"Chrono!"
Chrono looked up from his usual position next to the door, searching for the two familiar faces. Yep – there they were, lugging a picnic basket behind them.
"Chrono! We managed to get lots of food!"
"Sure was an adventure, eh, Joshua?"
"Shut up – it's your fault we didn't get more!"
Chrono smiled as the two siblings argued. They stopped and gasped when the picnic basket was opened.
"They gave us cupcakes? I didn't know that! I call dibs on first one!"
"Hey, hey – at least let Chrono take some! He hardly eats anything!"
The two of them turned to Chrono, and Rosette grudgingly offered the pastry in her hand to him. He shook his head with a smile, and said, "Nah, it's okay, Rosette. You keep it. I'll just take something else."
"See?" Rosette stuck her tongue out at her brother. "Unlike somebody, Chrono's actually nice!"
"Yeah, yeah, yeah. So! What're we going to do today?"
They'd been visiting Chrono for at least a week now, and each time, they'd done something different: Explore the nearby buildings, go to a park, go to the nearby swimming pool (of course, it was when it was closed, and the three of them didn't pay for admission), things like that. They didn't visit every day, since the orphanage didn't allow them to, but they came as often as they could. That was enough.
"Hey!" Rosette suddenly stood up. "This is a very big building, right?" She turned her gaze upon Joshua and Chrono, as though to say, give me an answer already! They both quickly nodded.
"And there are lots of rooms, here, right? That could be filled with different things?"
Again, a quick nod.
"Then let's explore every single room! I mean, that'll give us plenty to do – and it's nearby, too, so we don't have to waste as much time going to places!"
Joshua's eyes lit up. "Sure! After all, if there's a demon in this room, who knows what there could be in the other ones?" His eyes took on a dreamy look as he continued, "Dragons, fairies, mermaids, robots, unicorns, sphinxes, griffins…"
As Joshua prattled on, Rosette turned to Chrono with a smile on her face. "Well? You in?"
For a moment, he was speechless. He felt tempted to say no, just in case, but he eventually nodded. "Sure." After all, nothing bad can happen, he told himself. It's not like any demons are going to be in the rooms.
It's not like Aion's anywhere nearby.
--0-
"Whoa!"
"Awesome!"
The two children stared at the vehicle before them with sparkles in their eyes. Unanimously, they cried, "It's a Mercedes!"
Chrono was watching them with a face that read, huh? Finally, he asked, "What's a Mercedes?"
The twins turned upon him, this time with fiery eyes. "How could you not know what a Mercedes is?"
"It's only the most amazing car company on earth!"
"And there's one right in front of us!"
The twins ran to the car and began exclaiming over every single little detail. Chrono watched them, still befuddled. "Aren't carsmore...you know, square?"
Two pairs of eyes stared at him quizzically. "Chrono," Rosette said cautiously, "how long were you locked up in here, exactly?"
They waited as he counted backwards in his head. "About…five or six decades? I think. More or less."
Joshua came up and patted Chrono on the back with a heavy sigh. "Chrono, buddy, I feel bad for you." Rosette nodded in agreement. "You were in that dusty room for half a century? No wonder you were hungry when you woke up!"
Chrono shrugged and looked from side to side awkwardly. "Okay. Well." He pulled them to the car in an attempt to change the subject. "So how does this thing work, anyway?"
Rosette and Joshua's eyes lit up as they began to fill him in on the specifics of sports cars.
Five minutes later, they'd gotten over their awe of the car and were wandering around aimlessly. Chrono watched them as they first dashed into the car, then out, then went to the door (which had bizarre pictures engraved in it), then went back into the car, then left it. And so on. Finally, Rosette fell onto the ground with a thump.
"I'm bored!" she whined. Joshua obviously felt the same way.
Chrono watched them nervously. After five decades of isolation, he still wasn't quite too sure about how to deal with bored people. After all, boredom might turn to anger, or sadness, or fear, or something like that. So he quickly said, "How about we check out some of the other rooms, too? They're sure to be interesting."
Rosette leapt up and dashed to the doorway. "Good idea, Chrono! Let's go!"
The next room they entered was full of clothes, jewelry, makeup, and all other sorts of accessories. Chrono personally didn't see much meaning to keeping so much stuff cooped up in one place – wouldn't it be better to actually use all of this stuff? – but when Rosette picked up a watch lying on the ground, she gasped.
"Joshua!" she shouted. "This is Gucci!"
Joshua was also staring, transfixed, at some necklaces in a box. "Those are real diamonds," he whispered. "I'm sure of it."
Chrono frowned and looked around for something to entertain himself with. Not much of interest – it was mostly just clothes, clothes, more clothes, and the occasional glimmer here or there that came from some sort of accessory. There were some shoes, too, but not as many of those. Finally, something caught his eye. He walked over to the corner of the room and picked up a dark red cloak. Not bad, he thought. He shrugged off the dirty old cape he was wearing and pulled the red one on.
"Oh, that looks real nice!" a voice said from next to his ear. Chrono jumped and turned to see who the voice belonged to. Naturally, it was Rosette. She was giggling.
"You should've seen how high you jumped!" she finally managed to say when she was done with her laughter. "I thought that you were a kangaroo or something!"
Chrono felt a slight blush on his cheeks, and was glad when Rosette turned and cried, "Oh my goodness! It's a bunch of normal clothes that I could actually wear!"
She ran over to the pile and began to dig through it. She finally came up, triumphant, with a pair of jeans, a T-shirt and a sweater.
"I'm going to change," she said sternly to Chrono, "so don't you dare look! You too, Joshua!"
"Oh, come on! I'm your brother!" Joshua complained, but he turned all the same. Chrono turned to face the wall and tried to think of something – anything – but the girl behind him. Luckily, changing only took her a few minutes, so Chrono didn't have to wait too long.
"I'm decent now!" Rosette called. "Look! Isn't it so much better than that old, raggedy dress?"
Personally, Chrono preferred the dress, but the clothes she'd chosen weren't bad, either. Of course, he didn't have very much time to look at her new clothes, since she was sitting down with the "old, raggedy dress" in her hands.
"Finally! I can do away with this thing!"
She grabbed a bunch of fabric and pulled. There was a huge ripping noise as a chunk of skirt came off in her hand.
"Rosette! What're you doing? Miss Jean will be so mad!"
"To heck with Miss Jean!" Rosette yelled as she ripped off yet another bunch of fabric. "Making me wear this dumb old thing when she has plenty of better, modern clothing – I don't care that her belief is "females should wear traditional female clothing!"
She punctuated each word with yet another ripping sound. When she was done, the dress was lying in tatters around her.
"Okay!" she said briskly as she made her way to the door. Chrono and Joshua were just staring open-mouthed at the remains of her previous outfit. "What are you two gawking at? Let's go!"
The two of them immediately lifted their gaze and ran to Rosette's waiting figure.
Weeks passed and they explored more and more rooms. More than once, they couldn't come because Miss Jean – or someone else – had prevented them from doing so, or because Joshua had suffered another seizure. But they managed to come fairly regularly, and each time, they made sure to bring some food.
"Sorry, Chrono," Rosette said as she dropped two buns and an apple. "This was all I could get."
"I brought some licorice, if you want." Joshua offered the candy to Chrono, who accepted it without a word. He didn't really need to eat, but if he didn't, he'd get a lot weaker, so he just ate whatever they brought him.
"Come on! Hurry up and finish it! We're exploring the fifth floor today!"
"Wasn't it the sixth?" Chrono asked as he was dragged to his feet.
"No, Rosette, Chrono, you're both wrong – it was the seventh. Let's go!"
The two of them dashed up the now-familiar set of stairs that they'd discovered on one of their adventures. After four flights, they were all panting.
"Why – the heck – aren't there – elevators – here?" Rosette panted as she dragged herself up to the fifth floor.
"This place was built in the nineteen fifties," Chrono answered as he dashed up the fifth flight. Being a demon, he had more stamina than the other two, and so could handle the stairs without too much of a problem.
"Rosette – honestly, you – complain – so much!" Joshua said as they got up to the sixth floor. Sure enough, the door was open – a sign they'd already been there. With heavy sighs, the siblings turned to the stairs again. Chrono had already gotten to the floor above, and was calling down, "Come on, you two – hurry!"
Rosette dragged herself up the last step and collapsed, breathing hard. Joshua fell, too, and lay on his back for a few minutes as he tried to control his heartbeat. When, finally, a few minutes later, they got up, they faced an astonished Chrono and a massive pair of doors, not unlike those in the hallways.
"Wha…?"
Normally, the doors that opened onto each floor were made of plain steel, with a simple knob and peephole set in them. This was different. Very different.
"Well, what're we waiting for?" Rosette at last said. "Let's go in!"
It took the combined forces of all three children to push the doors open. When they finally did, with an enormous creaking noise, all three of them stopped dead in their tracks and gasped.
Before them was a beautiful paradise, with a lush forest growing at one side, a pond growing at the other, and a little creek running from the water into the woods. Over the water was a crop of rock, large enough to seat at least ten people at a time. And above their heads, there was a beautiful, clear blue sky, with a few wispy clouds drifting this way and that, and a bright sun beating down on their faces. There was just enough of a breeze that the three of them felt cool, but it wasn't large enough to freeze them all.
"Wow," Joshua breathed.
"This is amazing!" Rosette cried, and immediately made a beeline to the pond. Chrono merely walked around the perimeter of the room. It was rather large – about twenty meters by thirty – and was covered with mostly forestland, grassy hills, plains or water. The pond took up about a quarter of the room; the forest was just slightly larger, and there was an area at the back that was just grass and slopes, with a few flowers or fruit trees scattered here and there. Suddenly, he frowned.
"What's this?"
Joshua turned around from where he'd been inspecting a tree. "Huh?"
Rosette looked up from her place in the pond. "What's it?"
"Come and see."
Rosette waded towards Chrono, while Joshua merely ran to him. When they arrived, they could see the object of his puzzlement. It was a dial with multiple labels: Nice weather, windy, cold, snowy, rain, thunderstorm, hail… On and on and on. How the creators had managed to fit so many words there, they had no idea, but they weren't really thinking about that.
"Nice weather." All three of them looked around, then nodded, as if in agreement that this was probably the "nice weather" on the dial. Since that icon was under the arrow, they were probably right.
"Windy." They looked at each other and, without a word, agreed to try this one another time, when they had on more clothes.
"Cold." Again, they looked at each other, nodded, and went on to the next one.
"Snowy."
"Rain."
"Thunderstorm – no, don't worry, you two, I'm not going to turn it to that."
"Hail."
"Tornado. Who'd want a tornado in a room?"
"Cloudy. That's not too bad, I guess we could try that."
They all held their breath as Joshua reached out and turned the knob: Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Then they all stood back and waited.
It wasn't long before the sky above them began to darken with clouds. When it did, they began to shiver. The sudden change in weather had also brought about a change in temperature; it now felt ten degrees lower than it had been previously.
"L-Let's try t-this one now," Chrono said with chattering teeth. He reached out a hand and turned the knob so that nighttime was at the top. They only had to wait a few seconds until the clouds retreated and the sky turned black. The sun disappeared and was replaced by a bright, crescent moon, and specks of light began popping up in the sky.
"Weird. That's what the moon looked like last night, wasn't it?"
"It was, sis. Just a big smaller, I think."
They looked at each other, and it was clear that they were all thinking the same thing: What kind of technology that's created in the nineteen hundreds can simulate all sorts of weather, and follow the actual moon cycle?
"Oh, well. Turn it back to fine weather, Chrono – I'm going to go back to the water!"
