Epilogue
Red Guy relaxed against the back of his chair. Outside, the midafternoon sun hung high in the air. The cold winter had long since melted into a beautiful spring, then into nice hot summer.
"We should go to the beach when we get a chance." Red Guy thought. He picked up the nearby mug that sat on the table. It was empty. "How strange, I don't remember drinking anything."
He looked at it's clean blue inside. Had he been planning on pouring a coffee for himself?
He noted that both Yellow Guy and Duck also had mugs. Not so unusual for Duck, who often had coffee on sunday afternoons, but Yellow Guy hated coffee; and he was too young to drink it anyhow.
Red Guy then took notice of the red teapot in the middle of the table. He blinked at it, they didn't usually drink tea, unless they had guests. There was also a bowl of fruit, when did he last go grocery shopping?
Duck was reading a newspaper, nothing was unusual about that. When Duck put the newspaper down, however, Red Guy noticed something was unusual after all. Red Guy may not have been the most 'up to date' on current events, but he knew for certain that the city he lived in didn't have a paper named: The Right Wing. Had Duck picked it up from out of town?
Red Guy glance around the room, the whole thing had an air of unfamiliarity. Everything looked just a little bit off. One or two details stuck out: a triangle with eyes, a picture of a boat, the plant on top of the fridge. He must have put these things in here at some point, right? It was his kitchen after all, no doubt about that. There was the stove he had cooked breakfast on this morning and lunch this afternoon, the radio he like to listen to while doing dishes, and the calendar he had pulled June 18 off of earlier today.
Still, something seemed terribly wrong. Everything in the room seemed to be collectively holding its breath, as if waiting for something. Red Guy felt as if he had to stay still, as to not set anything off too soon.
He saw that some words had been scribbled on the notepad by the phone. He attempted to carefully sit up taller, trying not to make a sound, in order to see them. His hand lightly brushed something next to him on the table. He settled back into his seat for a closer look.
It was a sketchbook. Now Red Guy knew for certain something was off. No one in the house sketched, though Yellow Guy painted sometimes. None of them would have any reason to buy a sketchbook, and they certainly wouldn't leave it carelessly on the kitchen table. Something could spill and ruin it.
Red Guy could feel the the center of the rooms attention now seemed directed towards this sketchbook. The room was watching, waiting, all focused on this one particular object.
He glanced between Duck and Yellow Guy. They too were looking around, seemingly dazed, possibly confused as well. There seemed to be a tension between the three of them, as if someone had just asked a question but no one had answered. Had they just been in the middle of a conversation?
Red Guy ran over the events of the day. It had just been lunchtime a few minutes ago, right? Or was it getting close to dinner? He remembered washing dishes. That felt like it had been hours ago. The dishes sat dry in their places on the shelf, except for two. That was odd, he didn't usually like to leave a job half done.
Where was Roy? He usually liked to hang around for a little after lunch before retreating to his room. But, then again, it had been a while since lunch. Perhaps he had snuck away already.
But they had just finished lunch.
A few hours ago.
Red Guy wanted to rub his head, but the crushing tension still frightened him. Why was his sense of time so mucked up? If he could just brave a peek behind himself he could look at the clock and clear the whole mess up.
He cocked his head slightly in an attempt to will himself to turn around. The tension twitched, and he felt like he was being watched. He held still, holding his breath, not sure what he was afraid of.
Little by little the strange feeling of tension moved back from him to the sketchbook. He released his breath in a sigh. This was ridiculous. Nothing and no one was watching him, save for his two friends. This was his house. He didn't want to feel like a prisoner in it, and he wasn't going to be held hostage by an inanimate stack of paper. He pressed his hands to the table and prepared to get up and end whatever this weird tension was.
Suddenly the cover of the sketchbook flipped open.
"What's your favorite idea?"
Author's Note: Wait, don't touch that dial!
So, this epilogue ends this story as an independent fic. I still have two post-epilogue chapters in progress. Those chapters are the one's that connect this story to A Wrinkle In Tony. They also explain the differences between the normal dhmis timeline and the timeline in A Wrinkle In Tony, so please stay tuned if you're interested!
