Aynsefian

We are now in a quiet, nondescript room. It is lit by two small yellow crystals and has four single beds and some sort of bathroom. There is a stone table in the middle of the room, with some chairs. To the right is a small fountain of flowing water, and to the left is a cabinet with some food-like items in it that I don’t recognise. I wonder if any of them are even edible. I assume so.

In the middle of the stone table is something I recognise.

It’s my favourite berries. It haven’t eaten in hours. I want some of these berries.

“So,” says Zarasena, breaking the silence. “That was fun. Don’t ya think?”

“Yeah, really,” I say. “They seem to hate us. No warm welcome or anything. I got the impression this was an advanced, beautiful society, and boy was I wrong.”

“You were, bud, you were. But that means that the Purlinians were wrong also, which I find most curious. Most curious indeed. Hmm…”

She raises her hand to her chin, looking away from me for a moment.

I’m happy just to watch her for now. Then I remember what I saw in the middle of the table. I want some berries. I will have some.

I grab a few and pop them into my mouth. They are as delicious as ever. I offer a few to Zarasena.

She shakes her head before adding: “Are you sure it’s alright to eat those?”

I hadn’t thought of that. Maybe I should have. “Surely it is? They’re just berries. They grow everywhere here, as we saw. As you saw.”

“Yeah, but I just don’t want to aggravate them if we don’t need to.” She is regarding me sincerely, not blaming me. Her eyes are warm. I enjoy her company so much. With her around, everything seems like it will work out.

I don’t respond. I’m about to go and investigate the rest of this small building when the door behind us opens. That didn’t take long. That same woman has returned and she is beckoning to us again, without speaking. In fact she’s barely looking at us. We are beneath her. Nonetheless we follow her out of the room, back through now mostly empty streets, and back to the central building.

We are brought back in front of the oversized chair in the middle of the room. The chair now has an older woman in it. She looks quite dignified, her long grey hair adding to a considerable presence that radiates and is intimidating. The intense stare she gives Zarasena and I draws the attention of the entire room. This woman is probably either a mystic of sorts or is the leader of this community. Perhaps she’s both.

“Nuo’in xa noo hi siman xa ansi hi siman toi ha’iinsofan xa tii tok”, she says, leaning forward aggressively.

I’m not responding this time. I glance at Zarasena. Given that this room is filled mostly with women, I’m now realising that Aynsefian, or at least this town, is a matriarchal society. Maybe it was my answering their first request of us that angered them. I will now play a subservient role.

Zarasena catches on immediately. She looks directly at the woman in the chair and speaks softly. “We are sorry we don’t understand you. We do not recognise your language. Do you have anyone here who might know our language? We mean no harm.”

She glances down at the floor in deference, bowing her head slightly. I do the same, and shuffle back behind Zarasena somewhat, adding to the impression that I want to convey: she is superior to me.

It seems to work.

The tension in the room eases somewhat, although I can still feel suspicion and fear. It seems like our arrival was totally unprecedented and unexpected.

The woman raises her right hand. We both look up again. As we do, I can hear a gentle thud outside.

“Po ta ko kii’uonsenfen ho simano xa ko moifan kioma”, she says. It’s pointless. We can’t understand her.

The woman’s right hand waves at us in a dismissive motion. We are grabbed instantly by four men, two on each side of each of us, who were behind us and who we failed to notice. Or at least I didn’t see them anyway. We are being forcefully taken away. Being meek is the best approach, I decide, so I allow the men to march me towards the door.

The door opens and outside on the grass is some sort of craft. It’s square and dark and looks nothing like anything I’ve seen before. A door in the craft slides open. There’s not a lot of light emanating from the interior of the craft. We are shoved inside unceremoniously. I don’t even have time to look behind me before the door closes.

Zarasena almost trips and falls. I’m angry at our treatment. I want to rail against what is happening to us, but I don’t get the chance.

Four men enter and we are strapped into some black chairs with armrests. It’s quite demeaning. In comes a woman in white, with a reddish sash around her waist, looking grave. She points a device at me with a red light on it and then I feel myself falling asleep.

“Not again” is my last thought, and then there is blackness.

When I wake, it’s as if I’ve had a deep sleep, for days. I’m on a bed somewhere, and I have no idea where I am. I know I’m in Aynsefian but am unsure of which part. That black craft could have taken us anywhere. My immediate thought is concern for my physical health. What have they done to me? I feel as if I’ve had undergone some surgical procedure. I raise my right hand and feel around all over my skull, then my arms and chest. Nothing is hurting or numb. My concern eases. Nonetheless, they drugged us, and my mind feels different. I feel smarter, more aware.

I glance around. I’m alone in a small white room with some white light crystals on the walls and nothing else. The floor, the roof and the walls are all white. There’s nothing in here but a bed and the lighting. I’m concerned that I’m alone. This is not good. I want to know where they took Zarasena.

I move to a sitting position. I feel okay. There’s no dizziness and I am rested. I’m not even hungry. At this moment, a young man with curly blonde hair walks in. He’s speaking that same language but now I can understand it. So this is what they’ve done to me. They’ve altered my mind to break the language barrier.

“Aah, you’re awake,” he says. The procedure you have had will enable you to speak and understand our language. You and your sister will need to come with us. You will find some food and water in the next room.” He leaves without waiting for my response.

My sister? She’s not my sister. There’s no way they could have made that mistake. We don’t look remotely alike. I think again on the way he said that word. It had a different sound to it. As if it was a title, and not one to be trifled with.

As I get off the bed, I realise two things that surprise me.

The first is that I’m wearing their clothing. At some stage during whatever procedure it was that they performed, they undressed me. As private a person as I am, I’m disturbed that they that they saw my naked body without my consent. Then again, a lot of things are happening lately without my consent. I’m being tossed around by the winds of fate, sometimes literally, and it’s been mostly a rough ride for the last week or two.

The second even weirder realisation is that I know this place. I’ve seen it before. I know how it feels to wake up after a procedure, and the sort of room I’d expect to see. This at once makes perfect sense while at the same time being totally illogical. I think back to my in-between void state where I met Myralin. I knew her too, even though my brain couldn’t place her in any contextual memory that I had. I still don’t know how I know her, but perhaps she’s here somewhere and I’ll meet her soon? She at least knows me, and therefore she can speak on my behalf and help me get out of this place.