The sun rose up on a less cloudy morning with the Emptiness getting showered by the light rain. With a window-sized hole on a wall of 10's room, it let the orange light flood the room. But despite the light appearing, not even one of them slightly open their eyes. Not a sound can be heard except for the slight snoring of the sleeping healer, and the sound of the rain. That is, until fast footsteps started to fade in.

19's eyebrows twitched from the sound until it was stopped for a moment. Deciding that it might that one of the stitchpunks woke up and walked away, she tried letting her mind drift back into slumber. But the footstep was heard again, close but gentle until she felt as if someone was next to her. She thought that 10 must have woken up to check on her. She decided to ignore him and tried sleeping again.

That was, until, she felt a small, but heavy object fall on the bed next to her.

"Huh?!" She jumped awake drowsily and heard somebody run off, "what?!"

She turned to some sort of book being covered by a paper with writings. She grumbled,

"10, if you're going to diagnose me, can you please do it softly?"

She heard the healer mumble something far off from her while rubbing her optics, realizing that he was still asleep.

"Hang on," he groaned tiredly, "I'll come in a moment."

After several seconds of rubbing them, she tiredly turn to see her friend beginning to sit up and rest his head on his hand. He then started yawning when 19 turned back to the writing, beginning to see more clear that 10's writing on his previous medical studies wasn't actually it. Instead, she realized it was a small note. The handwriting was scribbled, but it atleast wasn't hard to read.

I did not make it. I found it in the attic. Happy awakening day! With lots of hugs and Kissings. And smiles!

-secret friend

The note also ended with a drawing smiley face and lots of flowers on the bottom of the paper. She flipped it over for a second to see if there was more, but nothing. Hearing a hidden giggle, she looked up to see a familiar pale stitchpunk's face, half peeking out of the entrance door. The dwarf's giggle was cut by its short gasp when she saw it.

"Wait," the white burlap looked confused, "Ele-?"

It was only then that the stitchpunk disappeared and was heard running for two seconds until 19 heard a loud thump and later an "Oof!"sound.

She guessed that she must have tripped and was about to anxiously plan on trying to help her out until she can hear her stand up and continue giggling before her fast footsteps faded away. She stared at the door for a while and let her eyes settle back on the note. She pulled it away while she heard 10 getting out of his bed, revealing to be a dark blue handmade book with a black inked "19" written on it. She can already tell in her surprised expression that the handwriting was 9's.

As she was softly stroking the book cover, 10 came next her while rubbing his optics drowsily.

"Sorry it took a while," he flickered open his eyes, "what did you wanted to sa-?"

He blinked twice to notice the book on her lap, causing him to fully awaken.

"Where did you find this?" His voice sounded really concerned while he quickly sat next to her to place his hand on the book, "did you sneaked out last night?"

"No," she shook her head and glanced at him, "this book was just given to me by someone for my awakening day. I think 11 gave it to me."

"How do you know?" He then looked at the note lying near her shoes and picked it up. Reading it and looking at the drawings, he put it down saying,

"That was 11. But why would she go up in the attic just to give it to you?"

"I don't know," she shrugged, "I rarely even encounter her."

She then turned back to open the book, only to be interrupted by a thick hand closing it shut.

"Hey," her expression showed annoyance, "what was that for?"

"I'm sorry," his anxious look returned and try reaching his other hand to take away the book, "but I don't think you should be reading that."

"And what for," she pulled the book away, "because it's dangerous?"

"I just don't want you to get in trouble with 7," he frowned, "I saw how hurt you were from last night. And I won't let that happen to you again. Not on this day."

"And for what," she gestured to it, "from a book? The tailsman-"

"Talisman,"

"-is a mechanical device, which makes it more dangerous than the book since it's only made out of paper. I mean, what kind of danger can a paper do?!"

10 sighed and rest his hand on her shoulder,

"Listen 19, I'm just giving you some advices,"

"It'll be ok 10," she begged, "I know I messed up yesterday, but just make my first day in being two worth it. Please?"

10 stared at his friend. Then traced his eyes on the book. He realized in slight defeat that there was no way he can get her to turn away from it now that she saw it.

"Ok," he answered, "but don't take it too far,"

"No problem bud," she smiled, "thanks," and went back to reopening the book. He decided to stay sitting next to her just in case and later raised his face up to heavens.

Good souls, what I'm gonna do with this young girl? He thought. He then lowered his head back down and sighed again, despite 19 guessing that he was just exhausted.

This is a best day to start a new older her.

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We have rules

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"You did what?!" 12 exclaimed and jumped awake from their small bed by his sister's answer.

"You said never to talk to her," she smiled, "so I said to myself, 'hey 11, why not instead talk to her, write a letter with a gift to her?"

"Writing something to someone is also part of talking, twerp!" He shouted angrily to her.

"Oh," she looked a bit surprised, "I'm sorry. You never told me that,"

"Then you should have asked me that two freaking years ago! Ugh," he collapsed his head back into the cotton as a pillow, "why do you have to be so mindless about everything, no matter what I do or say?"

Their small bedroom then grew silent, causing the female to blankly stare at him for a while. She tried thinking of something while rubbing her chin before letting out a smile from her idea.

She then paced towards him and jump unto him.

"Oof!"

"Hey," she pressed her cheek unto his while her brother formed a face of annoyance, "how about I sing you a song I made to cheer you up?"

"Leven-"

But it was already too late and she started singing,

"You're sure to do impossible thing, if you follow your hear-!"

"Will you stop it?!" He pushed her off him, giving her that blank stare again, "you already sang lots of songs to me last night! In fact, since you messed up quite enough, why don't you just leave my room?"

"Im guessing that 'my' word in your attitude language means 'our' then?" She chuckled. The other twin was finally getting really impatient.

"GET OUT OF MY ROOM!"

"Ok then," she just continued chuckling, "if you need me, I'll be where 17 and 14 usually are."

She then positively left the room and close the door behind her. Finally glad she left, he laid back down in exhaustion.

"Oh souls. Just...any souls," he muttered, "please give that girl a brain already."

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The female dwarf happily skipped through the hall and humming the same song she tried to sing to 12, wondering as to what the duos over at the library room were doing this time. She was passing by the lifter room when she heard the lifter moving. She stopped skipping to turn in curiosity in seeing the lifter lowering with 7 and 17 in it. Oddly enough, when they lowered unto the ground and came out, she noticed that the younger female was carrying a strange black object, almost having an appearance of a beast.

But wanting to chat with her, she paced up to the girls and greeted them with,

"Good morning, friends! What were you doing up there?" She then looked at the huge object again, "and what is that thing?"

Reaching out to touch it, 17 to moved it away from her.

"Careful," she told her, "we don't know whether or not the spider beast can reawaken."

But hearing the word "beast" again, she curiously smiled with a question.

"Was the beast friendly?"

The duos exchanged a glance, knowing that despite hearing her ask this question a lot, they didn't want their response to upset her too much.

"No sweetie," 17 frowned, "I don't think so. It was already dead by the time me, 19, and 14 saw it fall into the attic."

"Oh," her hopeful smile quickly turn into a frown before looking down at the corpse, "but it could have been innocent and wanted else did it try sneaking in here?"

She reached her hand out again towards the beast, making the three-ponytailed stitchpunk open her mouth to tell her not to touch it again.

But she was stopped by the elder's hand clinging unto her, giving her the just-let-her-be look, but anxiously watched over the dwarf starting to pet it just in case. 11 continued petting it for a while, showing the face of pity towards the predator.

"Poor thing..." She murmured in sadness.

17 frowned by this, but later got something else in her mind and turned to 7.

"Do you think we should tell her this?" She asked in very soft tone, despite it being obvious that 11 can hear.

"I'm certain she'll understand," the white one murmured and turned to the smaller one, who was already staring blankly in confusion.

"11," she told her, "I'm going to go out and see...something. If anybody ask where I am, just tell them what I said. 17," she glanced at her, "can you please fetch 16 for me and tell him to come with me as a back up?"

Despite knowing that 16 was genderless, 17 has already decided to let her call it a "he" without a single complaint. she just dipped her head in approval and rushed to get it.

She waited till she was gone and turned back to her,

"I'll find 15 and leave her that she's in charge of the home base until we get back. While I'm looking for her, it's up to you to go over to 10 and watch over 19 for me. I don't want her causing any trouble on her awakening day,"

"But aren't we going to throw an awakening party for her?" She asked worriedly on how long she'll be gone.

"I don't know," she frowned, "it depends when I'll get back. But if you want, you can do the party for her and I will really appreciate that."

But her forming smile was cut off by the dwarf making an uncomfortable noise while desperately looking up to her.

"Is there something wrong?"

"I'm just not sure 7," she responded after a pause, "you're 19's mommy. You're suppose to celebrate her awakening day."

"I know," she sadly sighed and bent down towards her, "but there is sometimes when survival comes first. It's better that I keep this group safe than making them satisfied. It's just a complicated thing a leader must do. You understand me?"

The flower necklace stitchpunk can understand her struggle on what is on her mind, but she lowered her head, still looking worried if she will come back in time.

"How about this?" She tried smiling again and raised her chin up a bit to face her, "you set up the party and when I come back, we'll start it. Is that a deal?"

The small stitchpunk thought about it for a while. If this is a deal, she thought, I am really sure she'll come back.

Now feeling positive about this, she responded with her small innocent smile. This caused 7 to smile back in relief.

"Thank you 11," she petted her head and then got up to leave the room, calling out, "and remember what I told you about 10!"

Her energy within her body began to lit once more again and gave her a nod of approval before running off to get 10.

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"Who's the scientist?"

"Huh," 10 snapped back after dazing off about his worry on what she might find on that book, "what was that?"

The youngster did look a bit annoyed by losing her friend for a moment, but replied,

"9 won't stop mentioning that guy in few pages,"

"What page are you at?"

"Well, I was randomly flipping the first few pages to see if he mentioned anything about that strange object."

"You mean the talisman," he tilted his head a bit.

"Well yeah," she nodded a bit and looked back at the book, "but the beginning of the page just talk about random words like "humans", "The Chancellor", "machines of peace", all those kinds of crap."

"Let me see that," 19 decided to let him take it in order to read it. He paused here, letting his eyes collect the words written until he lowered the book.

"Huh," he looked a bit impressed, "he even recorded his studies on the machine war. But why would he want to look back on it? We all know what the machine did to the humans and-"

"10," he turned to almost want to laugh at how confused she is, "I think it's better you explain to me what it is."

"Oh right," he chuckled, "I guess I forgot that you're the only one who doesn't know."

"What else did you guys didn't tell me? That the beasts use to live underground?"

"Well," he rubbed his head, "I guess since you're two years old now, I don't think I can keep these details in any longer. To start off, humans were these creatures that almost looked like us. They walked, speak and and even had intelligence like us.

"The only difference was that they were ten times bigger than us and...were made out completely different stuff than how we are. But anyways, to make this explanation short, there use to be lots of them. However, they created the machine and it made armies that wiped them out. The only reason we exist was from that guy you mentioned earlier. He made the nine original stitchpunks and gave parts of his souls to them, but ended up killing him in the process."

19 felt as if her head was beginning to ache from all the information pouring into her. But she still felt lost.

"I still feel that information wasn't enough."

10 couldn't complain by her response since 7 would always make everyone keep their mouth shut, but he knew this was going to be a long day.

"Alright," he sighed a bit, "let me try to make it-"

"10! 10!"

His eyes widened in worry when he heard 11 shout, causing him to straighten up. By the time they saw the dwarf enter the room, she stopped panting.

"10..." She tried to catch her breath.

"What? What is it?" 10 was ready to take whatever situation it was. But when she revealed her face after lifting it up to face the healer, he realized that she was exhaustingly smiling.

"7-heh-wanted me to...tell you that she is going out to the Emptiness for today. So she's leaving 15 in charge."

His alerted expression faded while she was recovering her fatigued body, feeling his racing soul pulse soothe down and leaned back to relax against the wall.

"You scared me," he made a huge sigh of relief, but a bit of irritation in his voice that he worried over nothing. 19 couldn't help but find her friend's expression a bit priceless.

"But that wasn't the only thing I came to tell you," they both turned to listen to the settling stitchpunk, "7 also wanted me to tell you to watch over 19. She's worried that she might go outside again.

"Oh for the love of my soul," she face palmed in a mutter.

"That's weird," 10 was confused, "shouldn't she stay here for her daughter's awakening day?"

"Pfft," she rolled her eyes, "when does she ever?"

"She did celebrate it with you for a little while last year," he tried reason with her, "but not as busy as this year."

He then turned to 11,

"Why is she going outside in the first place?

"I don't know," she shrugged, "she never told me. All she told me was that she was going to see something. But she seems to be bringing 16 along with her."

"But 7 wouldn't bring 16 if it was something serious," 19 grew suspicious.

"I agree with 19," 10 said in approval, "if this is actually something serious, she could have warned us."

"But maybe she's just going to battle train with 16?" The dwarf guessed.

"Why would she want to see something while training 16?"

She guessed some more.

"Maybe the souls visited to say hello to 7?"

They both paused for a moment.

"Actually," he thought about it, "that does sound a bit clever, but still impossible.

"Speaking of souls," he turned to the youngest after a pause, "do you think it has to do something with the talisman?"

"I think that's why they were in the attic earlier," 11 spoke out again,

"Who?" The friends both asked her.

"7 and 17 we're in the attic when I saw them leaving it with this poor little spider beast."

"A what?!"

"Relax," 19 tried to calm the healer, "it's dead. We saw the talisman kill it yesterday.

"B..." His eyes still widened in shock "b-but didn't my father killed all of them by destroying the machine factory?!"

"I don't think 5 exactly destroyed all of them," 19 replied.

"No," he shook his head, "he could have. I mean, the only way that these things might be still be alive is if..."

That was when he remain speechless after that. This made the two girls have the mixture of being puzzled and concerned. But the youngest can tell by the fact how her friend's face looked flushed.

"10?"

But he never finished the last sentence. He sat up, now beginning to look urgent about something.

"I'm going out to find her."

"10 wait-"

But he was already carrying his hand-made back and put it down in his supply area to pack some stuff into it, including a harpoon that use to belong to 5. She paced up to him and looked at him awkwardly.

"10, can you just tell us what you're doing and what's going on?"

"I'm going to go out to the Emptiness to find 7," he repeated his answer before putting the backpack on and started opening the drawer of his desk.

"I already freaking know that, but why?"

He took out the headlight and latched it around his head while he turned to her.

"She might be in trouble."

By the time he quickly made sure it was tightly on, he rushed out of his room. She blinked twice and looked at the book before she decided to hide it under the clinic bed's pillow. She jumped out of the bed, with her injured leg feeling better than what it was yesterday, and rushed out of the room with 11 deciding to follow her.

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10 panted by the time he got to the entrance room and stared out at the opened door that leads anyone out into the outside world. Several seconds of staring, 11 and 19 finally caught up to him, panting a bit too.

"10," she narrowed, "what heck are you thinking?"

But the oldest non-original stitchpunk continue to stare at the Emptiness.

"She left, didn't she?"

11 turned to the right side of the room to check.

"I don't see her bird helmet and weapons."

This caused him to let out a stressed sigh, but still looked out in determination.

"I had a feeling I would have to do this," he said this and twisted his headlight to flicker the light on. He started taking a step out when he felt someone pull his arm.

"Im not gonna let you go out there alone," the white burlap female spoke out.

"I'm not gonna let my best friend get hurt out there," he respond back and turned to her, "I need you to stay here with the others. That includes you too 11," he then turn his head in slight guilt to the older one.

"Eh," she shrug, "I was going to make an awakening party for 19 anyways."

"But it's too dangerous," 19 gave a begging expression, "how would you be ok if you haven't been outside for so long?"

"I think I still have my skills," he told her, "and what if her and 16 never come back?"

"What if I loose you too? Who will be the leader? The girl who doesn't have any experience with leadership?"

That was when the male finally looked at her in silence.

"I wouldn't do it alone," she made a soft murmur. He knew just by how he looked at her, she looked so scared in imagining it. Even he couldn't imagine it either.

"Just for my awakening day," she continued, "I've gained some skills from 7. I don't care now if I get in trouble. I just wanna know that she's fine too."

10 grew silent and turned to 11 for the thought.

"I think she can do it 10," she smiled, "if she's going to end up trying to survive one day, she needs lots and lots of practices. Besides, if she's smiling about it on her special day then..." Her smile grew, "I'll smile too!"

Despite 19 not knowing much about her since they rarely talk to each other, something from her happiness about it lit her soul enough to emotionally smile back. Maybe she's not annoying than what 12 makes her think she is. 10 then thought about it more. Finally, he reached unto his bag and pulled out a dagger. He grabbed 19's palm and placed the weapon on it.

"Let's just hope we don't get into trouble."

The youngest couldn't help but smile more before tightly hugging him without any word. He just decided to let her have a moment there for few seconds before pulling her away in a serious expression.

"But you have to stay close to me at all times, except if I tell you to run. No exploring, no fighting beasts. Were just going straight over to find 7 and come back here."

"Sure thing," she didn't even care about the rules he made up and was just excited on how she's finally going to go out to the Emptiness with her friend for the first time.

"And you're going to come back before the sun goes to sleep?" 11 asked.

"We'll do our best 11," he petted her head, "we can't promise you anything. Just tell 15 that were searching for the supplies I left nearby the building if she ask."

"Well she's blind 10," 19 replied, "I don't think she'll notice that we left."

"Yes, but she has great senses of a cat beast. So we shouldn't be out there long.

"We shouldn't even waste time talking like this," he looked outside again, "it may be morning, but night can fall in quick when you're exploring out there. So let's get going."

She dipped her head and was about to follow out with him. Then she stopped when she almost forgot this one thought and turned behind her to see the female dwarf, watching them leave.

"11," she completely turned and bent down towards her, "I just wanna say thank you for the gift you gave me today. But I just wanted to ask you something."

She waited silently for her to ask in a blank stare.

"Why did you decide to give me that book in the first place?"

She waited for her to answer while making a pause. But then, her pause looked like it was never going to finish. She just looked at her, anxious as if her sealed lips wasn't allowing her to speak. She turned her body away from her and ran off, leaving the room in process. She tried calling out to her until she heard 10 call out,

"Come on, catch up!"

She glanced at 10 already outside and waiting for her a bit impatiently. She looked at where 11 left off to in silence and decided to ask her later before stepping out of the home base.