Fanciful Spoons

There was a family that had gone on a road trip in the Rocky Mountains and they were in a rush to get to a hotel before it closed for the night. Driving on a road perilously perched on the canyon wall, the parents argued about how much this was costing them with the father scolding the mother for acting juvenile for not wanting to go which is why he was driving.

The father had told her that she was nothing more than a bitter, old, penny pincher and that she was not going to drag him down to her level. She replied that she didn't care what he thought and that the only reason she even went on this trip in the first place was the promise of some proper family time. She vocalized her opinion that this was a massive waste of time and energy and she wanted to turn back, the father refused.

This argument went on like this for a while with the son & daughter being told to be quiet every time they tried to say something. Twice she tried to take control of the car and turn it around nearly taking them off the road completely the second time. After this, everyone just sat in silence as they drove along.

Neither of the parents had looked back to check on the kids for a long time now and the father found it strange that they were so silent. He looked into the rearview mirror and he immediately stopped the car. "Oh, so you finally agree with me now, huh?" she said to him as he hurriedly got out of the car. "No" he called back as he opened the door to the backseat.

"Nobody's here!" he exclaimed.

"What?!" she replied confused.

"There's nobody back here. There's nobody... back here. Our kids are missing. Oh god, our kids are gone."

"What?" she said with grief starting to slip into her voice "What did you say?"

"There's nobody here, dammit! Just two collector's spoons laying here in the backseat."

"Where could they have gone to?"

"Honey, did you see anything?"

"No nothing! I didn't see anything out of the ordinary!"

"Shit! Shit! 'heavy breathing' There should be a phone at the hotel which is only an hour away. We need to get there ASAP."

"Calm down please!"

"Calm down? Calm Down?! How can I calm down when our fucking kids are MISSING?! Having disappeared from a moving car nonetheless! Uh, I don't feel so well, here you drive."

"Okay. Shhhh, it'll be fine. We'll find them. Don't worry."

It took them just a half-hour to reach the hotel where they told the receptionist about what happened. It suddenly occurred to the mother that they didn't own any collector's spoons and yet, there were two of them, in the backseat, where their kids should've been...

A massive search party was sent out to find the siblings; hopefully alive. But after five days of searching, there wasn't a trace of the two to be found.

The parents sort of lost their minds afterwards, probably because of the trauma, believing that their kids had actually turned into the spoons, claiming that their kids still spoke to them, pleading for help. They built a shrine around them, filled with images and memories of their children and eventually, began collecting spoons, again believing that they encapsulated the souls of missing children and that by bringing them together, they would have proper companionship.

They've since been trying to find a way to bring them back. So far, no success.