news. Why would a ten-year-old be playing the news? There was also a smashed photograph on the floor - a family photo - glass and broken wood scattered everywhere. The officer picked up the photo with his gloved hand and put it in an evidence bag.

They moved onto the next room, the other child's bedroom. It, like the rest of the house, was absolutely spotless. The only thing out of place was a copy of The Complete Tales of Sherlock Holmes that was lying open on the floor. It seemed as if it had just fallen off the table and had opened on a random page. The officers took a photo of it as part of the room and went back downstairs.

Nothing made sense. If this was a kidnapping, why make the effort to leave the house so clean? If it wasn't, then what the hell is going on here?

The Chief of Police was at a loss. There was no viable explanation for the disappearance of the Smiths. After a month of futile searches, he was forced to close the investigation due to a lack of leads or evidence. The case would remain unsolved.