Ed crawls inside, watching with a little pang as the hallucination of Al starts to age. He's already seen Al start to grow up. In particular, he acutely remembers the first time he saw Al after his brother decided to grow his hair out. But he hasn't seen it all at once like this. Once the hallucination of Al reaches his current age of 13, he'll probably be a couple of inches taller than Ed, broader in the shoulders, but still dressed in a similar fashion. Red and black—one of Al's ways of helping to keep the connection between them alive.

Once everybody's inside the cavern, Ed mimics Al's knock again, first checking behind them to make sure there are no cheetahs in the vicinity, or any trying to follow them inside.