Chapter 5: A birthday and a box

June 11, 2019. Cindy pulled herself out of bed before sliding into her slippers and going into the bathroom. She quickly brushed her hair and applied her eyeliner, keeping her usual cat-eyed look. She had to have her best look after all as today was Anne's birthday, specifically, she was turning thirteen years old. After brushing her teeth, she went back into her room and pulled out her sketchbook from her shelf, and tore out a page containing a drawing of a black cat that had white stripes on their back and bright golden eyes. Their belly was also white, the same colour as their paws which resembled socks.
She'll love this fo' sure. Cindy thought to herself as she put it in her backpack. Once she finished putting on her school uniform, she then looked at her letterman jacket, the one she bought at the mall three weeks ago. Sure it got her grounded for two weeks, the other week was cut due to her having helped around the house, and made her mom and dad feel like crap but hey, it looked nice, being black with white sleeves. Plus, Sasha is allowed to wear her cardigan to school so surely they won't have any issue with her wearing it.
"Hey Mom, Dad, guess what?" Cindy said before she sank her teeth into her scrambled eggs-on-toast.
"What is it sweetpea?" Cindy's mother asked.
"It's Anne's birthday today and so I wanted to hear your thoughts on this?" Cindy reached into her bag and pulled out her drawing.
"That's gorgeous!" Cindy's mother beamed. "Reminds me of when my friend from Uni gave me a drawing of my mom for my 21st birthday."
"That is one cute looking cat." Cindy's father said. "You really managed to capture their adorableness really well."
"Thanks, it's Anne's cat domino." Cindy said as she finished her scrambled eggs. "I couldn't really afford a better birthday present so this is really the best I could do."
"Well it's the thought that counts, right?" Cindy's father said. "Besides, I think Anne will love this.

"Alright, have a good day sweetheart, and tell Anne that your mother and I said happy birthday." Cindy's father said as Cindy opened the car door. "Love ya!"
"Love ya too Dad!" Cindy blew her Dad a kiss before he closed the door and drove off.
"What's up, birthday girl!" Cindy smiled as she walked towards Anne and Sasha. "Whatcha got there?" She asked Anne.
"Khao Mew Bing." Anne answered. "It's a Thai snack made with rice and coconut milk. Also loving the letterman jacket!"
"Sounds pretty good." Cindy nodded. "And thanks, Sasha got it for me. Well I kinda picked it out and she paid for it but still."
"You're welcome, but did you get anything for Anne?" Sasha asked, raising an eyebrow.
"Well, I drew her cat Domino." Cindy reached into her bag and pulled out the drawing she did of Domino.
Anne gasped before she beamed from ear to ear. "Oh. My. GODDDD!" She squeaked before she grabbed the drawing out of Cindy's hands. "I am definitely going to put this on my wall." She said whilst she hugged the drawing.
"Glad you like it." Cindy replied.
"Anyway, I was thinking that you, Anne, Marcy and I could hang out sometime next week, we can do the usual shopping, going to the arcade, shoplifting." Sasha asked coyly.
"Copy that?" Cindy tilted her head.
"I said we can hang out next week and go to the arcade and go shopping." Sasha laughed. Suddenly, the school bell rang, hailing the beginning of another school day. "Buzzkill" Sasha groaned.
"Well, I'll see you two around." Cindy bids Anne and Sasha farewell.
"See ya later alligator." Anne waved.
"Bye Cindy Tindy" Sasha yelled as she, Anne, and Cindy parted ways for now.

"'Sup MarMar!" Cindy greeted Marcy as she sat down at the table during recess.
"Ello ello!" Marcy smiled at Cindy whilst she played with her fidget spinner. "How was the first lesson? Nice jacket by the way!"
"Hehe, thanks and it went alright." Cindy sighed. "Had to learn about neurons or something. Dunno how that's going to help me build spacecraft but eh, whatevs."
"Well, I guess it's just good to know that kind of stuff." Marcy replied. "Besides, I gotta know that plus a bazillion times more for my SATs. Speaking of which, I'm going to study in the library after school, wanna come?" She offered.
"Hell yea." Cindy accepted. "There's some good engineering books we can read too afterwards and I really wanna take a look at some of those." And so I can spend more time with you. She thought to herself; though that thought made her visibly blush, much to Marcy's confusion.
"You ok there Cindy?" She tilted her head.
"Uh-um-uh, yes! I mean no! I mean, kinda! I mean-BLEH!" Cindy stammered. "Sorry, just one of those days my brain goes bleh." She laughed nervously. "Anyway, where's Anne and Sasha?"
"I'm not so sure actually." Marcy went on her phone and DMed Anne, asking her as to where she was, it didn't take too long for Anne to respond immediately with a selfie of her and Sasha at a Tim Hortons, captioned with.
"We're skipping school, cba to deal with this rn on my bday lmfao."
"Damn, they skippin' school." Marcy said out loud.
"Oh wow, aren't they gonna be in deep mud tomorrow?" Cindy asked.
"It's a 50/50 chance." Marcy replied. "Sometimes they send you to hell and back, other times they just don't bother. Still, I don't really take any chances with stuff like that."
"Fair enough haha." Cindy laughed. "I mean, seeing how my parents reacted to me sneaking out, I can only imagine how your parents would react."
"Yep, asian parents I tell ya!" Marcy giggled. "They'd throw me into a blender if I ever skipped school or snuck out."
Cindy laughed. "Say, I've heard of this new Minecraft mod that dropped a few days ago, reckon we should add it to the server?" She asked.
"Hell yeah, what's it called?" Marcy asked.
"It's called Ender-plus, it adds a lot of new stuff to the end including OP armor." Cindy showed Marcy screenshots of the mod. Marcy's jaw dropped in amazement, end villages whose sizes rivaled that of end-cities themselves, entire end dungeons just beckoning the duo.
"Hell yeah!" Marcy nodded whilst she smiled. "I am already picturing a massive end-base, with you and me ruling over the end and making it our own kingdom, after the nether and overworld of course."
"That sounds cool!" Cindy nodded. "First thing I'm gonna do when I get home is install that mod. Though I gotta warn ya, the mod makes the end really frickin' hard."
"Sounds even better!" Marcy replied smugly. "I always thought the end was too easy."
"Speaking of, they should've just made 1.9 the end update, not some stupid combat crap that nobody asked for. I'm telling ya, they have not heard of "if it ain't broke, don't fix it." Cindy scoffed.
"Fo' realsies!" Marcy replied. "I really only play servers on 1.8 now because of those dumb combat changes."
"Same here, at least they added shields though." Cindy shrugged.
"And elytras." Marcy added.
"That too." Cindy acknowledged.

Later on, after school, Cindy entered the library. Rows upon rows of shelves crisscrossed the library with tables neatly lined up at each intersection. A calm blue carpet spread itself out across the floor whilst dozens of people immersed themselves in the books. After about five minutes of searching.
"There you are MarMar." Cindy smiled as she approached Marcy. Holy crap that rhymed. She thought
"Sup Cindy Tindy." Marcy gestured to Cindy to sit next to her. "You doin' good?"
"Yup." Cindy replied as she took out a book from the shelf. "This book is awesome by the way, it's an entire history of space exploration from when the V-2 rockets first flew in WWII to what the future may hold with Artemis, Gateway and Mars missions."
"Ooh, that sounds dope." Marcy replied. "Anyway, let's talk about it later as I gotta study for my SATs, you can help me if you want." She then focused back on her textbook and notebook. "Oki doki!" Cindy agreed.
For the time being, Cindy sat quietly beside Marcy as she cracked on with her studies, and the longer she sat next to Marcy, the faster her heart rate went and the deeper she blushed. Deep within her mind, millions of scenarios and thoughts scattered about; from cute dates, to gamenights, to kissing in a movie theater and even their wedding. All that only continued to make Cindy's cheeks redden. Her mind was adrift in those fantasies as minutes seemed like hours..until.
"Cindy? Cindy? Cindy you there?" Marcy was confused as to why Cindy was feeling like this again. "Are you feeling ok?"
"OH-UH, Yeah, I'm fine, I'm totally fine." Cindy was startled as a result of Marcy snapping her back to reality. "Um-uh wh-what's up?" She stuttered.
"I'm just saying that this book about magic stuff mentions this weird looking music box." Marcy turned to a book titled " Dr. P's Extraordinary Guide To Magic & Mystery" to face Cindy whilst Cindy took a closer look. The music box was gold at the bottom with a dark green lid with gold edges. An engraving of a swamp marked the bottom half of the box with the top having a gold depiction of a frog praising four gems that were depicted to be shining like the sun; a blue gem, a green gem, a pink gem and a purple gem. "It says here that it can apparently let you travel to other worlds'. I mean who'd actually believe this." She sneered
"Yeah haha, I mean it'd be a cool plot device for a book or a show sure, but this must have been someone finding something unexplained and then coming up with a post-hoc explanation for it." Cindy laughed.
"Yup, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence after all. For all we know this could've been a toy box for some fancy viking." Marcy said. Suddenly, Marcy's phone buzzed with a notification, she opened it to see it was her dad texting her.
"Come home. We need to talk." Her Dad texted.
Sensing the urgency within the message, Marcy placed both her SAT textbook and the magic book back on the shelf.
"Oop, Dad said I have to come home, it looks pretty urgent." Marcy stood up. "It's been nice talking to you."
"Alrighty, I'll see ya later MarMar." Cindy said before she and Marcy gave each other a hug, causing her to blush.
"Hehe, see ya soon." Marcy waved goodbye as she left the library. Once out the door, she took the time to really think about Cindy, in particular, the way she's been acting towards her these past few weeks. Is it just me or could she have the hots for me? Nah, I doubt it.

5:25PM. Cindy sat down on her bed, her eyes glued to the TV screen and Nintendo Switch Pro controller in hand. Her mind was occupied with "Crash Bandicoot 'Nsane trilogy", though in particular, her mind was bubbling with frustration; High road was said to be a difficult level in both the original Crash Bandicoot and this remaster but Cindy never thought it would be that difficult. Every life lost, every missed jump, just made Cindy grip the controller harder and sapped even more patience that she had previously. And just when the end of the level was within reach…
"GRAAAAAAAA!" Cindy growled before jumping off her bed to switch the TV and the console off. "I'm outta here." She grumbled. Going downstairs, putting on her backpack and putting back on her sneakers, she then opened the front door. "Mom, Dad, I'm just going for a walk."
"Alright, be back before sunset." Cindy's mother called out.
Outside, Cindy plugged in her headphones, switched on her phone, opened up Spotify and played her usual playlist, drowning out the wails of cars, sirens and civilians. She didn't exactly have any destination in mind, just wandered around the block until she felt like coming home. Street to street. Block to block. Her playlist lasted for six hours in total, plenty of time to traverse the entire city if she really wanted to. Though one thing was in her mind, in particular, that music box from the book. I don't know if it's my mind messing with me but those gems sure do have the same colors as those things from my dreams. She recalled. It's probably just some coincidence though. She opened Discord and texted Marcy
"Heya, I forgot to point that those gems on that box kinda look like the ones from my dreams 0-0."
Marcy was offline but Cindy shrugged as she thought nothing of it.
Around twenty-five minutes later, her playlist was interrupted by a notification from Sasha. Pulling out her phone and pausing the playlist, she then opened Discord to see what Sasha asked her.
"Cindy, come here ASAP, there's something cool we wanna show you. We're at Vista Hermosa." Sasha asked before she gave away where they were.
"Oki, I'll be there soon." Cindy replied before she switched spotify back on and then resumed her playlist. I wonder what they got?" She thought to herself.

"Sup fellas, whatcha got there?" Cindy arrived at Vista Hermosa park. She spotted Sasha and Marcy surrounding Anne who was holding the music box. "Hey, that's the box from that book." She pointed out.
"Yep, sure is. Marcy said it'll be an awesome birthday present for Anne." Sasha said.
"Kinda looks like the stuff my mom has." Anne stared at the box. "Though I don't know why you got me to steal it?"
"Well there wasn't a price tag so finders keepers. Besides the cashier was some old fart who was asleep." Sasha said smugly.
"But what about CCTV though?" Cindy pointed out. "You did check that there wasn't CCTV, right?"
"I sure did!" Marcy reassured. "Besides, like what Sasha said, it was just collecting dust on that old shelf so what better than to pick it up."
"But why would Anne want some dumb music box?" Cindy asked.
Anne just shrugged. "I mean, Marcy wanted us to get it really badly."
"Enough yapping." Sasha grew impatient. "Let's just open it."
And sure enough, Anne opened the music box. Inside was just a bunch of flashing bright, rainbow coloured lights that seemed to be growing bright and brighter. Cindy leaned in to take a closer look.
"What the fuUUUAAAAHHH!" She yelled as a blinding flash of bright white light engulfed the quartet, knocking them out.

As she began to regain consciousness, Cindy felt something slightly damp beneath her, she opened her eyes to find that she was not in the park, or Los Angeles for that matter, instead, she was in some sort of swamp. "Anne?! Marcy?! Sasha?!" She called out but they were nowhere to be found. "Guys?! Where are you?!" Hyperventilating she quickly pulled out her phone to try and contact them, but Discord was not responding, she frantically called her parents but her phone had no service. Quickly, she swung her head to see an enormous centipede climbing up one of the trees. "Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit!" Her hyperventilating got even worse; did she travel back in time to the carboniferous? She then spotted a massive spider on the hill far away in the distance, that is when the realization dawned upon her. She was not on Earth. This was some kind of alien world, a world strange yet familiar. Tears began flowing out of her eyes as she collapsed and began breaking down on the swamp floor.
"SOMEONE HELP!" She screamed.