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A small dog runs about in the rain and quickly hides under a car. Lina is in her room and her father is reading a short story to help her try and sleep. "But if you sleep now, you're going to miss the ending," replied her father. Lina was too tired to hear the rest, so off went the lights. The storm outside seemed like forever. When the next morning came, everything was dry.
"Wake up Lina!" someone from outside yelled. Lina gets up and sees who it is. It's Akemi. She had overslept.
"I'll be right down, you'll see!" Lina quickly gets dressed and runs outside.
Lina's brother Danto tries to look for her and yells "Hey! Where did she go?" Danto and the others run around looking. "There she is!" cries out Rennan. Lina was staring at air, really at just nothing.
On the docks at sunset, Lina is sitting down and soon Dante joins her at viewing the dusk.
"It's a nice view," Danto says. Lina nods in agreement.
"What was wrong with you back there?" asked Danto, "You were just looking at the sky." His sister doesn't say anything.
"Well anyway, the locals are going to put up the tree for the village's 50th anniversary, you coming to see it?" he asked her. Lina simply nodded yes. Danto gets up to head for the house and Lina shortly follows.
When he gets home, he slams the door and his mother scolds him, "Danto it's late, be quiet!" He then plops onto his bed and tries to fall asleep.
All of a sudden, a voice speaks out to him: "Kinayao? Kinayao?" Danto becomes frightened. What's that voice? Where is it coming from?
Whoever or whatever it was, Danto couldn't determine whether he was still awake or not. There was a lot of blurry movement and vision delay, it was difficult to perceive what was in front of him. White light surrounds the room and Danto is sucked into it and into an unfamiliar place. Where am I? After waking up, he's too afraid to tell anyone about his bizarre incident.
Lina wakes up a little while after. "We're going to meet at the playground, are you going to come?" asks her brother. Lina nods. The two children take off and meet with the others: Rennan, Mae, Akemi and Cirio. The boys play basketball while Lina, Mae, and Akemi spend time talking. Danto heads off for some water. When he comes back, everyone is gone.
"Where did everybody go?" he wonders. At the treehouse, Lina talks to the other people about her so-called strange visit.
"Why did you take us here, Lina? We shouldn't have left Danto behind," explains Cirio.
"I went there again last night. I went back to Kinayao. I finally got to unlock my memories and see myself when I was four," says Lina. "I also met up with friends from the other islands. They must have logged in around the same time as I did."
Everyone is amazed. Suddenly, the sound of footsteps halts everything. Rennan looks outside. "It's your brother, he's here!" he exclaims. Everybody rushes out of the treehouse.
"There you guys are. Why did all of you leave?" Danto asks when he sees them. Everyone looks at him in an odd way. "Come now Lina, let's go home."
It's beginning to get dark outside as both Lina and Danto are walking back to the house. Lina has her head down the entire time.
"What are you hiding?" asks Danto. Lina tries to ignore him. "There's something I don't know, right?"
They return to the house and Lina sits down. Danto tries to somewhat urge her to shed some light on the subject.
"I can't tell you," she replies while insisting he won't understand. Understand what? Danto asks to himself. This is too strange, I don't know what to say.
Lina looks at him. "There's nothing strange about it, Danto. It's just that some people can't comprehend it right away, that's all," she says. Danto is in shock.
"How did you do that? You knew..." he reacts in a distraught manner. "How did I do what?" Lina asks.
"You knew what I was thinking, what I was saying, what I was asking myself," he exclaims openly.
"It's okay, Danto. The thing about Kinayao is that you don't go there by yourself, it's Kinayao that takes you there in your sleep, in the very depths of subconsciousness where the memories of every living and once-living human being is stored in a universal database which everyone's memory files can be opened and viewed. What I did was aural reception. We are all connected some way, shape or form," explains Lina.
"Kinayao? What is Kinayao? Why didn't you tell me about this before? I don't know anything about it!" Danto yells.
"But you do," says Lina, "I know you've been there already, and you just visited for the very first time." Danto takes a seat and confesses that everything she had just said was true.
The next morning comes and Dante is in bed. He looks outside his bedroom door and sees Lina walk past through the hallway. He gets up and sits for a while. Inside, he feels guilty for not having trusted her or believing her.
"The 50th anniversary of Catane will be held today, and as a memorial, the Salimao Tree will be raised in the center of the village, decorated and litted tonight," explains the news reporter on the television. Danto reacts suddenly, having forgotten about the event. He quickly gets dressed and hurries over to Rennan's house. When he arrives, Cirio is already there.
"You guys going to the lighting of the tree?" Danto asks. "Of course," says Rennan, "I haven't forgotten." Cirio tells him that they're planning on meeting with the girls Mae and Akemi later that day.
By the afternoon, the center of the village is already getting crowded. The boys finally meet up with the girls.
"Where's Lina?" asks Akemi. Lina was nowhere to be found. When it becomes dark, the ceremony is already taking place. The tree is carried out and placed on the ground. Villagers begin to dress it with lights and decorations. When it was all finished, the tree lighted up the entire village and it was a wonderous sight. Everybody is cheering and applauding loudly, except for Danto.
"What's the matter, Danto?" asks Mae.
"I was just thinking about how much Lina would have wanted to see all this," Danto says.
Tired from the activities, Danto heads home. When he arrives, he sights Lina cringing on the couch.
"There you are, all of us were wondering where you were," he tells her.
"I missed it, I missed the lighting of the tree, didn't I?" she replies sadly.
"Yeah, you missed a great night," says Danto.
"And there's no way I can ever see it," Lina exclaims.
Danto proceeds to sit down next to her. "But I was there and saw everything," Danto says, "I still remember everything that happened and I know you can have the chance to see it all too. You can still go to Kinayao, right? See my memories of the lighting of the tree there."
Lina lifts her head and smiles in agreement. The two siblings sleep and log in.
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