The Last Day
Cheese sat up in his little Chao bed, once again, to find the room empty. Cream, his very best friend, had let him oversleep again. Again….
'It seems like only yesterday that she found me and adopted me.' The little Chao thought. He climbed out of bed and flew up to the window and peered out of it.
'Ever since she stopped taking me with her wherever she goes, the whole world has been gray. I haven't seen the sunshine in a long time, and my time is coming for me. Would she miss me?'
Every five years when a Chao turns five, he or she is an adult. They become babies again and are once again surrounded by their original egg that they were first hatched from. Today at one o'clock P.M., Cheese was going to turn five, and he needed to get to a Chao garden as fast as he could.
'Usually Vanilla would take me to the Chao garden and wait patiently until I hatched. Then she would raise me there all day until I could fly, walk, run, and fight with Cream again. Cream never knew that I wouldn't always be the same Chao she came to love. She always wondered why I would get smaller every few years, but for some strange reason, her mom never told her why. And even Vanilla has forgotten me. I need to go to the garden alone.'
He looked over at the clock to see the time. It was about ten minutes until he needed to be at the garden.
'I've got time.'
He tried to open the window, but it wouldn't budge.
'Who am I kidding? I am just one Chao! Even TEN Chao couldn't open this! Not even twenty….'
Cheese let out a sad sigh. The garden is the first place you should see, and the person or one of the people who raise you is the first person you should see. This time, Cheese would have to go entirely alone, and be raised by someone else.
He started to pack his things. Actually, he only had one thing that Cream ever really gave to him that wasn't someone else's. It was a red bow that he always wore around his neck. She gave it to him the first day she found him. She used to wear ribbons in her hair, and he could still remember the sweet scent of her fur on the gift she gave to him. He smiled a sad smile.
'At least I'll have something to make me wonder who used to love me….'
He flew up to the light switch near the door, and pushed it into the "on" position. He blinked his eyes a few times and shook his head at the pain the blinding light had momentarily made him feel. Once he could see where he was going again, he flew over to the mirror so that he could tie his red ribbon back around his neck like Cream used to before they went out together.
'Maybe someone else can tie it for me later on…. Someone who really does love me….'
He flew away from the mirror knowing that his bow was crooked and awkward looking. With great difficulty, he managed to get the door open, and he flew out of it. He headed downstairs.
'If Vanilla sees me, will she remember that I exist, and what important day this is?'
He flew over to the counter and stood on it, and let out a sad sounding, "Chao?" hoping that he would be noticed. And lucky for him, he was.
"Oh! I nearly forgot about you!" Vanilla said. Cheese smiled a little bit. She set her knife down that she was using to cut vegetables, and carried him over to the door. Cheese hugged her. He always liked her scent. She always smelled like home cooking, and since everyone knows that Vanilla's cooking is amazing, they knew that she smelled amazing.
'I wish she would give me some of her vegetables before she takes me to the garden.' Cheese thought.
And then, to his surprise, she opened the door, and sat him down on the beige colored carpet in front of it.
"You wanted to be let out, didn't you?" she said.
She had entirely forgotten what important day it was for Cheese. His luck had run out. Cheese frowned. Even she had forgotten. And she used to do this every five years.
'I wish I could see Cream one last time….' He thought as he walked out the door. He glanced up at the watch on Vanilla's wrist. It read, twelve fifty nine.
"CHAAOOOOO!" he screamed and ran out the door, hoping to get the garden before he became a defenseless child again.
"I wonder what's gotten into him? Oh well. Back to cooking." Vanilla closed the door.
'I'm not going to make it!' he thought. And sure enough, more "luck" came to him. He became a baby again, and rolled down a steep hill inside of his egg. At the bottom of the hill, his young, rabbit friend was walking. The egg that Cheese was being held captive inside of finally stopped rolling, and it hit one of her feet gently.
"Huh? What's this?" She picked the egg up. She looked at it all over. It had a tiny bit of yellow on it, it was predominantly white, and it was covered in blue polka dots. "It's so pretty!" she smiled. "It kind of looks like an egg…." She shook it a little bit and pressed her ear up against it to see if anything was in there. "Hello? Is anything in there, Mister Egg?" then, she felt what ever it was inside kicking, trying to get out. "EEK!" she tossed it away from her, but not hard enough to break the shell or hurt the thing inside of the egg, which she was entirely clueless about.
The now younger Chao finally started to push its way out. He got out of the egg, and it fell over a little bit.
"Chao!" he said softly. The landing didn't make him happy. He started crying.
Cream slowly approached it, seeing that it was harmless. After she got closer, she realized it was a Chao. She carefully picked it up and hugged it.
"Are you ok?" she realized it had a bow around its neck—a red bow, just like the one she gave her Chao when she first found him. "Oh! You belong to someone. There should be a name here somewhere…." She looked around on the crooked bow until she found a name on the inside—her Chao's name, and the name of the owner, Cream the Rabbit. She gasped. How was it possible? She just hatched this Chao! How could it be hers? She smiled a little. She remembered how she had given this bow to Cheese. She straightened the bow so that it looked like she had just tied it around his neck, and started walking home with him cradled safely in her arms. She was going to ask her mother what they should do, and why Cheese was a baby again. And just like the first day she found him, she said,
"I'll take good care of you, Cheese."
And from then on, he knew that he was, has, and always will be….loved.
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