Chapter 12: Chapter 9

I already sat two hours on the roof, watching the faraway souls walk to their destination. I was quite envious of them as they had a clear destination and an easy path in front of them. I had none of these. I still didn’t understand the god one bit, it was still unknown what he was doing to me, and I had no clear path forward. Thus, my mood was quite bad and I chose not to deal with any more spears for now. My mind was always wandering off to the other world where I supposedly had a chance of survival. Strangely enough, the god was in quite a good mood as well which was quite irritating, but easily ignorable.

“Hey, do you want a gift?” That was definitely surprising. I never once imagined that he would gift me something, at least something I wanted.

“Why now?” He didn’t react at all and just smiled dumbly until I threw a loose roof tile at him. I didn’t hit him, but he answered me as soon as I started grabbing another one.

“I am in a good mood today. Look, this time is the last time you will want to get reborn, isn´t that nice?” I had absolutely no idea what he was talking about. The only reason I wouldn’t die directly was because someone would help me. To conclude, there had to be someone nice enough so that I would definitely want to live. I desperately needed more information to have any chance against him, but I haven’t found any chance yet to gather information, except by asking him who was as untrustworthy as one can get.

“Whatever. What do you want to gift me?” I hoped that I could reject it, but maybe it turned out to be something interesting, so why not ask first?

“The language of the humans!” My jaw dropped, quite literally. I couldn’t understand the world anymore. If this meant what I hoped it would, my language barrier with the others on my new planet would vanish. On the other hand …

“What language am I using right now?” I was definitely a human during the time on my spaceship, so how was I not talking the universal language of humans in the first place? He was taken off guard by my question but caught himself relatively quickly.

“The language of your original race.” That did make even less sense, at least until I thought about it some more. If what I considered as humanity was different from the humanity on Solaris, my new planet, then it would make sense. Still, as I asked him about that, he just shrugged his shoulders and smiled knowingly.

“What´s the catch?” I still couldn’t believe that he was just giving me something of this value for free. There had to be something.

“Well, it´s more of a one-way translator, so you cannot speak in their language. Oh, and it turns off when you try to communicate with them in any way that relies on translation. The last part is probably that it won´t work anymore after your death, but that won´t be an issue anymore.” I threw another roof tile at him, mostly because I knew I was getting manipulated again. He wanted me to hear but didn’t want me to actually communicate.

In a sense, it could be a trap as well. If I relied on it too much, I would be unable to learn the language in the beginning which may make it even harder later on. The other constraints were quite weird as well, but I didn’t bother too much with them. It was too tempting to just accept the gift.

“Alright, but don’t think I am grateful.” It was a trick to make him more likeable, but it backfired as soon as I analysed his behaviour. “Firstly, you would have traded that for the promise that I listen to you if I declined the deal. And second, this isn´t a gift at all. You want me to have this exact ability for whatever reason.” He shrugged again and left me alone with my thoughts.

There was no conversation after this until I got reborn. Partly because everything has been said, but mostly because our relationship wasn’t the greatest. He wanted to exploit me for getting out of here, I wanted to get away from him. That wasn’t exactly an ideal basis for a friendly relationship.

We didn’t even say anything to each other as I was floating upwards but rather chose to keep the mood as it was. I was happy that I had an actual chance right now, he was happy because he thought that he won completely.

The world I saw when I woke up was a completely different one. Bright light flooded the area and I only saw humanlike shades walking and laughing in the distance. The sound of metal crashing onto metal rang through the room, disrupting the happiness I haven’t seen in a long time. Shortly afterwards, laughter reached my ears again as the cycle continued.

Unlike last time, I laid in a crude sleeping bag and felt strangely secure. This was civilization, I finally reached it and the best of all was that I understood the pieces of their conversation that weren’t completely drowned in laughter.

Still, something with me didn’t seem quite right. I was definitely fitter than I should be considering the last time I woke up and even managed to get out of the bag. But my eyes were completely and utterly useless. While purgatory was way too dark in the beginning, this place was just too bright. Maybe my eyes were just broken, or there was more to it, but even as I shielded my eyes with my hands completely, I couldn’t see anything.

I stood up and stumbled towards the laughter, but someone grabbed my arm, placed it around his or her hips and escorted me somewhere else. Feeling incredibly weak, I didn’t resist and relied on my support quite a bit until we reached a place where it was certainly a lot darker than before. Gradually, the shades faded and were replaced by the normal view of this place. Stone walls and ground, crystals on the ceiling, that was it. Unlike the surroundings, there was someone beside me I had more hope in any way. Brown hair, freckles, green eyes, taller than me with fair skin. She was the only person I have ever seen down here and she came to my rescue.

It was such a joyful moment that I threw all caution into the wind and proceeded to hug her tightly. She smelled like I imagined a forest would and I immediately took a deep breath while closing my eyes. This was it. This was the nature I wanted to experience again and she was part of a civilisation I wanted to take part in.

I knew it would be a hard road towards being an actual member of society, especially if I considered the sharp dagger that was currently poking my neck. Slowly, I looked upwards and saw a slightly scared, but also determined face. Even slower, I released her from my embrace while she stored the dagger away just as fast while increasing the distance between us.

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She didn’t trust me at all and feared that I would attack her, even in my condition. I sighed, and sat down on the ground near the wall, trying to look as harmless as possible. I somehow succeeded slightly and she leaned against the wall, still wary about me. There was a minute of silence between us until I started to speak.

“Hi, I like pancakes, stargazing, sleeping as long as possible and a good meal. I don’t like my new father, standing up and boring tasks. I´m kind of new to this world, so it would be nice if you could show me around. First of all… I need to get in contact with child protection or the police. And because you don’t understand me anyway ... This world sucks.” She already had this expression that clearly showed that she had absolutely no idea what I was talking about. The god was absolutely right that I wouldn’t be able to speak in her language. It was quite depressing actually, but midway, I shrugged and began talking about whatever came to my mind.

Her reply was relatively simple, but also quite informative in multiple ways. She pointed towards herself, opened her mouth and …

“Hannah.” At first, I thought that the translator didn’t work properly, but then I remembered the concept of names. It was obviously best to start with one’s name first if there was a language barrier, but that posed quite a problem for me. I knew for a fact that we all had a name on the spaceship, but I was quite dumbfounded as I realized that I couldn’t remember a single one of them.

I held my head with both hands and tried to remember everything I could. The face of my mum? That was still there, but I couldn’t remember anything else about her. What did she work as? How was she? And my dad? Did I even have a dad? Questions were piling up, one after the other and I certainly couldn’t answer all of them. Seemingly at random, I was missing crucial and absolutely unforgettable information like my very own name.

This god wasn’t just fiddling with my soul, he was fiddling with my memories as well. My every plan so far was based on the hope that I would still somewhat be myself in the future, or at least knew who I was. How in the world did I not realize my mistake sooner? How did I miss that I forgot my name? How naïve have I been?

I knew that I didn’t have a chance against him if I tried to struggle the same way I did previously. Every decision I took could be influenced by him in the first place, so whatever I did, it may be what he secretly wanted. I couldn’t rely on myself anymore as everything could be manipulated and steered by him.

Depressed, I stared towards the floor wetted by my tears. I was just so short of giving up completely until I realized one mistake he may have made. While he could certainly influence my decisions in purgatory and possibly even here, there was absolutely no way that he could manipulate every single person on this planet. He said that he was imprisoned, so his influence here should be fairly limited. I was unable to decide for myself, but others could certainly do so for me.

I looked up, washed the tears away with the hem of my dress and pointed towards me, then towards her. I hoped that she understood what I wanted to say as she stood there for quite some time silently. So I waited.

And waited.

Was choosing a name so hard or was she so slow? At some point, I took a stone and hit it against the wall, just to get her attention, but except looking at me full of wonder, she did nothing. Even as I was walking up to her and pinched her cheeks, the only reaction I got was that she gripped her dagger tighter. I saw her reaction and let her go but sat down beside her. Although it was a lot riskier, I wanted her to get accustomed to me at all cost.

“You are newly born, aren’t you? It is a wonder you survived that long.” I was certainly full of wonders. I had the worst luck ever for example, at least until that point.  And I could flip pancakes with only one hand, that was definitely something not everyone could do.

“Alright, I think I know a great name for you. May you shine so brightly as you do now – Lumus. May the fire in your eyes never burn out – Cinder. May you never fear the unknown future – Dauntless. Your name is …” She pointed towards me while smiling. “Lucinda.”

The naming on Solaris was quite interesting so far. The first person I met, Hannah, had a palindrome as a name and then, she gave me a name where every syllable had a special meaning. I loved that name, partly because it was her that came up with it after thinking about it for so long.

While it didn’t ruin my good mood completely, I noticed that she looked quite troubled by something as I smiled brightly. She did not tell me what it was directly for obvious reasons. I never showed any reaction to her words so far, except when she gestured obviously, heeding the words of the evil god. I couldn’t show her that I understood her perfectly fine.

“Lucinda?” I tilted my head and looked at what she was doing carefully. She pressed her index finger against her mouth and then pointed at me. At first, I didn’t know what she wanted considering that I wasn’t very loud so far, but then I realized it.

I opened my mouth, but then pushed my jaw upwards with my hand, shutting it close again. I tilted my head once more, unsure if I was really correct. Her reaction was immediate, but quite unexpected considering that she was holding her dagger just moments ago.

“Yes!” She smiled ecstatically and hugged me tightly. While I didn’t mind that one bit as it finally meant that I found someone to rely on, I was also quite anxious and dispirited by the fact that she basically told me to shut up even as we never had a conversation in the first place. Was it my teeth? Well, I certainly couldn’t remember the last time I brushed them …

 

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