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This is new.
It is new, and very, very different.
Then again, everything about this place is new and different, and no matter how much the adults say this will become familiar with time, Jinto is not convinced.
Not when doors open up into rooms with things on the wall that light up and send him to other places in the city completely.
Not when the stars in the night sky are hidden behind walls and unable to light his path.
And not when – as awesome as it is – he can hear the waves when he closes his eyes and concentrates on the sounds that are not footsteps and people and things being shifted.
He's not scared, though. Not really, anyway. This is amazing, almost too exciting to believe – especially because the boxes from Earth came here with him. Maybe he can peek inside them without-
The thought departs as soon as Jinto steps around the boxes and looks out into the room. Ohhhhhh…
Tables and buttons like in the control room (as those from Earth called the main room) and things in the wall like in the room he just came out of. This is officially the best room he's been in in all of the city.
So Jinto doesn't stop himself from running his fingers across the tables. There is a lot of dirt, like no one has been in this room for a very, very long time. Maybe not since the Ancestors lived here.
That thought is kind of scary, and Jinto pauses for a minute.
This really is the Ancestors' city. The Ancestors are real.
In that pause, he looks up and sees it.
Metal and some other things, and it's kind of flickering. Like a candle inside of a glass lamp, but the glass can't be seen through completely.
And there's a slight werrr-whooshing sound coming from it. Maybe there's something in there.
Jinto's fingers run across the top of the thing until they touch a button. Quickly, before he thinks twice, he pushes it, and steps back, waiting to see what happens. The dimmed lights in the room flicker for maybe half a moment in response, but nothing else.
Content with knowing it wasn't much of anything, Jinto presses the button again (because it's what he's seen the people from Earth do when they press buttons), then starts looking around again.
It is very late. Maybe it's time to go back to his room.