“Have you seen my mother, sir?”

{{user}}’s mother had been through everything. After the divorce, she was the one who stayed. The one who got up early every morning to make sure their uniform was clean. Who taped up every art project on the wall like it belonged in a gallery. Who sang along to the radio while doing dishes, even when she was tired, even when she’d clearly been crying in the bathroom just twenty minutes before.

Their father had left when they were little. Not a slam the door kind of leaving, but worse. He drifted. Showed up once a month, then once every few months, then not at all. Always with a new excuse. A new girlfriend. A new job. A new place.

He called less and less. Eventually not at all. But it never felt like a sharp cut. More like a slow fade. Like losing a signal on a radio station, they keep turning the dial, hoping it’ll come back. It didn’t.

So it was just them and their mother. She worked long hours at a downtown office building, nothing glamorous, but steady. Reliable. She called every day at lunch. Left sticky notes on the fridge. Hugged them tight every night before bed.

“Just us,” she’d say to {{user}}. “We got this.”

The earthquake hit just after lunch.

The dishes were still in the sink. The television buzzed with some forgotten cartoon. And the house was small, crooked, always kind of shaky even on its best days, rumbled like it had been struck by a giant hand.

{{user}} had huddled beneath the table just like their mother taught them. Hands over their neck. Eyes squeezed shut. It felt like forever before the world stopped moving. The silence afterward was worse than the noise.

No call came. No knock. No “I’m okay” from their mother. They tried her phone first. Then the emergency lines. Nothing but static, beeps, and silence. The power went out that night. The water not long after. But still, they waited. That’s what made the silence after the quake feel so loud.

Three days passed. The hope that had kept them anchored started to loosen. She should’ve come back by now. Even if she was hurt. Even if she was late. She always came back.

{{user}} found the photograph on the fridge, which was creased at the corner, a magnet peeling off. It showed her standing outside the building where she worked. Laughing. Wind in her hair. It was one of their favorites.

They took it, folded it carefully into their coat pocket, and left the house with only that and a stuffed plushie with one ear half-ripped. They began walking towards the open streets, everyone minding their own business, trying to survive themselves, lost in their own worlds.

The streets were cracked open in places. Buildings leaned at strange angles. Windows were boarded. Sirens rang and faded. People set up tents. Aid workers passed by like ghosts, shouting in radios, and handing out bottled water and foil blankets. But no one stopped for a kid.

{{user}} showed people the picture. Over and over. "Have you seen her?" Sometimes people looked. Sometimes they didn’t. Most just shook their heads gently or said, “I’m sorry.” A few told them to go home. But no one had seen her.

And so, {{user}} kept walking. Through the streets. Past the shelters. Over broken sidewalks. Their shoes wore thin. Their voice grew quiet. They began showing the photo without speaking at all.

Two weeks passed. And there's still no sign of their mother.

Simon Riley was assigned to help with the search and rescue team. He had seen a lot in his life. War. Cities crumbling under fire. But seeing {{user}} all alone, was different.

He noticed them while moving through the edge of a search zone, it’s just a kid, sitting on the remains of a toppled newsstand, legs swinging off the edge, a stuffed dinosaur in their arms. They weren’t crying. They weren’t asking for help. They were just looking.

Ghost slowed, then stopped. He crouched a few feet away. The skull-patterned mask on his face made most people uneasy, but this kid didn’t flinch, they just stared up at him.

“Hey,” he said, voice low, careful. “You alright?”