A/N: Even I'm surprised I'm back this time. Tissue time!
Calvin walked up the stairs and turned on the lights. The musty attic of his old home peered back at him. He didn't know what he was looking for, but he knew it was around here somewhere. He walked past boxes of old photo albums, baby toys, even old red striped shirts. Noticing a large pile of boxes in the back, he began to take them off and open them one by one, to no avail. Old board games, video games, mind games. That's all it was.
It isn't here… he thought, carefully navigating boxes upon boxes of old, useless, breakable antiques. As his search continued, he got more and more frantic, more and more careless, knocking over boxes of old glassware and china, which without a second thought shattered.
It isn't here! It isn't here!
Just as he was about to try another pile of boxes, an old wooden box to his left caught his attention. He picked it up and stroked the old oaken keepsake.
Here we are.
He sat down old the old, dusty floor, and just stared at the box for a few minutes. He didn't know if he was strong enough to open it anymore. It was just too sad. Finally, mustering his emotions, he opened the box which contained the thing he wanted, but yet he so dreaded, to see.
Staring back at him was not an old photo of his childhood, nor any old toy of his. No, it was more than a simple keepsake. An old, frayed toy tiger, that which had once been so full of life and wit, now lay at the bottom of an old box- its fur coarse and tangled from years of being dragged around an old forest where the trees themselves no longer spoke when the wind blew through, its eyes attached to its head by two wispy strings, sewed by a mother who knew that soon it would be gathering dust in some old room full of sadness and lost memories. It was no longer the wonderful little toy that had been the only true friend for a lost, imaginative little boy; now it was nothing more than a scrap tossed aside when that little boy learned that he couldn't be six forever. It was no longer a real thing which could walk and speak; now who would want it?
Calvin carefully lifted Hobbes out of the box which had been his tomb for more than twenty years, forgotten by two adults who were more worried about seeing their grandchildren than ancient relics from a happier time. He put the box down on the ground, but kept Hobbes. As he cradled his old friend in his arms, a single tear went down his cheek.
"Hobbes, what happened that let me forget about you?"
But the little black eyes didn't acknowledge him, they no longer could. The little stitched mouth remained eternally closed.
"Hobbes! Hobbes, please! Answer me!"
The room remained deathly silent. It took Calvin only a moment to realize that he would never get an answer, that he was talking to an old stuffed animal which had only spoken many years ago; when he believed that heroic spacemen would stride across the galaxy in search of adventure and promise, when shady detectives would solve math problems with noir-style snooping, when superheroes were only a piece of bright red fabric away. Knowing that staying here longer would only make him wish for something he couldn't have, he carefully placed Hobbes back in the ancient wooden tomb, closed it, and slid it back into the pile with all the other old things that would no longer work. Calvin turned to go to the stairs, but just before he turned off the lights three words escaped his lips.
"Good night, Hobbes."
Calvin turned off the lights and went down the stairs.