It was late—possibly closer to midday—when Theodore reemerged from the confines of the couch and the relative safety of the blanket. The strange noises & voices from downstairs were still there, but they had become somewhat subdued. Instead they sounded more muffled than before as if the people they belonged to, were hidden behind a wall of some kind (which was entirely possible considering Theodore had no clue as to how big this place was or how it was laid out). Motivated by his growling stomach, Theodore eventually emerged from underneath the blanket with slow & hesitant movements that were a stark contrast to the eager hops of the pug now dancing around his feet.
Mercifully no one was upstairs with him (aside from Mr Pennycrumb), as they were still occupied with whatever they were doing downstairs and it allowed him to tiptoe over to the kitchen where he tried his best to quietly search for something to eat. He knew that he couldn't cook anything least he attracted unwanted visitors, so it was either what was languishing in the fridge or whatever he could find in the pantry. Thankfully, Theodore was able to locate some sort of green gelatinous mass in the fridge (rather easily, in fact, because it was the largest thing in there); although when he first bit into it, he found that it was not fruit encased inside as expected. Instead, it was a ham. But he was hungry and, thankfully, not a very picky eater so he just ate around the meat in the middle (even if it did give the jelly a strange meaty flavour).
Following the impromptu breakfast (where he shoved the rest of the jellied meat back into the fridge after stomaching as much as he could handle), Theodore moved to inspect the mezzanine floor a little better than before. Where the living room was brightly lit & colourful, the kitchen was painted in more muted tones that lent themselves towards a rather homely feel. With cabinets & benches on either side, the fridge tucked into one corner, a bedroom adjoining to the small bathroom, a storage closet-turned-dark room and a coffee pot that looked to be sitting atop a Bunsen Burner, it was quiet the eclectic home. Although, once again, Theodore found himself more interested in the mail that languished on the kitchen table nearby. As earlier observed, there were letters addressed to a Mr Elliot Gussman, a Mrs Eleanor Gussman and a Ms Eleanor Hirschfeld (presumably the maiden name of the missus), alongside the newspaper that had freaked him out. But there were also some other letters—bills, taxes and such—that were addressed to Morty's Radio Shack and Mortimer Gussman's Dentistry.
From the giant red "MORTY'S" that Theodore could partially see through the front windows of the building (it was backwards, obviously, but still legible)—even from where he stood in the kitchen—it was fair to say that this place was like the former and not the latter. But that raised even more questions, like how a dentistry business became an electronics store and who would even be able to afford such a thing in this day and age. If Theodore remembered his world history lessons right, then the First World War would begin this year and according to the poster he had found he had first arrive, they were currently in the middle of an influenza epidemic (which he was thankfully protected against thanks to the shots he had gotten as a kid). But with no one to ask these listless questions to, Theodore was forced to shrug them off as he continued looking around.
It didn't take long for him to snoop through the rest of the floor, with the most interesting thing being a couple of conspiratorial articles about aliens & other such things, in the little nook across from the lounge. Theodore had been quite surprised to find a couple of snapshots of, what looked to be, the old Loric shuttles and the picture of a girl (presumably Loric) with her guardian (who looked suspiciously like A'Vera Katerina's Cêpan) as they met up with their Earth representative. Although, if these people knew about—or had a fascination with—the Lorics, that would at least explain how they had come across a chimaera after their supposed extermination. Though Theodore had to wonder, if this chimaera—if Mr Pennycrumb—had in fact been the little girl's once upon a time.
With upstairs more than sufficiently "searched" Theodore knew that it was finally time to venture downstairs even if the thought of doing so turned his stomach and rankled his nerves something fierce. He'd never been great with meeting new people—or people in general—hence his limited friend group and not-quite-up-to-par social skills. Usually, he'd do what most introverts would do & allow himself to be "adopted" by an extrovert and then called it a day. It was much easier that way and you could use them as a preverbal meat shield in social situations when things became too much. But all he had now was Mr Pennycrumb, a belly full of jelly and a nightgown that was two sizes too big.
Where the mezzanine lounge had been a nice & serenely quiet place to awaken in—like the sun patches of a warm midday morning with fluffy felines or princess & the pea-style blankets surrounding him—downstairs was not. The strange & unfamiliar voices that floated up the stairs as he quietly padded down with Mr Pennycrumb tucked under his left arm and the bannister gripped tightly in his right, almost seemed to grate on his ears in that silvery hushed voice that he couldn't stand. It was the kind of voice that some people used to talk down to you or like they were afraid that speaking any higher would ruin the whole atmosphere-slash-vibe they had going on.
Despite this, the pug that was draped over his bent arm almost seemed happier to be held this way with tongue lolling out, front legs crooked just so and back legs dangling listlessly, swaying to & fro as Theodore slowly made his way down the stairs. In fact, had there been any more wiggle room between the boy & the dog, his tail likely would have of been wagging something fierce. Instead, Mr Pennycrumb found himself happily glued to the boy's side as he came to a quiet stop on the first floor landing (the one opposite the matching stairwell on the other side). It was there that Theodore found himself confronted with such a domestically normal scene that he had to grip tight to the bannister (even as it smoked under his heated palm) just to make sure that he wasn't dreaming.
The first floor was a large open plan space that allowed him to see both the showroom, the display windows that looked out onto the street and beneath the crown of the stairs that came down on either side of the walls, where a pair of frosted doors lay, which supposedly led into the former dentistry offices because that was where all of the strange voices were coming from. And all three features were currently bare of anyone (save for the one under the stairs), leaving Theodore to assume that this store (for it clearly was that) must have of been closed for some kind of public holiday or other such reason.
Inwardly, he wondered if it was because the owners had found him out in the alley earlier in the morning and, because of the fact that their living quarters were so close to the shop downstairs, were afraid of something happening to him. Or for him to do something when he awoke in a strange place, amongst strange people. It was almost sweet of them to do such a thing, particularly for a strange boy that they had found on their doorstep, wearing even stranger clothing (for the time). Not many would have of done the same; in fact, they likely would have of called the cops. Which wrought the question why didn't they? Could they of had some sort of ulterior motive? But then why would they have taken him in? Why would they have clothed him, when it would of been so much easier just to leave him? So many questions with still no answers to satisfy his curiosity; it was quickly becoming rather infuriating.
Shaking his head clear of those depressing thoughts, Theodore hugged Mr Pennycrumb tighter as his other hand let go of the munted bannister and snaked its way under his crouched paws as he turned his attention back to inspecting the floor in front of him. The showroom was splayed out across the majority of the main floor and decorated in a variety of displays, including the stiff-boxed radios with all of their knobbly buttons and pancake-flat turntables sat besides, that were stacked one atop each other like Tetris blocks. One wall held an entire rack of old vinyl records of the decades (none of which Theodore could recognise, especially from where he stood). Even the intermittent wall spaces between each of the numerous windows had been plastered with brightly-coloured posters. Featuring everything from cartoonic electronics to painterly family scenes of children gathered around the radios and over-exaggerated housewives that decreed which devices were the public's choice & which were for sale.
Idling on the landing as he was, there wasn't much that Theodore could see of the frontier of the store or even the street itself, but from what he could see there was a rather clean & crisp pair of display windows out front; exactly like what you might expect from an electronics store, if a little dated to his eye. At the very front of the store there sat a pair of display windows that bookended the front doors and held two very different scenarios inside each glass cabinet. The one of the left portrayed a stereotypical 1910s living room scene, so that you could picture what the advertised products would look like in your own home. The window on the right was much different, instead holding a stack of radios that were piled high like a wall of Legos and reminded Theodore very much of the display window at Tommy's TVs back in his own timeline; except vintage.
And then there was the former dental offices which lay beneath the crown of the stairs. Encased in wooden-panelling, stained doors that guarded the room and frosted glass windows that blocked every wandering eye from peeking inside; the people now currently inside were safe from Peeping Toms. Theodore assumed that it was a precaution taken by the dentistry folk who didn't want the other patients to freak out when they saw blood dripping from mouths, whirring tools that sounded like something from a horror film and terrified children strapped to the awkward chairs. Although Theodore didn't know exactly what lay beyond those frosted doors, he could infer (from his previous trips to the dentist and from what little he could hear through the gaps in the door that it was nothing more than your average breakroom-slash-storage room. Just a gaggle of dental offices which had been amalgamated together to save space and provide somewhere to eat (as the labour laws required) as evident by the glimpse of an old dental chair & gas tanks which had been turned into a clothing rack-slash-door-stopper.
Taking this all in, it left Theodore feeling strange. Even though logically, he knew that he was in the past—thanks to all the numerous signs which had pointed out such a fact since his arrival—it was still an odd thing to see that everything around him looked like it had come straight out of a history textbook. Sure, the world wasn't painted in black & white like those grainy photographs had been, and what he could hear of the muffled voices (it was hard to tell how many heartbeats there were over his own heart beating loudly in his ears), they weren't speaking like old-timey gangsters or Shakespearian poets.
The frown pulling at his lips grew deeper as he realised that if he truly was in 1914 (as all signs pointed so), then there was no one here that he knew or could even get in contact with. According to A'Vera Katerina & her Cêpan, the Fall of Lorien hadn't come until around 1950 when the Mogadorians invaded in search of power & resources. Following that, those who could escape did; but the travel time between the sister planets took at least a year, even with all that advanced technology. A'Vera Katerina's shuttle had landed on Earth in the mid-to-late 50s, but by then two of the nine Council Ennead were already dead; Councilman Ent in 1954 & Councilman Zvee in 1957.
They were both deaths that had yet to happen in this timeline, but Theodore had no clue as to where or how to find them because their Cêpans would have of done their best to hide them from other such investigating forces; ones far beyond his skill. But if Theodore remembered correctly, then A'Doro was Councilman Ent's Cêpan and the owner of a Dallas business known as DS Umbrella MFG Co. so if Theodore waited long enough, then A'Doro would come to him. He just had to make sure that the old Loric would listen when he did; that he would see sense because if Vera's stories were anything to go by, he was a harsh man and not one to be trifled with.