It was a day after Sam's 20th birthday, Sam woke up at to find his house empty, the remains of his small birthday party still in the living room and slightly colder breakfast at the kitchen table with a note from his divorced mother.
"I had to leave early today kiddo, have your breakfast and do me a favor by cleaning up. I will be home early this evening.
Love, mother."
Sam read the note and put it aside while sighing to himself.
"Yes, Mother."
Sam and his mother Jennifer or what her closest friends called her, Jenny. Lived alone in their two bedroom house north of New State county. They moved there after her divorce settlement almost eight years ago. A quaint little township with sweet neighbours and a great sense of peace and security. With next to zero contact with Sam's father, Jennifer and Sam were doing the best they could.
Jennifer had been working as a contemporary artist in a local marketing agency for five years and has made a place for herself there, while Sam was a student of technology, tinkering with coding and all things online.
The birthday party was just a few of Sam's friends eating cake and food cooked by Jennifer and playing games, Jennifer slept early letting the boys enjoy and after they all went home, Sam went to sleep, a decision he now regretted looking at the mess in the living room.
Sam sighed finish his breakfast and decided to get started, delaying it won't do him any good he thought and he did not want his mother to come back to the mess. He picked up the plates and the remaining of the cake, he cleaned the tables, vacuumed the floor and washed the dishes.
He looked around the room feeling proud of himself and imagined how happy his mother would be seeing the squeaky clean room. He then remembered his mother had asked him to change a faulty switch in the bathroom, trying to keep up his streak he made his way to the basement for the toolbox.
Sam was very handy with household chores and had gathered quite a lot of tools for different applications over the years, which he kept in an old shoe box in the basement.
The basement was a lowly lit area of four walls and high metal shelves with boxes and crates of memories of previous house. Sam went directly to the shelf he had put his toolbox but found it empty, a clean rectangular shape it its place suggesting it had been moved recently.
He starts to look around the shelves trying to remember where he kept it constantly coming back to that spot. After 10 mins, he figures his mother must have moved it into one of the larger crates.
Sam drags down a wooden crate from the bottom shelf and starts going through it, finding all sorts of tinkers and old stuff like toys and papers. Getting curious he drags out another box, finding his mother's old paint brushes and dried up paint tubes. He smiles to himself and drags out another box, he finds an album with his father's and mother's photos. Old memories of them being a family pours out as he flips through the pages
He couldn't feel but getting slightly teary eyed. He felt a lump in his throat and puts the album back, this is not how he thought his day would go.
He sets the opened crates aside and pulls out another one from the top shelf mechanically.
It was filled with papers on top but when he pulled it down something shook at the bottom of the crate. He takes out the papers and reaches in for find a bunch of DVDs all put into one pouch.
His curiosity grows and he finds this new distraction. He remembers still having an old laptop with a dvd reader, forgetting his original agenda Sam goes into his room and brings the old laptop into the living room, hooking up the HDMI to the TV. He was glad that the laptop still works and even more glad when the dvd slot ejected smoothly.
He reaches in the DVD pouch and pulls out five dvds, none of them had any marks of identity on them.
