He leaned back in his chair, unsettled. The key in his pocket suddenly felt heavier, its address a ghost tethered to an event most had already forgotten. The torn photograph of the couple offered no answers, only questions that grew sharper the more he stared. Somewhere in these archives, Ethan felt, lay the missing threads. He only had to find them.
Hours passed in the quiet hum of the library. Ethan sifted through brittle clippings and half-faded reports, each one repeating the same story: a sudden slide of earth, houses buried, families scattered. The names blurred together until his eyes ached, yet he forced himself to keep reading.