It was a dark and cloudy day in the village called 'Shining Time,' although a little ironic for a name that was supposed to be bright.
However, one person was not heading into the village called 'Shining Time,' but instead headed towards the mountains that loom above the town.
The person was a small human wearing an oversized cameo blue sweater with sky blue hems, a light blue shirt underneath, blue jeans, and white and light pink shoes with white shoelaces.
Their head was low, and the oversized hood covered their face with their arms crossed over their chest to keep warmth to themselves, creating a shadow to keep someone from discovering who they were.
They continued walking down the path towards the mountains with their head down before perking up when they discovered something hidden in the distance.
Curious, the stranger walked over to the object and examined it, noticing the signs of graffiti and vandalism, but there was not too much damage.
The stranger stepped back after looking at the object's structure, silently nodding to themselves before looking at the chain that keeps the door closed.
Since many years have passed, the chain that keeps anyone out has been rusted from the weather's harsh conditions, making it easy to break.
Picking up a hand-sized rock from the ground, the stranger hits the chain at a weak spot as it cracks from the impact, the chain falling with the lock as it unwraps from the handles.
The stranger slowly opened the doors of the object and peered inside, smelling the faint smell of rust coming from it as some light peeked from the windows covered in boards.
It had been so many years since anyone had entered this abandoned place.
The stranger turned around and closed the door behind them, not wanting anyone to see they had entered somewhere they were not supposed to be.
Once inside, the stranger reached up with their hands to their hood and pulled it from over their head, revealing their face as long, straight blue hair fell out.
The hair reached their ankles, was dark blue at the roots, and ended in blue at the ends, but it was messy and barely touched.
The child pushed her hair back after pushing her hood off and looked around, seeing that it was covered with dust and had cobwebs covering the corners of the empty place.
"Well," the child said with a tired sigh as she moved her arms close to her body for warmth. "I suppose this is my home now."
She paused a little after noticing the dirtiness and wandered through the place while stepping over some items on the ground, looking for a cabinet where she could gather cleaning items.
She soon found the cabinet and checked if it was locked, seeing that it was left unlocked, much to her confusion.
After checking, the child opened the door and saw the surface covered with cobwebs, but it was not all that bad.
But there were not enough cleaning supplies inside for her to clean all the graffiti off the outside walls.
"This isn't enough," the child mumbled. "But it'll last me for the moment until I figure out a way to get a job to-"
She instantly winced after mentioning the word 'job,' muttering as she picked up the cleaning supplies, "No, no, no, no, I shouldn't mention that. Something else."
The child walked over to some cobwebs and started cleaning them, spraying them before wiping them away with the rag.
She continued cleaning the place and used some items left behind, ranging from a mop, a brush, a sponge, and pails.
She collected fresh water using the items left behind and a nearby pond, and she even dumped trash that one of the slightly opened windows had thrown inside into a nearby garbage can.
Luckily, she found a way to close the window where the people were tossing garbage out of laziness because they did not want to carry it around.
During her cleaning, the child suddenly heard what sounded like meowing and looked over, seeing what looked like an adult cat.
The cat was very fluffy and had messy fur with a white background, black stripes with spots, a black underbelly, black socks with white toes, catfight-like notches covering the ears, and the right eye had a scar.
"Where did you come from?" the child asked, kneeling at the cat's height as it meowed. "Oh, you are so beautiful!"
The cat rubbed its body against her legs as it started purring, showing it had heterochromia, with the right eye black and the left white.
"Huh," she said with confusion as the cat rubbed its face into her hands while she stroked it. "You have different eye colors. Very beautiful."
The cat then lightly scratched against her blue jeans while stretching, and she chuckled, not bothered by this cat scratching her blue jeans a little.
"Well," the child continued, speaking as the cat rubbed against her legs. "I'm glad I'm not the only one around here."
The cat meowed and jumped onto the child's side, causing her to yelp before she put both hands underneath the cat as it lifted itself onto her shoulders.
"Okay," she chuckled as the cat went into her hood. "You like riding in my hood. I'll let you then."
The cat meowed after the child chuckled as she returned to work, not minding the cat licking itself and sometimes her hair while relaxing in her hood.
A few minutes passed, and the child finished cleaning the place, seeing its former glory in front of her as she used the back of her hand to wipe some sweat off her forehead.
Her little cat passenger was relaxing in her hood underneath all her blue hair, its head resting on one of her shoulders as she looked at her completed work.
The place was still slightly rundown, but it had what looked like a mural of the 1900s and, oh my gosh, steam locomotives!
The child's eyes sparkled after seeing the steam locomotive, pushing her glasses into place as she remarked, pointing to one of them while speaking to the cat she befriended, "That's an Atlantic Coast Line 4-4-2! I am very impressed at how they made the details of the steam locomotive."
The cat purred while listening to the child talk, sitting comfortably in her hood underneath her long blue hair.
She continued looking around the massive mural and saw other magnificent items painted on the walls, ranging from steam tugs, paddle boats, coaches, ferrymen, and many other things!
It made her heart flutter before she looked at a booth at the far right she had cleaned around.
But it all looked familiar to one of the museums she had been inside before.
"Wait a minute," the child gently murmured.
She went to the booth to the left, found a way to enter it, poked around it curiously, saw the chair bolted to the ground, and sat on the little chair.
She coughed a little when it exploded with dust from underneath her bottom as she stood back up while waving her hands.
It was like she had sat on a whoopie cushion filled with dust.
After a few coughs, she mumbled, "Okay," waving her hand to keep the dust off her face as the cat sneezed. "This one needs a clean-out from the inside."
After the dust settled, the child looked at the cleaned-off desk and stood up from the chair, wondering what could be in the drawers.
She pulled one out and peered inside, seeing nothing as she looked thoughtful after looking.
The child pushed the drawer back and went to the next one, which was empty when she looked inside.
She closed that drawer and kneeled to the lower drawers as the cat jumped out of her hood onto the chair, watching her pull out one of them.
She peered inside and paused when she discovered what looked like an old journal with a dark brown leather cover.
Curious, the child took the journal from the lower drawer and sat back on the seat after the cat jumped off the chair and onto the desk, flipping the journal open.
It was empty, but the pages' design looked like a train book for people to gather tickets when they came to the station.
"I found a train station?" The child muttered, slightly bewildered. "How can a train station still be here after a hundred years since most buildings have been torn down?"
She paused after she had asked herself while closing the journal, placing it back where she had found it, and muttering, "Well, maybe this station was important to them because it was a memory of the past."
The child paused again after muttering as she softly asked, "Why did they forget about this station?"
She slowly stood up to her feet after putting the journal book away before accidentally hitting her head on the counter as she exclaimed, "OW!"
The impact on her head must have unlocked something, as it silently clicked while the child groaned while clutching the back of her head with her hands.
The cat flinched after the child accidentally hit her head underneath the desk and hopped off, approaching her to check if she was alright.
"Ahhh!" the child winced with hisses while gently rocking herself forward and back while holding the back of her head with her hands. "Crap!"
The unlocked area slid down as the child recovered from the stinging impact, revealing two items inside.
"Ugh," the child groaned as she checked for bleeding while looking at her palm, but she felt nothing. "That's going to—" she paused after seeing something in front of her underneath the desk, "What's that?"
She reached over to the items and took them out from inside the container before closing the open container after taking them out.
The child sat on her bottom with the items in her hands, looking at them as the cat looked over her arm.
The first item looked like a whistle; the other was a folded letter.
The child looked confused after seeing the two items in her hand before standing up from where she was sitting and walking over to the cleaned benches with the cat following her.
She sat on the bench as the cat jumped onto the bench beside her, and she placed the whistle on her lap.
The letter had someone's handwriting, which read, 'Stoke up the magic in the mountain, and the Lady will smile. Then watch the swirls that spin so well.'
A silent, perplexed expression appeared on the child's face after reading the letter as she asked, mostly to herself, "What magic? And who's 'Lady?'"
Deciding to keep this written letter, the child refolded it and placed it into her pants pocket before looking at the second item.
The second item was a whistle, except it looked different from the whistles she usually sees occasionally, mostly from annoying kids.
The whistle was made out of silver brass and had a pill-shaped container in the middle filled with a tiny bit of what looked like gold glitter, and the end had symbols on it.
The child looked at the symbols on the bottom and recognized what they were as she turned them, surprised to see how they moved as there was a small arrow pointing at which element.
"Aluminum," the child described as she pointed at the symbols as the cat curled on her lap. "Amalgam, antimony, bismuth, brass, bronze, copper, gold, iron, lead, magnesium, mercury, nickel, platinum, silver, tin, titanium, and…"
She paused after noticing the last symbol, looking confused, and muttered, "Sulfur? Why sulfur?"
She turned the dial to the symbol of gold and asked, "Why would someone put these symbols on a mere whistle?"
The child looked around at the whistle with a necklace chain, telling her it was something to wear around her neck.
But it had glitter in the pill-shaped container inside of it, so it could be some new toy the people made to make customers buy it.
"Oh well," the child shrugged, putting the necklace around her neck. "I guess this is a way of doing a little 'clean up' celebration."
She glanced around after putting the necklace around her neck and took a deep breath before whistling into the whistle as it made a sharp, shrill noise.
A large puff of gold dust shot out from the whistle, which surprised the child as it suddenly engulfed her and the cat on her lap.
The puff of gold glitter then went over to the tunnel mural and went through, disappearing out of sight.