Asha Degree, a bright-eyed nine-year-old, giggles as she finishes her Valentine’s Day homework. Her mother, Iquilla Degree, watches lovingly from the kitchen, humming as she washes dishes. In the background, Harold Degree, Asha’s father, helps her older brother O’Bryant pack his backpack for the next day.
"Don’t forget to pack your gym shoes, Asha. You know you’ve got P.E. tomorrow,"
"I know, Mama! I already put them in my bag,"
Harold Degree calls out to wake the children, but only O’Bryant responds, rubbing sleep from his eyes. Iquilla rushes from room to room, panic rising in her voice.
"Asha? Baby, where are you?"
"She’s not here. Her shoes are gone,"
Detective Daniels, a seasoned yet weary officer, surveys the scene, trying to decipher the trail. Iquilla clutches a photo of her daughter, voice trembling with dread and disbelief.
"She wouldn’t have left on her own. Please... just bring my baby home,"
"We’re doing everything we can, ma’am. We won’t stop looking,"
Detective Daniels carefully examines the backpack, noting its childish trinkets—a comb, a pencil, a candy wrapper. The evidence is both hopeful and haunting; it’s a sign Asha was here, but not where she is now.
"It doesn’t make sense. Why would she be out here, alone, in the dark?"
O’Bryant, now a young man, sits quietly beside his parents at a televised interview, his eyes shadowed by memory.
"We just want answers. Somebody out there knows what happened to my sister,"
Iquilla lights a candle in the window every night, a beacon for a little girl who vanished without a trace.
"Asha, if you can hear me—come home. We love you, and we’ll never stop searching,"