(I'm reposting this because it turns out I forgot to delete the last paragraph I was translating from the original)

Hello, everyone! Originally, I published this story in September as part of a challenge on another fanfiction website, but forgot to translate and publish it here. Now that I remembered, I will post "new" chapters every few days. Enjoy!

"Echoes of the Past"

Chapter 1: "The Cold"

It had been quite some time since Lincoln's family made a decision to leave Royal Woods, a town with which both the children and the Louds' parents associated much. Of course, children immediately opposed it. However, for the head of the family, Lynn Senior, and his wife, Rita, it was very hard to make this choice.

First of all, this little town was where they had spent their entire lives, from childhood to youth, and where they had first met each other, married, and many, many years later had beautiful children, becoming perhaps the only large family in Royal Woods.

For their children, this place was also very important: it was here that they spent their unforgettable childhoods in places that were already painfully familiar to them, places that they visited repeatedly, and some of them constantly, daily.

One of these places was, of course, the school. One day, on the bus ride to his university, where he was in his third year, Lincoln decided to remember his days in the Royal Woods High School. That morning, even though Lincoln was dressed warmly, he was still cold, and a particularly interesting incident that had happened at the school came to his mind.

January. Christmas vacation was over and Lincoln, along with Clyde and his other classmates and friends, went back to class. He didn't really want to, but there was no other choice. It was very cold at school that day. He remembered how he had felt the cold with his whole body, and he could hardly stand it. It was because that day he had left his house without a jacket wearing only a sweatshirt, probably to test himself. Lincoln's sisters, especially Lori, didn't like it and warned him: «Lincoln! Put your jacket on, you're gonna freeze yourself!»

He, of course, ignored this remark (in this case, more of an admonition) and in such a «risky» way went to school on his own as Lori refused to drive him unless he would put his jacket on.

It was on the way to school when Lincoln realized his mistake and berated himself for it.

— What a fool! Why did I go out in a sweatshirt? — He thought, but it was already too late to correct the situation, because it was quite far away from home, and only then did he realize that he was cold. The first class was about to start any minute.

He came to school. There was a notice on the wall, «Don't put your jackets off, there's no heating today!», that Lincoln noticed and again regretted not wearing his jacket that day.

As he approached the classroom, he noticed his friends, with whom he was in the same class together. They didn't appreciate his appearance in such cold weather, reminding him that the heating had been turned off for today, but they didn't know how long it would last. Barely entering the classroom with them, Mrs. Johnson, the teacher, carefully asked him:

— Aren't you cold, Lincoln?

— Not at all! — he replied to her without revealing his true condition. Of course he was cold! But would he admit it to her, thus exposing his «weakness»? Certainly not. He'd rather keep silent, thus exposing his stupidity.

— Surely not, he feels so hot, open the window! — said someone in class, and everyone laughed. Lincoln sat down with annoyance at his desk next to Clyde.

— Wow, — his best friend remarked, — Lincoln, did you forget to put on your jacket?

— Never mind that, — he replied, taking the textbook out of his backpack. The first subject he was about to study was English.

— Mrs. Johnson, what are we passing today? — Clyde asked the teacher, but instead of responding to him directly, she made a gesture with her hand that meant «Don't worry, I'm gonna tell you soon». As the last students, including some of them who were a little late, entered the classroom, Mrs. Johnson began the lesson.

— Hello, class! Unfortunately, today we experience some problems with the heating: it has suddenly gone off, but we hope that things will get better soon! Last week we started going through Ray Bradbury, and today we will be going through his most famous work that you have probably heard of: Fahrenheit 451. However, Lincoln would be fine with just Fahrenheit 51, — she joked poorly to bring a smile to her favorite student's face so he wouldn't worry much about his condition. The joke, however, had the opposite effect — no one laughed at it, but Lincoln thought:

— Yeah, my sister Luan would definitely appreciate this silly little joke!

Soon the English class was over, and a short break started. During the break the young Loud tried to keep himself warm by wiping his palms and running through the hallways, which was strictly forbidden at his school. Shortly after the break, he went to Math class.

This subject required particular concentration and intensive brain work, even in elementary school. Lincoln was still suffering from the cold, so he couldn't concentrate at all. All his thoughts were only about getting warm.

Therefore, he did not listen well to the teacher's explanations, and all the problems he tried to write down in his notebook took the form of incomprehensible scribbles, also because Lincoln's hands began to shake.

At the end of the lesson the teacher gave out homework sheets and Lincoln, taking his sheet, successfully dropped it on his way out of the classroom. Clyde noticed this, picked up the dropped sheet, and handed it to Lincoln.

— There you go, — he said, — don't lose any of those. By the way, why don't we go to the nurse's office? You don't look so good!

— No, no, I'm fine! — Lincoln answered cheerfully and immediately ran down the hallway, disappearing around the corner.

After another bell rang, Lincoln attended Ms. DiMartino's French class, and right after he entered the class, she immediately asked him:

— Tu n'as pas froid, Lincoln ? (Aren't you cold, Lincoln?)

— Non, professeure ! Ça va bien ! (No, teacher! I'm fine!)

— Well, be careful, Lincoln. (She responded in English)

He sat down at his desk as if nothing had happened, although usually all the male students who were in the same class with Ms. DiMartino, including Lincoln, would immediately lose their concentration and almost faint from her attractiveness.

This time, he didn't care at all: the cold was still there, and he was struggling with the same problem as before: how to keep himself warm. Today they were to go over a new subject and learn a new grammatical rule of the French language. At times French was so sophisticated, but therefore called romantic.

Time flew by pretty quickly and Ms. DiMartino decided to ask the class one last question:

— All right, kids! What do we say if we suddenly come up with an idea we've been thinking about for a long time?

The boys, charmed by her beauty, couldn't answer out of embarrassment and instead mumbled something unintelligible.

Lincoln, by a happy coincidence, finally came to a solution to his problem and sincerely shouted out the correct answer:

— Eureka! — Actually, he had no intention of answering Ms. DiMartino's question, because he had listened to it just as poorly as to everything else he had been taught all day in other classes.

— Well done, Lincoln! — praised his teacher, — But the correct word is Eurêka ! (Note: you can check for correct pronunciation in French) We will finish our lesson for today, and the homework will be...

Before she could finish her phrase, Lincoln flew out of the classroom and skipped to the restroom. He went to one of the sinks, turned the faucets on full blast, and put his hands in front of it, expecting to get hot water.

And here Lincoln got a very unpleasant surprise — instead of hot water he got ice-cold water on his hands. He immediately removed them and shut off the water. What a pity! He had completely forgotten that there was no heating today. (Note: I could be wrong about whether the heating and hot water systems could be connected together).

When the last class was over, Lincoln's situation had obviously not changed for the better, but on the contrary: his hands were almost stiff, no matter how much he tried to rub them, he felt worse, he was shivering more, but he didn't show it to anybody.

He decided to just go home, running down the hall one more time before doing so. He thought that could probably help. On the next corner, he saw Ronnie-Ann, his best friend, about to enter the classroom, but as Lincoln ran past her, she decided to call out to him.

— Hey, loser! — she said jokingly.

When he heard her call, he stopped, turned around, and headed straight to her. Lincoln knew it was just a joke and that this was the only word she would call him.

— Why are you running like you've been shot in the ass? — Ronnie-Anne joked back and laughed at her originality. Lincoln, however, did not appreciate the humor.

When he came closer, she saw his shaking, white hands, and the smile fell from her face right away.

— What's that? — She asked and touched his hands.

— Oh-oh, — she said, — how long have you been walking like that?

— It's fine! — Lincoln answered her shyly, avoiding answering her question, and hid his hands in his pockets.

— Don't joke around, Lincoln, it's not funny. You can freeze your fingers off like that, you know that? Let's go, — she motioned for him to enter the classroom, nodding her head at the door.

— It's gonna be fine! I'll just run around one more time and…

Ronnie-Anne silently grabbed Lincoln and pulled him into the classroom with all her power. It was absolutely useless for him to resist, because she was much stronger than him. The confirmation of this is that Lincoln, while still being the object of her many taunts and pranks, still couldn't respond to her for all that.

After locking the door behind her and putting the key in her pocket so that Lincoln wouldn't run away, she sat him down at the desk and went to the corner of the classroom. There, she plugged in the heater that stood in that very corner. Then, she sat down at the same desk next to Lincoln and covered herself with her jacket.

— I'm on duty today, so I got the keys, — she explained to him. — I've just been told that the heat won't be on for about a week, and it's a pretty bad idea to sit in jackets all the way along, so I'm turning on the heaters in every classroom. Good thing you're at school. You wouldn't have made it home.

— Wouldn't I have?

— Of course not! How did you even think of going outside like that?

— Well, — Lincoln tried to explain himself, but she stopped him.

— Don't. Next time, just don't do that, okay? You'll be warm in no time now.

Now Lincoln had three thoughts going through his head: «What a fool I was to go out like that», «I'll finally get warm» and «Thank her, she's so great!». After a while, she decided to talk to him:

— So, how's it going, Linc?

— Pretty good.

— Why don't you come to the park with us tomorrow? A new skating rink is now open there. The whole town's skating there.

— I'll definitely come! — Lincoln agreed eagerly, because he didn't often go to the skating rink, especially in recent weeks, because of the housework.

So they sat there for a while, talking about various everyday topics, how they had spent their day, what was new, and so on...

Finally, Ronnie-Anne asked:

— Hey, loser! What conclusions have you come to?

— I'm never going out without a jacket again!

— That's right! Ha ha! — then, more thoughtfully, — Are you okay? Did you warm up?

— Yeah.

— All right, get out of here! Only the classroom helper is allowed to be here after classes finish!

— Come on, let me help you.

— No, no, no, you go ahead. I can do it myself. Tomorrow is your shift anyway, — she said and headed for the exit. Lincoln was about to do the same, but before he left the classroom, he found the confidence to tell her:

— Ronnie-Anne! — he called out to her as he came closer. She turned around, — I just want to say thank you! Thank you so much!

— No problem... — She replied, a little embarrassed, but she didn't show it, — You just don't scare me like that anymore!

— I'll do my best. Okay, see you later.

— Uh-huh.

They slammed their fists together and Lincoln walked out of the school and headed straight home...

Yeah, that was the warmest memory he could think of at that moment that could warm him right now. He remembered his friendship with Ronnie-Anne.

He also remembered that a couple years later, the coronavirus would strike the world and Royal Woods would become one of those American cities that would go into unprecedented decline with the closing of most businesses, a mass people outflow, and a shocking increase in crime rate. People remembered a situation of similar scale only with Detroit, but Detroit was only a single case in the complete US.

Worried about the future of their children and fearing for their own safety in a city almost completely destroyed by the crisis, the parents made such a difficult decision, packed up all their belongings, including those of their children, sold the house and moved to Canada.

Lincoln looked back with sadness to that happy, carefree time when he didn't have to worry about his distant future or what would happen tomorrow. Duties, cares, and problems had grown gradually, and Lincoln had almost drowned in them, but at times, such as when he went to bed or was alone with himself, he still managed to escape into his world of memories.

A world where there were no fears about his future, and the only thing that mattered was when the new Ace Savvy comic book would come out, or what prank to pull in class that everyone would appreciate. Finding more and more of those warm memories from his childhood in mind, Lincoln smiled involuntarily. His own opinion on everything that happened changed as he grew older. At first, he had cried, regretting that those times would never return. Years had passed, and now the regret had been replaced by an almost philosophical calm and attitude.

The neural connections, like the paths of the most used and convenient routes used by all inhabitants of any city on Earth, had been trampled. Now, in order for them to weaken and henceforth not to cause a parting pain, it is necessary to spend a considerable amount of time in matters and worries not related to Royal Woods in any way. But, it is also necessary to periodically give free rein to the thoughts connected with Royal Woods and not to suppress them.

Yes, it's not easy and it's quite painful. Yes, the Louds will never forget their city and will keep the memory of it for the rest of their lives. However, everything must come to an end one day, any event, any childhood, and Lincoln realized this later, at a rather conscious age. It became very clear to him that it was time to move on.