Umino woke up to a light that was not sunlight. It was white, unbelievably so, with a brightness that seemed to come from all around him. Machines buzzed around, sliding against his skin, alongside beams of pale energy that scanned through his muscle and bones. When they finished, a soft chime echoed in the room.
Figures stood around the edges of the room. Most of them wore pale garments with their faces half-hidden behind masks, with their eyes fixed on glowing tablets. But two of them did not. One was a man with dark crimson hair, and the other was a woman with black hair that spread across her shoulders. Both of them looked young, around his own age, but their presence carried weight to it. Everyone in the room seemed to defer to them.
They began to speak to him. The language was fluid and faster than any tongue Umino had ever heard, words flowing into one another. He sat halfway up, still squinting because of the bright lights. He tried to catch a single meaning, a single word that he might understand, but the sounds slipped past him.
He opened his mouth to answer in English, "Where am I?"...though, it was to no avail. Everyone in the room shared confused looks. The young man and woman turned around and exchanged a few quick words with the robed people in the room.
The crimson haired man's voice cut through the chamber as he gestured toward Umino. Umino tried speaking to them again, louder this time. The room answered with silence. There was no comprehension. He might as well have been talking to a slab of stone.
The woman stepped closer. She touched her chest lightly, spoke a word, a name perhaps. Umino tried to repeat it, but he stumbled over the syllables. What came out was broken and jagged compared to the elegance of what she said. A few of the scientists exchanged looks, one was even holding back a laugh.
Umino's cheeks turned bright red. Even without understanding their language, he still knew what they were saying about him. The woman sighed and raised her hand, signaling to the robed people in the room. One of them hurried forth, adjusting a console of sorts. Symbols appeared on the screen, sharp and angular ones. She pointed to the first symbol, then a second, then a third, and repeated the word she had said before, only slower this time.
Umino stared at the screen, at the alien letters, and a distinct feeling of dread washed over him. He didn't know where his mother was, let alone where he himself was. She was nowhere to be found, as well as that creature that had abducted her. Yet, despite this, he was unusually calm. Unreasonably so. All of this felt all too real to be a dream, and too much of a distortion to be the truth.
The calmness unsettled him more than the panic would have. The crimson-haired man spoke again. The scientists shifted uneasily. The black-haired woman ignored him. She gestured toward the console, toward the angular symbols. Umino glanced back at the letters. He could not ask about his mother. He could not demand answers. Not yet at least. He figured that if he wanted to learn where he was, he would have to follow along and learn their tongue.
A day had now passed since he woke up in that room. They had moved him from the chamber to another room, smaller and quieter, but no less alien. The walls were made of white stone and looked veined like marble. What seemed to be wood crossed the ceiling, carved with patterns. The whole thing felt…antique.
Food was placed before him by the same people in robes. Strange looking grains alongside a bright red broth. "I'm not eating this." He told one of them as he pointed down to the meal. They glanced at one another and then walked back to the edge of the room, where they could further observe him.
Umino sighed. Despite saying that he wouldn't eat any of it, he ate everything. He ate everything in silence while the masked figures watched over him. He felt more like a specimen now than anything else.
The woman with black hair came into the room. She smiled at him and nodded her head. Umino nodded back, uncertainly. She carried another console, just as she had the day before, and sat beside him. Symbols appeared on the screen once more. She spoke slowly, pointing to one, then another.
Umino repeated the sounds clumsily. He could only make out fragments of words that meant "yes," "no," "here," "there," simple terms. The woman corrected him gently, repeating the words until his tongue found the rhythm. Hours passed in this rhythm. Symbols and repetition. Every small success he had made felt monumental.
When he finally managed to say a word without stumbling over it, the woman's eyes lit up with approval. At night, he laid down on the stiff couch, staring up at the ceiling. The voices of the people drifted through the walls, incomprehensible. Umino tried to think of his mother, he tried to remember everything. Her face, her voice, but the memories blurred. The alien words were the only thing he could think of at the moment, crowding out everything else. Frustrated, he went to sleep.
The second day was harder. The woman returned with the console in hand, and began again. She pointed to a symbol and said a word. Umino echoed her perfectly. She then pointed to another symbol, and said another word. He hesitated, before finally saying it, but the tone was off.
She stopped him, and repeated it even slower this time. He was finally able to match it. By evening, he could answer simple questions with nods. Underneath all of this though, he felt humiliated. He felt like a child learning to speak for the very first time. However, he would have to learn. He had no other choice.
By the next week, he could make simple sentences. He could make statements of need, place, and motion. The grammar came out uneven, but they carried meaning. He was a fast learner, it seemed.
But, what none of them noticed was how often he guessed.
That night, when everyone in the room left, he laid down on the couch, murmuring the sentences to himself. He had spoken. He had meant something. Umino got up and pushed himself upright. He wandered around the room.
Wooden beams crossed the ceiling, their surfaces carved with patterns he now half-recognized. He stepped closer, squinting at the shapes. Some of them he had recognized, fragments of words that he had spoken earlier. It seemed that their language reused and combined symbols, layering them into new meanings.
Umino whispered the sounds he thought he could make out. He sighed, pressing his forehead against the cool stone. He turned back toward the couch, and looked around the windowless room. He hadn't seen the sun in days, not since the incident. Time here was only measured by lessons and meals.
He sank back onto the couch, curling into himself. His last thought was a half-formed sound, unfinished.