Sterling… I am waiting for you… free me… please… your mother… my mother… she did this… to me… please come find me… brother…

Sterling woke up, still trying to make sense of his dreams. He had been having this recurring exchange every night.

It had been a few days. The rest of their seeds had grown, and they saved half of the crops to eat, and the other half to sell. They put half of the saved crops into the seed maker and planted them again. Maple kept all the jazz flowers and put them in an empty jar of crystal fruit jelly she found in the cellar. The siblings had bought beds from Robin, and began redecorating their rooms. They used a mop, borrowed from Gunther, to scrape the slime from the wallpaper. Maple's room had photos pinned up, her camera on a nightstand, her plushies in a pile, and her potted plants arranged in various places. Mom had always jokingly called the place "Junimo Jungle." Sterling had a smaller bedroom, with ocean themed wallpaper that his mother had put up when he was a baby.

Today, the siblings were practicing cooking. The house still had power, somehow, so the stove still worked. They had already made salad, using foraged greens and a recipe that Starla had copied down from a TV show and left in her backpack. There was nearly 70 recipes in total, all tied together to make a crude cookbook. She had gathered these recipes from all kinds of sources: TV, friends, Gus's saloon, and even some ideas she had come up with on her own. Right now, Maple was mixing the batter for a pink cake, while Sterling chopped up a melon from the fridge. There was a lot of other things in the fridge, like bottles of milk and cartons of eggs. None of them had gone bad, perhaps because of the Golden Clock's magic. The melon had been diced, so Sterling scraped it into the bowl. Maple mixed it in and poured the pink batter into a pan and put it in the oven. Peep had waddled into the kitchen and nestled itself into an empty cup in the egg carton.

"Well, the cake won't be done for a while. What'cha wanna do?"

"Let's go hang out in town."

"Ooh! Let's check out the pizzeria!"

The brother and sister held hands and walked into town, Peep trailing at their heels, only to learn that the pizza shop was closed, and it wouldn't open until noon. Instead, they went to the community center.

The community center was covered in vines, but the structure seemed okay. They went in, and were instantly met with darkness. Maple took the flashlight keychain off her backpack and turned it on. Inside, it looked as if nothing had changed. The furniture was intact, save for a few scratches. The fish in the fish tank were still there, although it looked like the fish tanks at JojaMart, with dead fish on the false seafloor. Then suddenly, as the flashlight hit a couch, a slime jumped from behind it. Another one jumped out of the fish tank. A few oozed out of the vault.

"…um, Sterling?"

"Yeah?"

"L-lets get out of here."

"Way ahead of you"

So they ran. They burst out of the Community Center, vowing never to return. Sterling knew that they would probably come back next week. They didn't stop until they were home. The cake was still in the oven, miraculously not burnt.

Realizing he didn't have an oven mitt, Sterling used his hoodie sleeve to take the hot pans out of the oven. He accidentally burnt his arm on the top of the oven while he was reaching for the last layer of cake. Jumping back, he grabbed his wrist with his other hand. When he let go, the burn had decreased in size and pain. Weird, he thought. Maple got the frosting they had made earlier and put a dollop on the bottommost layer with a spatula, the way her mom had always done. With the tips written on the recipe card and Sterling's coaching ("You're knocking it over, stop using so much force!"), the cake was frosted and topped with the contents of a box of candy hearts. After Maple took a photo with her camera, they cut the cake and ate it.

"Mmm, this is really good!"

"I'm just happy to have a decent slice for once."

"Yeah, Grandma never gave you much cake when we had it."

"She really liked you better and didn't even hide it."

"I'm glad we left."

"Hey, the Saloo- Pizzeria should be open by now."

"Let's go!"

They put the leftovers in the fridge and went off.