The slow journey back to consciousness was an arduous one. I was getting better at knowing when I was experiencing a “dream” and when I was actually in reality, but my recognition still wasn't perfect. The dream I had been having was one where I was speaking to the human boy, and he to me, and periodically moving in and out of understanding one another. I had become aware that it was likely a dream when he started using terms in Afrikaans which I had never taught him, but even though I was aware of it I was still compelled along the narrative playing in my head. It looks like I rolled around, I thought as I untangled the chain on my leg, which had become wrapped around me, yet another inconvenient feature of this body.

If it weren't for the miraculous healing abilities that I now had I would have been very disappointed with the body so far. Sure, it was accurate to a creator human on a level that I had never seen before, but what use was that without any sort of integrated weaponry or software support? I opened up my heads-up display and fiddled with it again, trying to get some kind of information out of it. The red bar had fully refilled, as had the blue, and the purple was near-full as well. The green, on the other hand, indicated that I needed food within the next few hours.

I found the triangle shaped rock I had buried and began slowly working on the chain's wall binding again. Unlike the last time I moved slowly, conserving energy and looking for more efficient ways to carve away at the cement instead of going for pure speed. I found that relatively gentle scraping was effective at removing thin particulate layers from the material. My digging technique turned into slowly tracing the edge of the rock over the inside of the divet I had created, occasionally blowing away the dust created by the action. At one point I breathed some of it in and my lungs went into a spasm to clear it. Realistic coughing response, I griped, of course it has a realistic coughing response.

The fact that I couldn't see any natural light from my cell was getting to me, as I had no idea what the feeding times were and thus no idea when I would be receiving food. Luckily my ears were sharp, and this time I heard the sound of speech outside the trapdoor before it opened and someone descended. Playing a game with myself, I tried to guess whether it was the boy or the man by the sound of their footsteps. It's a bit quiet, so I'm thinking it's the boy, I determined, it's odd that they would let him back down here after chewing him out like that.

I turned around and saw the boy looking at me while carrying two familiar bowls. Unlike before his face looked dejected, and he tried not to make eye contact with me. I made no effort to hide the triangular stone and simply put it down before walking close to the door and sitting down. The boy placed a bowl down, unlocked the door, then pushed my food and water inside. Some of the water dripped over the sides of the bowl and onto the ground, and the boy made a suppressed yipping noise.

“Zawpao,” he said quietly. An apology, probably, I figured.

“Don't worry about it,” I replied in a forgiving tone. I picked up the bowl and gulped down all the water as the boy closed the door and locked it between us. I guess they told him not to keep it open in case I tried something, I thought with begrudging approval, slightly annoying but it shows that they're afraid of me, which I can easily use if the opportunity arises. The boy stood in place, looking awkward as he clearly fought the urge to keep talking. “Thank you for the sowjh,” I said with my best gentle smile.

Trying to look inviting and non-threatening, I began consuming the tuber roots and occasionally glancing at the boy to see if his body language had changed. Once I was sure he was focusing his attention on me, I removed one of the bulbs from the bowl and tossed it between the bars to him. He panicked and caught it after fumbling it between his hands a few times, then looked at me suspiciously. “Food,” I said. “Sowjh. Eat it.” I mimed the action of eating, and the boy frowned. What, is he not supposed to eat this? I wondered.

“Fuwdh,” he repeated, “iytiht.” I watched as the boy put the bulb in his mouth and munched on it, quickly consuming it. “Faadht gow sehpeyzm yaal,” he said, then made a slight bowing motion. That was a thanks of some sort, I immediately knew.

“Sit,” I said, gesturing to the floor, “I know you want to.” The boy looked conflicted, but then sat down in a cross-legged position like mine. I finished up the contents of the food bowl and placed both bowls by the cell door. There was less food in there this time, I thought, could just be a normal variance, I'll have to see if it's a pattern. “So did you get beaten for disobeying or something? Is that why you're looking different today than yesterday?” I asked. I knew the boy didn't understand me but speaking to him had a high chance of leading to another verbal exchange in which I could learn more of his language. He looked at me, and I pointed to him then made a slapping gesture on my face, then mimed being angry.

“Ae aay lawm zeynerbjh meht mow gow,” the boy said quietly. “Shahjh wawpjh neyloydm yao koyhh tvaoloydh.” He gestured something that I didn't immediately recognize, two fists stacked atop each other and tilting side to side. Oh, cleaning, I thought as I recognized the motion as sweeping with a simple broom, they assigned him cleaning duty as punishment for talking to me. I analyzed his first sentence, the one I knew the most words in, and did my best to figure the others out by context.

“Zawpao,” I said with a sheepish smile, “ae did lawm intend for gow to get punished.” I wasn't sure which particle words, if any, were really needed to get my point across, so I just included all the English ones, swapping out the words I knew in place for their equivalents. The boy looked at me curiously again, chuckling to himself a bit.

“Gow vayl saazm,” he remarked. “Keym eyhhay vaadhwkeyzh gow znaot?” The boy made a gesture with his right hand near his face, as if to indicate something leaving his mouth, and I took a moment to process the whole context of the situation. He was either accepting my apology in the first sentence or maybe saying something about me, I thought, the second sentence was a question. Keym is probably one of the six standard inquisitive words then. Znaot is a word I think I've heard before as well, when the prisoner was initially talking to me. Maybe it's “What language are you speaking?”

Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.

“Gow want to know keym language ae znaot?” I asked tentatively, gesturing towards my head for “know” and my mouth for “language”, trying to emphasize that the latter referred to the speech I was using. I just hope he doesn't think “language” is the name of the language, I quipped to myself.

“Gaa!” he cried excitedly before covering his mouth and looking around him nervously. “Gahz,” the boy spoke more quietly, “keym vaadhwkeyzh gow znaot?” I don't even think I can pronounce their word for language correctly, I considered, I'm going to need some practice. I quietly repeated the word under my breath several times, navigating its strange consonant groups with my tongue and trying to memorize their pattern. It's times like these that a vocal synthesis device is useful, I complained to myself, but of course I don't have one of those.

“Ae znaot English,” I said. “Ae- rather my- vaadhwkeyzh is English.” The boy couldn't contain his excited look and once again held his hands to his mouth and looked like he was vibrating from holding in his emotions. “Also Portuguese, Afrikaans, and a bit of Mandarin,” I added with a shrug, “mas estou falando inglês com você.” At the sound of the new language the boy tilted his head to the side.

“Hhaam kawb jhoysayeylm vaadhwkeyzh,” he remarked, making a shifting gesture with his hands across his mouth as he spoke.

“Yes, a different language,” I replied. “Gahz, jhoysayeylm vaadwkeyzh, Portuguese.” The boy took a deep breath and laughed quietly, shaking his head from side to side. It's interesting that they don't use the head shake to indicate a negative response, but they still use it when surprised or amazed, I thought.

“Sehpeyzm yaal znaot jhoweyv vaadhwkeyzh,” he said with a chuckle. “Naoneyv foydht gow zaareyzh, ngeym gow yeyzm ngao zyawpm.” I didn't get much of what he was saying at all, probably something about me speaking more than one language from my reckoning but there were too many words that I had no knowledge of. I’ll just pick one and ask about it, I decided.

“Keym zaareyzh?” I asked, realizing I had heard that word used before by the other guard. It's probably an insult of some kind, but maybe he can help clear it up, I thought. In response, the boy thought for a moment then bared his teeth and raised his hands up in a clawed gesture, letting out a quiet growl. Animalistic? I thought, They think I'm not human? That can't be right. Seeing my confusion the boy attempted more gestures, all of them violent looking and with an angry face. Perhaps the right meaning is “savage”? I thought.

“Zawpao shawpjh mow oytznvihl,” the boy said after seeing that I still looked as though I didn't have a satisfactory answer. I can appreciate how difficult it is to communicate through gestures, I thought, giving the boy a knowing nod. “Keym gehp lihy?” the boy asked. I looked at him again, and made a shrug of confusion.

“Ae lawm know keym gow znaot,” I replied, “I have no idea what those two words mean.” The boy pouted his lips for a moment, then pointed to himself.

“Mihvay,” he said simply. He then pointed at me and looked for some response. Is that the word for human? I wondered, no, it could be his name. Easy way to check I guess.

“Sehpeyzm yaal,” I replied. The boy laughed quietly and scratched his head. That probably means I got the wrong answer, I guessed.

“Ae yaal,” he declared, pointing to himself. He then pointed to me and remarked “gow sehpeyzm yaal.” That confirms my suspicion about the word yaal at least, I thought, that's their word for human most likely. That means that the other word must be a descriptor.

“Keym sehpeyzm?” I asked just as the boy was opening his mouth to speak again. He looked at me funny, then exhaled through pursed lips and rubbed his forehead. Getting an idea he began sketching something into the dirt in front of him with his finger. I stood up so I could see it from a better angle, and saw a clear pictogram of a tree.

“Mpao,” he said as he pointed to the tree. I nodded, and the boy sketched more trees near the first one, then circled them. “Sehpeyzm,” he said, pointing to the group of trees. Oh, I realized, it means “forest.” They've been calling me “forest man” this whole time. I really should have figured that out more quickly. Considering the other descriptors it's probably not a positive label, but maybe it's not a negative one either.

“I understand,” I said with a nod. The boy wiped away the sketches and drew a crude human pictogram in their place.

“Yaal,” he said while looking at me. I nodded and he then pointed to himself. “Mihvay,” he said with a smile. I nodded again, and the boy pointed towards me. Okay, so he was asking for my name after all, I thought, which means that gehp or lihy must mean “name”. Given that the word order is similar to English, gehp is probably a possessive.

“Ae lawm ghep lihy,” I said, telling the boy that I didn't have a name. I wasn't exactly lying, any name that I had in the past was temporarily assigned to me for the duration of a mission and changed afterwards. The boy looked at me as though he was trying to decipher what I said, making me believe I had made a mistake in my grammar.

“Ehv yaal shaar lihy,” the boy said, spreading his arms wide, “gow yeyzm shaar lihy.” Even without knowing the specifics, that one was easy enough to figure out. “Everybody has a name, you have to have one too.” I translated mentally, I suppose I could just give him my serial number. It's not like he would know what to do with it. Better go with the shortened version.

“INFUNIT-24503e,” I replied. The boy looked bewildered, so I pointed toward my chest and repeated myself. Far from happiness, the boy looked troubled more than anything. For a moment I was stricken with panic as I contemplated the possibility that somehow this primitive human culture might be able to recognize me through my serial number and cursed myself for being reckless.

“Yuwniht...?” the boy asked with uncertainty, breaking me from my rapid-fire thought process. He just didn't know how to say it, I realized with relief, for once I'm lucky.

“Good enough,” I said with a shrug, “Yuwniht will do for now. Ae aay Yuwniht.”