We arrived at the place called the Mystery Shack. I was carried inside. The smell was familiar, but nothing else.

Stanley kept shaking me. “Do you remember anything?”

I sniffed the air. “It smells like expensive cologne. I remember that.”

The other old man limped in behind us, holding onto the wall. He coughed again. I wondered what had happened to him. “That’s good-” he grumbled.

An angry man marched up to the old men. He pushed Stanley. “WHAT DID YOU DO!”

Stanley dropped me and fell into the wall. “What did I do? I saved you daughter, that’s what! Bill was gonna make her jump off a roof!”

“What?” The man, who I was assuming was my dad, looked at me. “Ria?”

That was my name, I realized. “...yes? You’re talking to me, right?”

He sighed and hugged me. Why was everyone so sad? I wasn’t dead.

I heard a laugh inside of my head. This is perfect! A joyful voice said. Forget breaking your legs; you don’t even know who I am!

I didn’t know who was talking to me, but I decided to not show weakness. Sure I do!

Oh yeah? Who am I then, sixer?
Sixer?

Look at your hands, freak.

I looked at my hands. Holy hot sauce, I had six fingers on each. I screeched.

“No-n- Calm. Down.” The weak old man demanded. He showed me his hand. He had the same weird extra finger. “It’s okay, see?”

My dad got an idea. I could tell by the look on his face. I definitely recognized the expression. “The journals. See if she remembers anything from the journals.”

Stanley pulled 5 huge books out of the bag that apparently I had been carrying on me. “Do these look familiar?”

I shook my head. “I don’t- what’s going on?”

The weak old man sighed. “I’ll get to work on taking apart the memory gun.”

Memory gun? Did they use that on me to erase my memories? I quickly pulled away from all of them. “You erased my memory!” I cried.

Stanley hesitated. “We had to kid- to save you!”

“HORRIBLE! YOU ALL ARE HORRIBLE PEOPLE!” Tears rolled down my cheeks. I quickly bolted outside and darted into the woods. 

The weak old man coughed again. “Don’t let her in the forest!”

I glanced over my shoulder. My dad ran out of the house and started chasing me.

I gasped and ran faster. Horrible, I told myself over and over again. Horrible. Horrible.

I’ll help you get your memories back, a voice said to me. It was different from the last one. But, you will forget everything that happened after you lost it.

No! I protested, hiding behind some strange triangular stature man in the woods. I don’t even know who you are! How can I trust you!?

I am the Axolotl, the voice said. I hold all of the secrets of the universe. You can trust me.

The Axolotl? I recognized that from somewhere. And if I knew about this being, somewhere in my subconscious mind, then I figured I could trust it.

Okay, I said to it. Please, Axolotl. Restore my memories.

I looked around, realizing where I was. How did I get next to Bill’s statue? One minute I was on the roof, and the next I was in the woods.

Dad ran up to me. “Ria, you can’t go running off like tha-!”

I quickly hugged him. I was confused and a little scared.

He went silent and put his hand on my back. “What’s going on?”

“How did I get out here, Dad?” I whispered to him.

He seemed to realize something. I couldn’t tell what, though. “You don’t remember running out here?”

I shook my head. I took in his scent. He always smelled like woodsmoke, despite mostly working with metal. “One minute I was on the roof…and now I’m here.”

He nodded slowly. “Let’s head back to the shack. I need to talk to Great Uncle Ford.”

My dad went into the vending machine elevator and headed downstairs to talk to my grunkle.

I looked at Stan, who was sitting in his chair. I walked up to him. “So…when’s the last time you remember being here?” I asked to start a conversation. “Didn’t you abandon it to go on a trip with your brother?”

He sighed and set his soda beside him. “It was more than just a trip, kiddo. It was an adventure. You don’t understand the lengths me and Ford went through after the whole portal fiasco just to be decent human beings to each other again.”

“Actually..Ford kind of told me the story.”

“Oh, did he?”

I nodded and sat on the armrest. I’ve never been this close to Stan in the day or so that I’ve known him. At least not that I could recall. He had the same expensive smell as the Mystery Shack. It wasn’t easy to explain, but it had a sort of threatening feel to it. But as I sat there, taking in the old man’s presence, it actually started to feel sort of comforting. “He talked about how you pushed him into the portal…”

“...you wanna see something?” He said quietly, sliding off his coat.

I shrugged and nodded. 

The shirt under his coat bared his shoulders and arms. For an old man with a dad bod, the guy had some sick arm muscles. Which again added to the whole threatening-but-then-reassuring feel that Stan gave off.

Plastered onto the back of his right shoulder was a strange looking symbol. It seemed to be a tattoo, by the purple-tint to it.

“What does it mean?”

He scoffed. “Ask my nerdy bro. All I know is that it was not intentional. Before the whole portal thing went down, he asked me to take his journal, and hide it where no one could find it, as far away as possible. And you see..I guess he didn’t understand how much I missed him. I was so excited to see my twin brother again, and I was just furious when he immediately pushed me away. That hog had been using his college money all for himself while I had been living in my car… I felt humiliated. Just like I did back home.” He sighed, then looked at me in my sympathetic eyes. He quickly stiffened his expression. “But anyways, we got into a fight, or more of a jostle honestly, and he kicked me into this burning symbol thing. A year or so after I brought him out of the portal he saw it again, and I knew he felt bad. The guilt in his eyes was something that I’ve never really seen before in him.”

“Oh,” I said quietly. “So it’s not a tattoo. It’s a scar.”

He nodded. “A permanent reminder that I’m responsible for my brother’s disappearance.”

“But you’re also responsible for bringing him back,” I quickly added. “That’s not something many people can say, you know. ‘I brought my six-fingered twin brother back from an untallied amount of alternate dimensions by restoring his portal that most scientists would consider impossible.’ That’s incredible, Grunkle Stan.”

He smiled a bit. I could’ve sworn I saw a tear in his eye, but if I did then it was only for a moment. “Come on…how about we go get some ice cream?”

“ICE CREAM?” I heard Theo shout from the gift shop.

“Did someone say ice cream?” Soos said after him.

Stan sighed. “I guess you knuckleheads and come too.”