IDENTITY- Assasination Classroom Fanfic (Ft. OC x Asano Gakushuu)

53: The Key to the Padlock (unsolved)

One day into the tomorrow and tomorrow of no end. The old man coughed, in succession for more, with no end. Within his embrace a child of three years old. He tried to shelter her from the cold, it seemed.

She did not utter a word, feeding the old man's panic. Her complexion was pale and waxy. 'Please, please say a word,' he prayed.

On the path ahead, over many naked trees, the old man can not believe -- he set his eyes on a small cottage and firewood storage, where stacks of wood lay. No smoke coming out from the cottage's chimney.

"Child, we made it beyond the curtains."

The child didn't move or reply. He carried her forward. One more half mile. The windows of the cottage stayed unlit as they approached. He tried to listen above the rush of blood in his ears. No dogs, no torches. Probably they have gone where else. He set Arina on the doorstep and knocked softly with his two remaining fingers and waited and knocked again.

And so they waited and waited until the old man realized there was a bump in the carpet at the threshold. He lifted it -- a key to the padlock.

"...Where is this, grandpa?" the child finally uttered some words after heating up long enough in front of the fireplace the old man lit a while ago.

"Ta da!" he said. "We're at last, beyond the Iron Curtains! That means we're free to explore the world hereafter! But first, we will have to put in some energy before embarking on the exciting adventure!"

In the kitchen was a pot of potato soup, garlic bread, and a jar of cookies. The old man brought a bowlful of soup and several cookies and filled a glass of water and fed them to the child.

Simple taste, but for the young Arina it tasted like the whole world. She began to tear up out of tasting something so good, so mind-blowingly good, as though everything else had shut down and this was the only thing that mattered, never in a billion years she can imagine it out.

The old man wiped her face with a cloth. Walk the paths of logic. Every outcome has its cause, and every predicament has its solution. You can go back to the campus or you can stay here or you can go on.

Arina didn't finish the meal. Not that she was full, but in fear of running out of food, she stopped.

"Zdravstvuite!" she said to the grandpa, standing on the chair of the dining set. "I may be only a girl of three, but I am a brave Normadian explorer who has come to help you with your adventures!"

The old man adopted a new persona, "Good evening, gospozha, why don't you come to the jungle with me and eat these butterflies, they are as big as dinner plates and may not be poisonous, who knows?"

"I would love to eat your butterflies, but first I will eat these cookies!"

Sometime later, they climbed onto the flying bed and sit side by side, and the old man said, "Where to tonight, gospozha?"

"The jungle!"

"Oh, it's a long journey this time," the old man will say in an entirely new voice, smooth, velvety as if a conductor's. "That's the Atlantic Ocean far below, it's shining under the moonlight, can you see it? Feel how cold it is up here? Feel the wind in your hair?"

"Where are we now, grandpa?"

"We're in Borneo, can't you tell? We're skimming the treetops now, big leaves are glimmering below us!"

Arina can see that they were flying over the trees of Borneo with her imagination. She took a deep breath of fresh air in. What an exhilarating experience. Have you ever wanted to forget a dream is only a dream? Imagination is only imagination? Arina embraced her imagination as her reality.