The Museum Of Odd Cases || Solving a decades old case

Ch 2

"River Twins, huh? Strange name."

"I remember this case. It was around 20 years ago. I was pretty young at that time, so I don't really remember much of the details." The black haired man spoke.

The twins looked young. Around 5 years old. Identical curly blond hair, eyes green like emerald. One of them wearing a orange frock, other one wearing a peach coloured frock. They looked completely identical, almost impossible to find dissimilarities among the two except the different coloured clothes to differentiate them.

"They were so young... they had so much to see about life. What happened?" Emily felt empathetic.

"Moreover, why River Twins? Such a weird name to give." Jake added.

"Be respectful Jake." With that, James pushed the button to replay the last moments of the twins.

'A little girl rushed to hug her mother, "Mommy! Mommy! Take us by the river again!" Not today Anne. We already went there two days ago" followed by another girl, "Mommy, pleeeeease?" "No Amy. Now you two, go back to playing." The mother ignored her daughter's tantrums and protests. "Mommy, look Andy wants to come too!" Their mother gave them a bored look and sighed. "Andy is a robot..." "Hey! So what if I'm a robot!" The robot said out feeling offended. The mother only could chuckle. "I understand he has feeling like humans. But Andy dosen't even like rivers!" Amy and Anne giggled realising their lie was not believable. "Why do you guys even like rivers, the sea is much better!" Said the robot. "Because Papa used to take us."

Suddenly, the room became pin drop silent. Not even a single noise. The childish, bright atmosphere turned gloomy. Andy wanted to break the silence but couldn't find the words for it. Two years prior, the police found the lifeless body of their father by that very river. The body was unscratched, no wounds, no sign of struggle, not even any signs of him killing himself. The police were never abled to find a cause of death and thus closed the investigation.

"The answer is still no. Go play with your toys. I have already put the ingredients and set up the machine, it will be done in about 30 minutes." The Mother finally broke the silence, pointing towards some sort of machine. Perhaps like an oven, but not exactly an oven either. The two blond haired girls loved looking at the machine each time their mother put food in it to be prepared. Apparently, to them, 'it was satisfying' to see all the ingredients being prepared and cooked from inside the machine by itself.

The twins puffed out their cheeks in annoyance. But did not further argue with their mother. Amy headed towards another room far to the left of the kitchen, followed by Anne. The room was barely visible from the kitchen.
~~~
3o minutes passed away, "Amy! Anne! Come, eat lunch now!" No response. "Amy? Anne?" Still no response. The mother got up to check the room, thinking they maybe fell asleep. But no, she found the room empty. She panicked, trying to tell herself the girls were somewhere around the house. That's when her eyes met the wide open balcony door. She knew instantly, that her daughter disobeyed her and went out by themselves. And she knew exactly where they had gone. But how? They possibly did not walk there, it will take a long time. That's right, their flycycle. They must have used that since the flycycles weren't at the backyard.

'In the future, the human civilisation had changed by a landslide. The new species of humans are much more smarter at young ages. By the age of 14 most children finish university and start their degree or career. For 5 five year olds, being abled to memorise a route as far as 150 Kilometers by only traveling through it once was no big deal.'

"Andy."

"Yes?"

"Please activate the skyport"

The Robot activated the skyport by one sign. And both of them drove off to the location. It took them roughly an hour to reach. The mother looked around restlessly hoping to see at least some indications of her daughters to be there. "Andy, scan the area." The robot proceeded to to scan the whole area. About 10 seconds later, "They both had been here 20 minutes ago, I can't seem to find out when they left. It's saying error."

They searched the whole place for at least 50 minutes, unable to find anything. 1 hour went by, 2 hours, 3 hours, 4 hours... it had been 5 hours, still no sign of the twins. The mother felt helpless and decided to inform the police. The police also tried looking, but failed. They had no choice, but to return home and continue the search the next morning. The mother was restless, unable to sleep, on the verge of bursting into tears. She somehow survived through the miserable night.

The next morning, there was a knock on the door. She thought to it must be the police, maybe with some new information about the whereabouts of her daughters. To her surprise, it was her daughters themselves standing at the front door. They had a huge smile plastered onto their faces. It was giving off some sort of eerie vibe...

The mother hugged her daughters tight. A sigh of relief and tears rolling down her eyes. The little girls just kept the wide smile the whole time. Through out the entire day, they stayed silent. And kept the same smile. "What is it? You two have been smiling the entire day!" The twins didn't utter a single word only tilted head upon hearing their mother. It startled her for a moment, and so she thought it would be the best if she leaves them be. After all they've been missing and all alone for 18 hours, who know what might have happened to them. She returned to her bedroom, which was just beside their room. She could hear vague whispers and but couldn't seem to figure out what they were saying.

It was strange. Everything was strange. Something was off about them.

Soon, midnight struck. The whole city was pin drop silent. Everyone heads to bed pretty early. Suddenly, in the middle of the night, sounds of scratching could be heard. The mother didn't think much of it and went back to sleep. The following morning, "Girls! It's time to get up." As she entered the room, she was dumbfounded. The entire room was filled with little scribbles of "River, dad, it" it was everywhere, and to her surprise on the ceilings as well. She immediately called the police and told them everything that happened from yesterday's morning till today.

"Ma'am... your daughters never came back home. They drowned in the river and we found their body about half an hour ago..."

"What...? What do you mean?! They were with me yesterday! All day!"

"No Ma'am, we run all the security footages of the city through the system even the ones in your house. No one was their except you and the Robot."

*End of Replay*

"Oh... My... God... this sent chills down my spine." Said the black haired boy.

"I didn't even expect that one bit."

"But still, river is a strange name to give someone"

"Oh. My. God. Jake, be respectful for god's sake." James looked at Jake with a bored and angry look.

"I don't think I wanna-"

"Hello people!" The loud greeting of two raspy voice interrupted The purple and brown haired girl. It definitely took them by surprise. Although, Emily felt annoyed. This is the second time someone interrupted her today.

The three turned to look behind them to see where the sound had come from, but found no one there.

"Uhhhh excuse me! Look down here." The three then looked down and found two people, rather short and tiny looking people looking up at them with bright smiles. They were like dwarfs, but exactly not dwarfs either.

"Oh, Sorry. We didn't see you there. You guys are quite... uh, short." Emily tried not to offend them.

"Hey! Don't make fun of us now!"

The two small figures rose up from the ground, floating on air and matched their height.