Chapter 3 #2
A different set of voices, words streaming out in an overlapping cascade like several people singing in harmonies.
Were these languages? I shook my head and tapped again.
And again. I didn’t recognize any of them, but as I went through them, I realized they were.
He was having me listen to different languages, to see if I recognized any of them.
I tapped over and over again, finding nothing that sounded familiar, nothing that I recognized.
I hadn’t noticed he’d left until the door clicked open, and I looked up to find him returning with a wooden box, a handle looped over his fingers.
He set it down and pulled out a large, deep bowl.
When he handed it to me, the warmth sank into my palms. The scent hit me a heartbeat later, rich and savory, thick with herbs.
Noodles drifted through golden broth alongside vegetables I couldn’t name.
I still didn’t know where I was. Or why. But my stomach clenched with hunger, sharp and sudden.
He offered me a pair of long-handled spoons, delicate tools, their ends tapered to fine points.
I blinked at them, puzzled, until he gently took them back and demonstrated, holding them like chopsticks, the spoon heads angled skyward.
Then he pulled a second bowl from the box and began to eat without a word.
I followed his lead, watching how he used the utensils.
He used them like chopsticks, but with one spoon down and the other up, catching broth in the spoon and using the long, tapered ends to grab noodles and bits of vegetables.
I lifted a spoonful of broth and sniffed it.
It smelled edible. I brushed my lips against it, waiting for my body to tell me not to eat it, but there was no negative reaction in the sensitive skin of my lips, so I took a sip, holding the broth in my mouth for a long moment.
Eventually, I swallowed, and my entire body warmed to the urgent need to eat.
My self-control lapsing, I began to eat, slowly at first, but as each bite tasted good, I sped up.
Soon, I was lifting the bowl to my lips, letting the broth slide down my throat, warm and full and real.
I set the empty bowl down in my lap with a sigh.
He reached out and took it from me, tucking it and his other bowl into the wooden container, sliding a front panel down from the top to hide them from view.
He said something and pointed at the screen.
I went back to the desk, tapped on the down arrow, and listened to the next voice.
I glanced over to see him leaving the room with the box, and I turned back to the screen to continue going through the voices.
I finished the end of the list a few minutes before he got back, despair a soft undercurrent under the numbness.
The ice cold that protected my mind was melting, the edges weakened by the hot water in the shower, only to be washed away by the deep warmth of a good meal.
“I don’t recognize any of these,” I told him, my voice trembling as I pointed at the screen.
He said something, and I shook my head, covering my face with my hands.
I was clean, fed, and warm. My injuries had been tended to. All of that layered together, wearing away at the numbness so it could slide into the background, allowing my fear to finally begin to rise to the forefront of my mind.
“Where am I?” I asked as I tried to keep the tears from falling, but couldn’t. I sobbed softly into my hands for several minutes, letting it all out in a small burst. I could let a little out, relieve a little bit of the pressure.
Eventually, I wiped my eyes, and I dropped my hands to see him kneeling next to my chair, looking at me intently.
“Where am I?” I asked him, knowing that he didn't understand, and even if he did, I wouldn't understand his answer.
He put his hand on his chest.
“Eun,” he said.
Then he pointed at me.
“Leija,” I said.
“Leija?” he asked.
“Yes, Eun, my name is Leija,” I replied. “Where am I? You’re an alien right? If you were an elf, you'd be able to tell me where I was.”
He said a stream of something else. He reached over and switched off the screen in front of me, then got up and walked over to the mattress.
“Leija,” he said, patting the bed. Then he walked to the far side of the room and settled down on the bare floor. He patted it. “Eun.”
“You’re going to sleep on the floor?” I asked.
He let out an exaggerated yawn and then lay down, pillowing his head on his arm.
I slid out of the chair and went over to the oversized bed.
I knew I should try to tell him to sleep in his own bed.
His pillow was so large I could curl up on it fine.
I didn’t know who this guy was, what was going on, or why he had helped me.
I didn’t know his intentions or if he would expect anything for being ‘nice’ to me, as guys often did when I went out on dates back…
back home. Those words took the rest of my thoughts and ground them to an abrupt stop.
I wasn’t home anymore.
I was somewhere else.
I was exhausted.
I didn’t have the capacity in me to say no to kindness right now.
I climbed into the bed, curled up in the soft covers, put my head on the giant pillow, and went to sleep hoping I would wake up and discover that it had all been a dream.
Except for him.
I wanted him to be real.