The blue door with the small circular window stood open.

Taylor entered the room last, watching each of his friend’s faces change as they walked into the room they had slept 360 nights in.

He hadn’t expected it to look so much like a normal bedroom. Although the room was incredibly large, it seemed to fit everything inside of it quite well. Three queen-sized mattresses lined one wall, each with different pillows and blankets showing the personalities of each sleeper. Names had been drawn above each pillow in marker, and Taylor watched as each member of the team seemed drawn to their usual sleeping arrangements.

Anna picked up the teddy bear lying on her pillow and buried her face in the soft material. “I won this after a combat battle between my instructor's best student and I...it smells like lavender, helped me sleep at night.”

Kent sat down on the same bed, their names next to each other on the wall. “It’s weird being in here again...it’s been such a long time, but it doesn’t feel like that.”

Christopher and August stood on each side of their shared bed, looking around with mixed expressions. “Yo, check it out! My nightstand, I’d put my boogers here when I would wake up and not wanna disturb sleeping beauty.” Augustus laughed, slumping on top of his covers with his arms resting lazily behind his head.

“Gross...” Collin muttered from the bed closest to the door. He had slept alone, but the wall beside the door was covered with artwork. A spiraling network of flowers and branches and leaves spread across the wall and Collin sat on the side of his bed to view the artwork. 

Chris picked up a notebook and flipped through the pages experimentally. “August, where’d you put your diary?”

“Dude it’s not a diary! It’s a journal, a ‘diary’ is for a chick.” Augustus protested, “It’s under my mattress pad, I didn’t like thinking anyone would read it.”

Taylor sat down on one of the small couches that sat in the center of the room, facing opposite from the door. “You kept diaries? I mean...journals?” He asked, feeling very out of place in this oversized bedroom.

Anna nodded, grabbing hers from under her pillow. “We were required to write a minimum of half a page daily, recording our thoughts and activities. We were promised secrecy from our social workers, and nobody ever took them...which was really nice.” She flipped to a random page and started to read.

Kent headed to the countertops and cabinets lining the far wall, “Think they stocked us up with anything new? They knew we were coming...oh heck yes, check it out!” As Kent flipped through the cabinets, he found one with strange boxes, each labeled with the individual names of the people who had slept in this room. “They left us some cereal!” Kent exclaimed, opening his box with a ‘whoop’. 

August rushed over to join Kent, as Collin sat down at one of the desks opposite to the beds. “They cleared out the iPads and computers...even took Anna’s phone away. Must not have wanted us to get any information out of them.” He flipped through a sketchbook filled with designs, “I should take this with me...too much work in here to get destroyed.”

Anna held her diary and bear close to her chest, “I want to take these too!”

“We should limit ourselves.” Collin responded simply, “One item per person...can’t have much on us if we need to get out of here quickly. 

Everyone nodded, although Anna looked sadly at the two items in her hand. 

Taylor shut his eyes for a moment, diving into his headspace. “I can hold onto the diary for you, Anna.”

She looked over at him and smiled, “Thank you, Taylor.”

Anna stood and handed him the notebook, before sitting beside him on the couch. “We used to sit here for hours and talk, or write in our notebooks...eat food, yell at August-”

“It was boring, okay! I was being innovative.” August defended, sitting on the back of another couch with an oddly bent spoon in his hand. “See this, T-Lor? I turned this spoon inside out with sheer will and patience.” He stated in a bragging tone, “Took me five days of free time to finish, but after that it was all mine.” 

The spoon was oddly misshapen, but it seemed to mean a lot to August, so Taylor smiled politely. “Are you keeping that as your item?”

“Fuck no, dude! This is just a weird-ass spoon!” For emphasis, August chucked his spoon behind him. “I’m taking my pillow with me, just enough support with the right amount of squish. You can never find a good pillow these days.” 

Taylor held back a laugh, not sure if August was being funny or serious. “Oh...uh...that’s nice.” 

Collin sat down on the other side of Anna, bent over his sketchbook with an odd expression on his face. Christopher soon joined them with his journal, Kent beside him with a THING in his hands. 

The room was silent as each member of the team sat there, lost in their own thoughts. Anna leaned her head onto Collin’s shoulder, Kent looked aimlessly off into the distance, August stared at the floor, and Christopher pawed through the pages of his book. It was one of the first times Taylor had seen them completely silent, both outwardly and inwardly. There were no silent conversations happening within The Hub, no whispers between friends. 

An odd, memorable silence.

Characteristically, Collin was the first to break the silence. “We should get going...just because the place has been abandoned so far, doesn’t mean it is completely.”

One by one, the members of the team started towards the door. They each said goodbye in their own way, some re-made their beds, some whispered to the silent walls, some patted the doorframe as they exited. Each cast one last look over their shoulder as they left, unable to believe they had gotten the goodbye they had unknowingly craved for such a long time.

To them, it seemed relieving.

To Taylor, it was closure.