Submission (#6442) Approved

After Thistle’s previous claims, Sienna wasn’t as thrilled to be going after a lost item.
Thistle swore up and down that they saw it— aliens had taken their precious teddy bear! Sienna, personally, wondered if Thistle had been getting enough sleep at night. She originally helped them turn their entire home upside down, certain that Thistle had simply misplaced the stuffed animal.
After all, Thistle experienced sleep paralysis often. They could have just lost their teddy bear, and then had an episode where they thought they saw an alien take it. They could have even sleepwalked, putting it somewhere else while they weren’t conscious.
But no matter how hard she looked, she couldn’t find it. Thistle kept saying that she should just believe them, so she finally gave in and told them that she’d take a look around outside.
Nothing seemed different - at least, not too different than things had been lately. The strange plants she had found earlier were still growing nearby, and they showed no signs of dying out. Sienna didn’t think these two things were connected, though. Why would they be? Terraliens misplaced their things all the time.
The UFO reports in the local papers were also unimpressive to her. When she was younger, she’d get into a frenzy at every sign of alien life - and she would be disappointed every time. The “UFO” was probably just a shooting star. Maybe a weather balloon. Perhaps, even, some Terraliens all got together and just decided to flat-out lie. She didn’t want Thistle getting their hopes up too high for something she doubted was even real.
She grumbled slightly as she moved some low-hanging branches out of her way. The one part of this situation she wasn’t grumpy about was Thistle’s lost teddy bear. She knew how important it was to them - they couldn’t sleep without it. She wasn’t going to shame someone for a comfort item, even if they were another adult.
As she made her way through, she spotted something fuzzy and brown beneath a bush… was that—? It was!
She retrieved the teddy bear, brushing some of the dirt off of its fur. She had no idea how it got here, but…
She tilted her head to the side. There was a small note beneath where it was seated - crumpled paper, also a little dirty. She opened it up carefully.
The word was scrawled hastily - just “sorry.” What did that mean?
Probably not aliens, she thought.
…Probably.