Carl, 20 years earlier

Kisses for me,

save all your kisses for me.

Bye-bye, baby, bye-bye!

Don't cry, honey, don't cry!

Gonna walk out the door

But I'll soon be back for more!

Again and again, the music from the back room of the bunker reached the twins. Not particularly loud, with a slight crackling. But without scratches, and the player didn't wobble either. And no sooner had the melody faded away than the arm of the record player had already returned to its starting position, playing the piece again. Carl was actually of the opinion that 'Let's Love Together', the B-side of the single on the turntable, was the better of the two songs, but Dennis didn't like it, and Carl considered that. Just as he always took his twin's opinion into consideration.

"Mom and Dad will get us out of here soon!" He approached Dennis from behind and stopped about a meter away. 'They have to do something important and have put us here so that we are safe.'

Instead of answering, Dennis just kept staring at the wall.

Carl thought he heard a suppressed sob.

They had simply woken up here. Quite a while ago, maybe a week already. There were no windows or clocks in this concrete room, which their parents had prepared for them. Nothing that offered the siblings any sense of time. But they had found a whole pallet of water bottles, next to which were piles of boxes of food that they could eat without having to use any cooking skills. In second grade, Mrs. Ridley had once shown her students how to make a sandwich with simple tools and without a knife, but this skill was optional for Carl and Dennis in their temporary accommodation. Besides bananas and apples, there were tons of snack meats, rice pudding, cheese cubes, pretzel sticks, and potato chips. And chocolate! Their parents had left Carl and Dennis with tons of it, probably as an apology for not waking their twins up once before driving the two of them to their temporary vacation accommodation. They had come up with a great adventure for their two darlings, and while Carl felt that he hadn't lost his appetite for it yet, he sensed that Dennis felt differently. At least they were still waiting in vain for an explanation of their challenging situation.

"Why do you keep looking at it?" Carl hadn't noticed any movement in Dennis. Now he, too, looked at the place on the wall where Dennis had been staring wordlessly for an eternity.

"It's there because it's watching over us! "Dennis's voice was cracked, sounding like a suppressed sob trying to hide behind it.

"That's right!" Carl beamed from ear to ear. "That's why it's looking at us. Mom and Dad put it there for us, so we know we're safe."

"Mom and Dad just hid us here so we couldn't find our way home. "Now Dennis hung his head.

"No!" Carl shouted so loudly that Dennis winced. "You're lying! Mom and Dad are taking care of us, and when they hear what you say about them, you're in trouble!" Carl would have liked to have grabbed Dennis by the shoulder and shaken him. What was all this talk about? No one was more loving and caring than their parents; even the other children at school envied the twins. They always got the best birthday presents; each got the ones they wished for. And if the twins hoped for the same thing, they just got it twice, one for each. Okay, their parents didn't have that much money. Dad worked in a factory where he fixed the machines when they broke, and Mom stayed at home with the twins, playing and romping with them and cooking the best spaghetti in the world. Carl wondered what had just gotten into Dennis's head to say such a thing about the two of them? "The door is locked tight! I tried to open it with a nail, but it didn't work. Mom and Dad ensured no one could come and get us!"

There, a creaking sound was heard. A sound that could not be identified by children, but it had clearly come from the hallway with the flickering neon light.

"There they come!" Carl threw his arms in the air. 'I told you so!' Immediately, he ran as fast as his thin legs would carry him. Now Dennis would see who had been right! Dad had obviously already put the key in the lock from the outside, and the sound of him turning it would follow in a moment. Now Carl and Dennis would finally know what was so urgent that their parents had brought them here without warning. It was only seconds before Carl reached the door.

"Hello! There you are at last!" Carl drummed on the cold metal, his calls filled with joy and relief. He waited, jumping and laughing, for the door to finally open and for their parents to stand before him. What a great ride home awaited them all now! Mom and Dad would report on the exciting things they had experienced, and he and Dennis would tell them how well they had managed independently. They hadn't been afraid and told each other stories before falling asleep. They would definitely pass a McDonald's and eat there together! That and much more would happen as soon as Dad opened the door from the outside.

"They won't be back. "Dennis' voice pulled Carl out of his thoughts.

He couldn't have told how long he had been waiting in front of the heavy metal door. Although the song started over at least twice during that time, Kisses for me, save all your kisses for me.

"Probably!" Carl lowered his gaze and kicked the door. "They just went back because they forgot something."

Now, he felt Dennis' hands on his shoulders. The two had spent almost every moment together since birth. Each knew the other as well as they knew themselves. And each could feel what the other felt. So it was now for Carl as if a part of Dennis' fear flowed to him while he transferred some of his courage and good faith to Dennis.

"I know it for a fact." Dennis sounded authoritative. 'Mom and Dad aren't coming to get us. Nobody's coming to get us.'

Carl wanted to slap Dennis' hands off his shoulders and start raging angrily. But he stopped himself. No, that's not true! Dennis is lying! They're coming to get us very soon! He turned around and said calmly, as his anger allowed him: "Let's look at the poster together and listen to the song, yes? I bet they'll return before the song has played ten times."

Dennis looked at Carl with a mixture of concern and confidence. "All right." A tear ran down Dennis' cheek. "Maybe you're right."