With some assistance, I manage to walk to the wall where everyone else is seated and sitting down.

I don't recognize the person sitting next to me, but she does pass me a yellowish, plump fruit with a broad, flat bottom.

When I turn it over, there's no stem, but it does have a similar texture and pattern as a pear.

I don't recognize anyone, but that's no surprise. I've never heard of anyone I knew - even those no longer in contact with me - who disappeared, so it seems I'm just lucky like that.

Or maybe unlucky.

There's really no telling.

The moment I take a bite, I can tell why it's so popular. It's tangy and juicy and even has a subtle sweetness to it.

...Though that could also be just the fact that I haven't had real, solid food in who knows how long.

Mia, on my other side, crunches on hers almost viciously and Eric looks like he's eaten half of his in the time it's taken me to eat about a fourth of mine.

We don't chat. There's no real room for that. It's an uncomfortable feeling. Like eating on a public bus.

A young girl with stringy, tangled, brown hair, huddles in one corner.

Her eyes look too large for her thin face and her hair covers it up. It looks like it was once braided but hasn't been washed in days, which is obviously correct.

She keeps darting her eyes up at everyone like she wants to speak to them.

She tries to open her mouth a couple of times, but always seems to think better of it and stuff her mouth with more fruit-vegetable instead.

"...Hi."

She's not the only one who jumps when I speak up. I might be the only one who's remembered that I still have a voice, even when eating.

This girl came close, but maybe she also thinks you can only speak when you're not actively eating.

I swallow the mouthful of fruit I'd been working on. "...Um, hello. I'm Sarah."

It takes a moment, but the girl nods at me. She doesn't stop gnawing on the fruit she has in her mouth, though.

Maybe it's rude to just introduce yourself in the middle of a meal, but.

It's not like we've got a schedule here.

And she's so uncomfortable I feel like she might somehow manage to choke at any moment.

I mean, it's possible that she's just super hungry.

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But that doesn't stop the compulsion I feel to at least try to break the ice.

"...Have you been here a while?" I don't really think that question is right to ask, but it's the first thing that comes to mind.

What else am I going to think about than that? I literally don't know anything else about her or anything else about this place.

She looks up, eyebrows raised and blinking. She swallows her mouthful.

It takes another moment for her to remember what I'd asked and then she nods.

So I was right, she has been here a while.

...Is this girl mute?

She doesn't try to say anything in response to what I've said.

...I don't know what to say now.

I really am like Eric, not Mia.

At the best of times I feel awkward trying to talk to someone new.

This is...really not the best of times.

The silence that has descended on this place since I first spoke feels suffocating.

I force myself to continue on.

"My name's Sarah. This is Eric and this is Mia. Where...uh..." I don't think she can tell me how long she's been here, but I realize halfway through saying this that if she's mute she can't. really tell me anything.

at all.

uh.

Too late to go back now.

"Where...where did you come from on Earth?"

The girl freezes.

Not in a weird way, in the way a person does when they're not sure how to react to something.

But it's pretty obvious I've upset her.

She presses her lips together and squeezes her eyes shut, dropping the fruit in her hand to the ground and grabbing at her head, and it looks like she's crying.

Crap.

"I'm sorry. I shouldn't have..."

I should have realized she doesn't want to talk about that.

She's still trapped on this planet too, if she's not that new, it must still hurt just to be reminded of it.

But my words are cut off when she suddenly lunges at me, grasping my shirt collar with a kind of manic desperation and speaking.

It's hard to make out at first because she's shaking so much.

"...Me home." She sucks in a deep, shuddering breath. "Wan...go home."

I-

It hurts.

I've...

Been focused on myself and my own suffering, and...I think that's fair? I think it is. I've been abducted, after all.

But this girl...

She's struggling to even speak English anymore, probably because with however long she's been here, being subjected to that room with that language forced into her head over and over...with how people are so quiet and not bothering to talk most of the time...

It hurts.

My heart hurts for this girl.

I think she might be around my age and yet I feel...

Protective?

Sympathetic?

I don't know. I'm not an expert on this kind of thing.

But I do wrap my arms around her.

She's frail.

"...We're going to make it home." I say it with a determination that...

I don't even know how I have.

"We'll all make it out of here together. I promise. I swear."

It's a foolish thing to make an oath to an alien world with no way out but.

I will.

I will make it back to Earth.

I'll...

Make sure she makes it back, at least.

I will.

It's impossible not to notice how Eric and Mia are watching me, but I have absolutely nothing to say to them.

I know it's embarrassing and presumptuous and dramatic to be saying something like this, especially when Mia is the one who reassured me just two minutes ago.

But I can't help it.

I can see in her eyes how long it's been since she's had even a glimmer of hope, and I find it haunting.

I can't ignore her.

Even if I'm not qualified to be her rescuer, just a kid her age myself, I still-

"We'll get out of this together, okay?"

She sniffles, and I don't see a hint of the terror or panic she had when she lunged at me.

I feel her nod against my shoulder.

...It's nice.

In the worst of circumstances, I can help this girl.

That's a weird feeling, but it's nice.

I think I like it.