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[color=929292][sub]A t   H o m e[/sub][/color]
[hr]	[color=929292]Home was quiet. Lisa had not returned from work yet. Esther sat in the kitchen with a glass of milk and some old cookies, scrolling through the feeds on her phone. The thing about the missing girl seemed to be trending everywhere. The thought of Esther’s father having something to do with it briefly entered her mind, but was discarded equally fast. He was not the kind of man that would kidnap random strangers. Despite everything that she had been through with him, he was a man of honor and discipline. Perhaps he was out there looking for the missing girl. It would not have surprised Esther if he actually was.

	Esther had not bothered with changing into something more comfortable. She was going to attend the community search, anyway. Esther knew that her mother would object, but eventually she would give in and probably come along as well. Lisa did not fear much for her daughter when it came to—how should one put it?—[i]worldly[/i] matters. She knew that Esther could make any mugger or rapist think that they are a pig with wings for the rest of their lives. No, the fear was Esther’s father. Lisa knew that he was still out there, and that he could take Esther away again. Even if it came to pass, and they met him, Lisa would not be able to do much about it, but at least she could live with herself if she tried to resist and save her daughter.

	She wiped the screen of the phone clean and snapped a photo of herself. A wide grin along with a silly face was the snap and the text read: [color=F276FF][i]u goin to the search thing?[/i]😘😋[/color]. The picture and message was delivered to Rory. In the same instance, Esther’s mother came home. [color=#577482]“Eshter? Are you home?”[/color] Lisa shouted with a hint of worry, as she removed her coat and shoes. The girl simply tapped the kitchen table three times with her first to make some noise. Lisa came to find her daughter, giving the girl a kiss on the cheek as always. [color=#577482]“How was school?”[/color] the woman asked while keeping eye contact this time, unlike earlier that morning. [color=ab8b67]“It was alright. They told us to go to the search thing for the missing girl,”[/color] Esther signed. 

	Lisa was always hesitant to let her daughter go out alone. Despite the obvious and underlying reasons, the woman was a bit of a control freak sometimes. There was so many things about Esther that could attract trouble, not to mention her good-natured heart. Whenever a serious subject such as this one came along, Lisa signed herself for her daughter to use the inner voice. Even if the woman understood sign language quite well, some of the more complex language was still difficult for her.

[indent][indent][color=#577482]“Did your teacher tell you this? Or was it the whole school?”[/color] Lisa asked with stern expression.
[color=a7b478]“The teacher told us. Or, well, me, after class. I was at the bathroom when they talked about it,”[/color] Esther spoke with her inner tones.
[color=#577482]“And this is something arranged by the school, or what?”[/color]
[color=a7b478]“No, it’s a community search. It’s all over social media. You haven’t seen it?”[/color]
[color=#577482]“I work for a living, Esther. You know, to put food on the table.”[/color]
[color=a7b478]“I know, but most people do find a minute or two to take a break.”[/color]
[color=#577482]“I don’t want you to go.”[/color]
[color=a7b478]“What? Why?” There will literally be hundreds of people there.”[/color] The expression on Esther’s visage grew sullen.
[color=#577482]“That’s exactly the problem. You know what I’m talking about,”[/color] Lisa said and sat down opposite to her daughter.
[color=a7b478]“Mom, please—he is not going to be there and he wouldn’t do anything even if he was.”[/color]
[color=#577482]“Sweetie, you don’t know him like I do.”[/color]
[color=a7b478]“And you don’t know him like [i]I[/i] do. You don’t think he showed me what you two did together? I’ve seen all of it, Mom—it’s peanuts and shenanigans compared to what I went through, but he is not evil.”[/color]
[color=#577482]“For someone with such empathy, you can be really cruel sometimes.”[/color]
A sadden frown came onto Esther’s expression and she decided to just leave.
[color=#577482]“Esther, wait—I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it like that. Please, sit down,”[/color] Lisa pleaded. Esther hesitated for a moment, but ultimately gave in. She gave her mother the stare of death.
[color=#577482]“I’ll go with you. And before you object, I won’t disturb you if you want to be with your friends from school. If this search is a community thing, then I want to do my part as well. So, I’ll drive us there, we’ll stay in touch through texts, and then we meet up at the end and I’ll drive us home. Okay?”[/color]
[color=a7b478]“Fine,”[/color] Esther muttered, but she could not help herself to smirk a little. She loved her mother more than anything in the world, after all.[/indent][/indent]

	The two of them left home shortly after the minor argument. Esther could bicker about things with her mother, but they had never gotten into an all-out fight about anything. Or, at least not in Esther’s definition of the word ‘fight’. She had fought with her father on several occasions, however. That was what she would consider a real ‘fight’, if anything. Most of it had been conducted in the dreamworld wherein they could do almost whatever they wanted to each other without physically hurting someone. Esther was young at that time, though. One could hardly call it a fair fight.

	The drive to the park was quiet. Lisa focused on the road and Esther focused on her texts. Some of her friends from her own classes would be there, but she hoped to see Rory as well. She was the only hyper-friend that Esther knew. But that aspect was not all that important to Esther. It was more about how Rory was as a person—radiant and alive—and as an artist. Esther had two other friends that she had made shortly after moving to town: Megan and Jennifer. They were all the same age and often hung out together. Both of them had learned a great deal of sign language already, but they also did not mind Esther’s inner voice. However, it had taken quite a long while before Esther had revealed her ‘hyper’ nature to them. There was a bit of a backlash from Megan and Jennifer, but a few days later they reunited.

[color=929292][sub]T h e   P a r k[/sub][/color]
[hr]	Lisa found a parking spot near the park. The turnout for the effort to find the missing girl had already grown quite impressive. Esther and Lisa made their way into the heart of it, slowing down as the crowd became ever so dense. The actual search had not begun yet. Esther texted Megan and Jennifer that she was somewhere in the middle. Lisa seemed to be distracted by something, as if she was looking around for someone. Esther leered at her mother with a mischievous expression, waiting for Lisa to catch that glimpse.

[indent][indent][color=#577482]“What?”[/color] Lisa asked as if she had been caught with her hand in the cookie jar.
[color=ab8b67]“Are you looking for someone?”[/color] Esther signed.
[color=#577482]“No, I’m not,”[/color] Lisa said and chuckled. Her acting was extremely poor.
[color=ab8b67]“Yeah, right.”[/color]
[color=#577482]“So, are Megan and Jennifer coming?”[/color] Lisa quickly changed the subject.
[color=ab8b67]“Yes, I texted them. They’ll be here soon.”[/color]
[color=#577482]“How is this organized? Is everyone going to search at once?”[/color] Lisa kept a dialog with herself while looking around. Being the business woman that she was, managing people and complex projects, things that appeared sloppy always stressed her out.
[color=ab8b67]“Just relax, will you?”[/color] Esther signed as her eyes rolled around like carousels.
[color=#577482]“I can’t, you know that. I’ll wait here with you until all of this begins, then we’ll part ways. Okay?”[/color][/indent][/indent]
Esther simply nodded at her mother’s carefully crafted plan.
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