“Anne...where are we?” I mumbled. I saw Anne blink and rub her eyes. We were standing in a space, a completely light red space. I could not see any walls, it was like this red land was stretched over miles and miles of the Earth. I looked up, the sky was red. A light, soft red. Not a scary red. The air was a very light red too, and looked weird. The air, and the ground too, had a weird, reddish grainy look to it. The only thing in sight was a piece of paper. I bent down and picked it up.
“Does it say anything?” Anne said in a small voice. I read it aloud.
“It says, ‘The Red Room. In here, thoughts you will find, when you say the name of the person's mind.’ What does that mean?”
“I don’t know.” Anne thought hard. “Thoughts you will find. The name of the person’s mind. Okay, so it sounds like you see thoughts...but whose thoughts? And why can’t we see any thoughts?”
“The name of the person’s mind. Do we say someone’s name?” I wondered. “Kate. Kate Crimson.” The room swirled. My vision turned red, so I squeezed my eyes to blink the red out. When I opened my eyes, I gasped.
“Anne...Anne, open your eyes.” Anne was still rubbing her eyes.
“But all I see is red!” She complained.
“Open.” I repeated. Anne did, and gasped. She twirled around. As far as we could see, there were words and images. There was a little sign on the ground now, that said, ‘Kate Crimson - Thoughts.’
“These...this is my mind?” I marveled. “These are my thoughts?”
“Wow!” Anne exclaimed. There were images and random sentences from today. I saw the treehouse, the stones, and my mom waving. I saw clouds, with sentences and other things I had thought today. Next to the image of my mom, ranting, was a cloud, that said, ‘Lie...lie…I need a lie. What could be so fun that I leave every day for it? A game!’
“Hey!” I sputtered. “I...I thought that today!” Anne turned around.
“What could be so fun…...a game.” Anne read. “Wow, you thought that?” I nodded. I walked past these images and clouds, and saw memories and thoughts from yesterday. I started to run, so did Anne, farther and farther. The farther we went, the longer time ago were the memories.
“That's from the celebration!” I exclaimed, pointing at an image of Unther speaking. The memory showed what I saw, through my eyes. It showed me looking at my parents, clapping. As the memory showed Unther finishing his speech, a cloud popped up, and it read, ‘Finally, I’m starving.’ I laughed.
“That’s exactly when I thought that!” I smiled. “This is amazing!” We ran as far as we could, and saw memories and thoughts from months, then years ago.
“Wait, will we have to run all the way back to the center? To see the recent memories?” Anne finally said. Suddenly, we were being pulled backwards, very fast, so fast I could barely see the memories that we were whooshing past. We fell down on the ground. I stood up.
“Does that answer your question?” I giggled. We were back in the center, surrounded by my more recent memories.
“Yes!” Anne laughed. I went back to one memory I almost forgot about. At that moment, a new square popped up, showing the Red Room, and Anne and I exploring it. I went back to the memory I found, it was shown through my eyes, like the rest of the memories. I saw myself looking at a guy, Wesley. I had started to like him a few months ago, but forgot about it because of the stones.
“Hey, Kate!” Anne called. “What’cha looking at?”
“Nothing!” I said quickly. Darn, that was an obvious lie. A new memory popped up as I thought that. Anne raised an eyebrow. She looked over my shoulder and saw Wesley, smiling shyly. A mischievous grin spread across Anne’s face.
“Anne-” A cloud popped up next to the image. ‘I like him so much!’ My face turned red.
“Aw, you guys would make such a cute couple!” Anne cooed.
“Anne, no wait!” I started. “It’s-” Anne giggled.
“Relax, I won’t tell anyone.” She promised.
“Okay, thanks.” I was relieved. I glanced back and saw another part of my mind. There were no images, no memories.
“What’s over there?” I wondered. Anne shrugged.
“I dunno. Let’s check it out!” We ran over to the area. There were jumbles of stuff, from different years.
“These aren’t memories!” I realized. These were in circles, not squares. I knew what they were. Anne didn’t.
“But then what are they?”
“My ideas! My ideas for plans, and inventions! These are all the ideas I’ve ever had! They aren’t in memory form because these are the ones I only dreamed about, the ones I never actually did!” I pointed out all my ideas for inventions.
“That one is a fish catcher, fish can swim right into it! That one there? Oh, haha! That one…” We spent a little while looking at inventions.
“Hey, Kate. Are those inventions over there?” Anne pointed to another area. I ran over to it, Anne close behind.
“No. I don’t know what…” I smiled. “Wait, these are my dreams!” I laughed and smiled as I whirled around and saw all the dreams I’ve ever had.
“I don’t remember a lot of these.” I said in amazement. “I guess I really do forget a lot of dreams. Ooh, that’s the dream I had last night, where I was flying. That is a nightmare, I had when I was seven, when those carved squashes I was so afraid of came to life! That one there…” The dreams were amazing. I could’ve sworn the area over here had an even softer red, a more...dreamlike red.
“Hey, can we do my mind?” Anne exclaimed.
“Yeah! Anne Azure!” The Red Room swirled again. Instead of my memories and a sign of my name, the room now held Anne’s memories and a sign that read, ‘Ane Azure - Thoughts’.
“Wo-ho-ow!” Anne squealed. “Come on!” Anne showed me her thoughts, ideas, and dreams. I found out she liked Alex, who we had seen walking by the forest.
“He must like you too!” I exclaimed. “He turned all red when he saw us!” Anne blushed. I laughed. We found out if you say a certain date or person, memories come up with that date or person. We also found out the room gets smaller if a person is small-minded and the room gets really big if the person is open-minded or very, very, adventurous or smart. We spent the next two hours looking at her memories, and also other people’s memories. We found out you could see anyone’s memories. We went into Wesley's mind and found out he liked me too. We went into my mom’s mind and saw she missed me but was glad I was having fun. We finally decided to leave.
“Anne, we should leave. I have to get home before dark.” Anne agreed. We also decided not to go into anyone’s mind except ours, unless it was an emergency.
“Okay, I think we can just take off the rings and we’ll go back.” I muttered. We pulled off the rings, and the Red Room slowly disappeared. It was cool though, to see holes forming, then the room turning black. We landed back in the treehouse.
“That. Was. Awesome!” Anne gasped. I agreed. It was almost sunset, so we put the rings back (except the blue ones) and walked home.
“That was pretty amazing.” I sighed. “We could see our memories, thoughts, ideas, and dreams.”
“That was so cool.” Anne agreed. “Who knows what the future can hold? Or in this case, who knows what power the orange stone can hold!”