The next thing you know is that your back hurts something bad. You're lying down on something hard, maybe metal. You open your eyes to see what seem to be the vertical shafts of a prison cell, only instead of metal they seem to be made of some sort of electrical current. A bright pulsating green color shooting up and down repeatedly. You can almost feel the heat emanating from the beams from your cot. You sit up and run to the bars, almost instinctively bringing yourself to grasp them, but you realize that is probably a mistake that would cost you your hands. You catch yourself just in time.

You call out, “Hello? Is anybody there? I don't know what's going on!” Hearing your voice startles you. It is much deeper than you imagined, and you remember that you aren't even in your own body. You really don't know what's going on. You only know that you killed that creature back there.

The thought comes and hits you like a tidal wave. It certainly wasn't a dream. You notice that you're still wearing the purple-stained one piece and guilt swarms you like bees. You see it in your mind's eye and your face flashes across your vision as you think of how little you cared. Why didn't you feel anything? And why do you know? You'd like to believe you're a good person, who doesn't? But that cannot possibly be true if that's how you react. You fall back on the cot and feel lightheaded. All of this is horrible and it doesn't make sense and you just want to go home, wherever that is.

That's when another creature comes into view, it is much taller than the last one. It looks to be about fourteen or even fifteen feet tall.

Its body is a pitch black, you feel like the light in the room begins to dim as it nears. It is very slender—its legs like stilts that almost look like they originate from the depths of hell themselves. It has three long tendrils that it drags behind it that are vaguely arm-like, and then it ends at a nearly featureless face. You don't know if it doesn't have a face or if it is too dark to see it. All you can make out are glowing yellow eyes. It's almost as if this strange place is challenging you to compare each of these creatures to something made in the mind of a madman.

You mentally make an image of what you guess the next will look like, an amalgamation of several different animals oozing bodily fluids onto the ground before itself possibly, or maybe even Cthulhu himself. It stops just outside of your cell, you have to crane your neck up to see all of it. You wonder if this is the moment when you'll die. At this point, you don't really mind, it's not like you remember any of your life to begin with. Except that you know Lovecraft, of course.

“Asatar bonno tu?” a voice in your mind asks. Nobody else is around, and you're sure the creature hasn't spoken aloud to you. Or maybe it did, and you just cannot see its mouth?

You answer back to the creature, “I do not understand you! Who are you? What are you? Where is this place?” The creature bends down as if to get a closer look at you, it seems to nod up and down a few times before it stands back up.

“Prara queos human,” you hear in your head once again.

You perk up up at the sound of this, “Human! Yes, I am human!” You call out to the creature. It nods a few more times before walking off and out of sight. “No, wait! Come back! I am human!” You call after it. It doesn't come back. You go back to your cot and sit down. There is nothing you can do, the walls at your sides and back feel so restrictive, but then again that is the point. You feel that there is no need to try and break out, the bars in front of you seem to halt any progress whatsoever, and you have no intention of losing your hands. No time for a Luke Skywalker here.

Wait a second, Luke Skywalker? That name...where do you know it? Then suddenly there is a flash. You remember Star Wars, it had been one of your favorite movies. You remember going to see it in theaters. You remember 1977, that must have been when it came out. That means you must have been alive during 1977. Everything else surrounding yourself, however, is a blur. Just when you thought you were so close to solving the mystery, you are still so very far.

You see another body enter the frame, but this time it's one more familiar, another human! It's a man in a fine suit, he seems to be incredibly pale, almost ghostly pale, but considering all that you've seen so far it's far from the weirdest thing. He looks to be around his mid-twenties. He's got bright blond hair that doesn't help his whole “ghost-look” situation. His eyes, though are a dark contrast to his face. He stands with his hands behind his back, an air of authority hangs around him.

You fall to your knees and can't help from just letting every single pent up emotion in you rush out like a river. Seeing this, the man walks up close to the bars and looks down to you, “Eretat human?” You cry out some more at this, just when you thought you could have someone normal to talk to, he is also speaking this crazy fucked up language. “I'm human but I don't understand what you're saying!” You cry out.

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

He looks at you, and then his eyes open wide. It's the most emotion you've seen out of him yet. He looks up and begins tapping his foot incessantly, it looks like he's trying to remember something. “You...speak this, right?” He says after some hesitation. You pick up your head as you hear the beautiful, yet strained sound of English. “Yes! I speak that!” You hear yourself say, not caring how stupid you sound. The man nods his head and makes a motion with his hands that you understand all too well, “Wait here one moment.”

You nod back as you take in a deep breath. You are filled with hope as you take the effort to let loose a single smile. Finally, someone you can at the very least communicate with on the most basic of levels. You go back to sit on the cot as you wait for the man to return. He does after a few minutes of restless waiting. He raises his hand at the side of the cell and an interface appears. It scans his hand and then disappears. So too do the bars of electricity. You find it odd because you had almost gotten used to them there. Now there is nothing between you and the man.

You walk up slowly and nod your head once, realizing that even if he was able to speak English it was obviously difficult for him. You can see him smile, and you also see that he is holding something in his hand, it looks like a small card. He waves his fingers around in a circle, “Turn.”

You do as he says, turning around to face the wall behind you. An anxious rush fills you with nerves tight enough to strangle a bear. You feel a tickling sensation at the back of your head, you reach back to scratch it and find that your hand meets the man's partially inside of your head. You step forward and turn around, looking at him in horror, one hand still on the back of your head. You stop touching it, it almost makes you throw up.

“Look, look, all I was doing was updating your language banks,” the man says with sudden clarity. You stop as you understand him perfectly now. The card that was in his hand is gone. “You just need to close up the back hatches there, you don't know what kinds of things can mess up your system if you leave it open for too long.”

“I'm a robot?” You ask aloud. It is the first thing that comes to your mind and hearing it now it sounds insane. Just on the side of your head you also feel the piece of your head that should be just above your neck, but here it sits just behind your ear. In a slow horror you push it back and you hear a click as it closes. “What am I?” You scream out, falling back on the cot. The man looks at you with a concerned look.

“You seem to be having some difficulty,” he says, his tone airy. Difficulty? Not knowing where you were last night is difficult. Not having enough money to pay for a cab is difficult. Waking up one day in someone else's body in this strange world and find out you're a robot is way passed the realm of difficult.

“Where...am I?” You ask, your voice is shaky, definitely moreso than it was before. The man walks up to you and looks down, “You're in the county jail. You were placed under arrest on count of murder of Jayon Cæ, a prolific writer of the Cæ people.”

This fails to answer the question you asked, but it does bring up the identity of the creature you slaughtered. A Cæ? Is that the name of the giant cricket creature? “I want to know where I am here. What strange world is this?” You ask. “The sky is purple and the creatures are big and everything is so different. Surely this isn't Earth?”

“Earth? It's been a long time since anybody's asked about Earth,” the man regards. He looks at you with a stupefied sort of look, “Strange. Well, whatever caused your malfunction, this is Sayar. You remember that?”

“Of course not! I've never heard of that in my life...I think.”

“You think?”

“I do not remember anything...” You trail off, hoping he gives you a name.

“Jesse,” he finishes.

“Okay, Jesse, why doesn't anybody talk about Earth anymore?”

“Simple, the Earth was destroyed almost five thousand years ago.”

“Five thousand? What year is it now?”

“7,423...I...oh, I apologize, I seem to have gotten off track,” Jesse says, he looks like he is about to throw up. Something's bothering him big time. He almost looks sick. It's strange how quickly he turned.

“What...?”

“You are a prisoner here, and as such I was meaning to only update your language data. I apologize for indulging in your questions,” he says before turning around faster than you can even stop him. No! It cannot end just like that! You were so close to finally getting some answers!

“No, please! I need to know why I'm here and everything!”

So quickly are your hopes dashed, for the slightest moments you believe that he genuinely wanted to answer your questions. He answered a few, at the very least. Whoever's body this is isn't fully human, and neither was his if this was so commonplace to replace a drive through the back of your head. Earth is long gone, somehow. All human language probably left with it, that's why he had difficulty understanding you. Maybe that card he installed was a universal language program? If so you could probably plead your case with whomever is handling your sentencing. All you can do now is wait.