Dimension 8 — A random island, unknown area

07:30.

As Kiri rowed, she managed to grasp a clumsily executed rhythm. She could only imagine the few video clips she had seen of people rowing. (They did it backward for whatever reason.) However, she was doing something right, as the little island slowly edged closer and closer. A light morning mist that had made it appear blurry began to fade as the distance closed. 

She could now see that the artificial structures of the island were abandoned. A little past the island and in the sky flew lines of hovering… trains and ships? They seemed to be disappearing into a circular structure nested at the top of two tall metallic towers, perhaps about the size of skyscrapers in the last city she had visited as a child. She could barely see what was going on, where the vehicles were going, let alone who—or what—was controlling them. But she nervously gulped at the prospect that this was not, in fact, just a dream or a hallucination.

She considered rowing to the big island, which appeared inhabited, but it was so far away that her arms felt like burning jelly. 

Upon reaching the small island, she positioned the boat between two concrete slabs that had broken off from one of the decimated buildings. She carefully snapped the oars back into their original positions and hoisted the boat as far as possible onto the rocks. She carefully climbed over the unstable rocks and toward the crumbling road. Its edge hung precariously over the water as if the weight of a pin could’ve sent it tumbling. She hopped onto the road, avoiding the edge. Started to meander inland.

“Hello?” she said quietly.

Immediately, she slapped her hand over her mouth. She hadn’t considered that maybe there were beings that weren’t humans on this island. For all she knew, she could be brutally abducted and tortured for 10 days straight. Or maybe she would be poked, prodded, and cut into for their scientific experiments.

Was this worth possibly not starving? She hated games of chance. No wonder she had never made a real effort to leave her boring old town. 

“I’m really doing this,” she grumbled. 

She continued down a cracked paved road, which probably couldn’t fit more than the width of a car and a couple of pedestrians, and meandered between the spooky abandoned buildings. Upon further observation, this area must have once been a little village. It looked like it must’ve been modern from, considering the amount of concrete there was, which was a surprise considering how remote this island seemed. She glanced around with wide eyes as if something might jump out at her any moment. She could swear she saw movements within the decaying buildings through the windows with no glass, though logically, she knew nothing was there. The graffiti on the old walls and slabs of fallen building materials left the impression that something human must still lurk around occasionally, and zei recalled the area under the freeway bridge in Goldtown. If this were anything like that area, she could expect unsavory people. At the same time, she could hear the birds chirping and warbling cheerfully in the tree canopy above, and there was something comforting about the morning sunlight painting the ground through the leaves.

Kiri took a deep breath. It wasn’t enough, so she took another for good measure. “Okay…” she mumbled just barely over a whisper. “I’ll just take a small peek into this street. You know… just in case.”

She walked a few more paces when suddenly a voice started talking from only a little way ahead, just around the soft elbow of the road. A building that looked like it had once been a small cafe obfuscated the source of the voice, but Kiri could see the shape of a person from behind the warped windows of the building. She startled backward. Strained her ears trying to listen.

The voice was human, but its words didn’t belong to any language Kiri recognized. This was somewhat of a relief. However, she hadn’t considered that she might have to deal with a language she didn’t know. 

She continued to inch forward even more cautiously. Her brain knew it was less risky to stay put. Her stomach insisted otherwise. It growled incessantly now. Might as well have been handed a microphone and amplified times 20. She clutched her stomach and winced. “Please shut up…” she whispered. 

The voice started yelling foreign words quickly, agitated, like the person was arguing. Definitely human. She flattened against a broken pillar on the building between her and the stranger, then peeked around the corner.

It should have been a comfort that the stranger looked human, but she was several centimeters taller than Kiri, with a thick frame and an overall muscular physique. She appeared rather intimidating as she leaned back against the trunk of her scarlet-colored car, arms crossed, irritatedly over her chest. She looked like she was from an urban place with her red leather bomber jacket and ripped, wide-cut jeans. Huir pointy slanted visor, however, gave her a cyberpunk flair. Now that Kiri looked closer, the visor wasn’t even attached to her head. How in the world was it just floating like that? Not to mention the strange earpieces. The stranger was talking animatedly to an invisible entity; Kiri assumed she must have been talking on the phone.

But despite Kiri’s familiarity with that, she noticed how unusual the stranger’s car looked. It had a windshield stretching far back over the ceiling and partially under it, like it was made to see above and below, not just left and right. Apart from that, it had four regular-looking wheels. Was this one of the vehicles that were flying into that circular structure? It had to be.

“Jit. Tchin’a sli accha!” the stranger snapped as she tapped her watch and touched her earpieces. She spoke no more after that. The call must’ve ended.

Kiri’s tentative “um” emerged from her throat unintentionally. She clapped her hands over her mouth.

Too late. The stranger looked up and spotted Kiri.

Both of them paused.

With wide eyes, Kiri waited, frozen. She knew she didn’t look much different from the stranger; the two were human-shaped. Still, she latched onto the chance that the stranger was nevertheless hostile.

The stranger raised her eyebrows. Craned her neck as she angled for a better view of Kiri. Kiri shuffled awkwardly behind the pillar, unsure whether to hide, run, or emerge to meet the stranger.

“Uhn aa… Dai rokei?” the stranger asked in a mildly amused tone, also indicating confusion as to why someone was hiding behind a building and acting so skittish. She waved awkwardly and half smiled, gently coaxing Kiri to socialize.

Kiri loosened slightly but still swallowed a lump of nervousness that had gathered in her throat. Ah, screw it, she thought. At least she looks friendly. Just go, you dolt.

Kiri and the stranger met halfway between the car and the decimated building, the stranger confidently, while Kiri edged forward. The stranger had undoubtedly picked up on Kiri’s nervousness and kept two arm’s lengths away. “Kahtn yono,” she said, seemingly politely. It was hard to tell from the language alone. “Maryoi sa nakot?”

Kiri hesitated with her mouth agape. “Oh, um.” She cleared her throat and waved awkwardly. “Hello. Um, I don’t speak—uh, your language, it seems.”

“Ay, ay, cortuumo ashi kon.” The stranger sounded understanding and nodded. Her unbothered reaction to hearing another language indicated its mundanity. She tapped on what appeared to be a smart watch around her wrist, and a hologram screen suddenly appeared from thin air. Kiri shuddered in surprise. It was like science fiction movies she’d seen back at home. The stranger moved the hologram in front of her as if it were a tangible object. Started to tap it like tapping on a tablet screen, searching for something on it.

The anticipation was killing Kiri. She thought of everything that could go wrong if she had to live in an entirely new place without knowing the language. Her eyes began to glaze over until the stranger finally did something different, and her vision snapped back into focus.

The stranger reached up to a device around her ear, then held down a button for a few seconds, turning it on, perhaps. A couple of dome-shaped orange holograms flickered into existence and covered her ears like headphones. She fiddled around with her holo screen a little more, then entreated Kiri to talk.

Kiri’s mouth flapped open and closed before she finally murmured, “Um, what’s going on?”

The stranger tilted her head and puckered her lips to the side of her face. “Anaa—Majhates—eseneon chi. Ehh? Eh mo?” She sounded confused. Looked back at Kiri and entreated her to talk once again.

“I—sorry? I don’t even know what’s going on. Maybe I should just—” Kiri stumbled back a little. Huir vision was moving in and out of focus again, but she had no control over it this time. Her knees went slack. There was a moment when it felt like gravity had disappeared altogether, and she couldn’t tell up from down. As she spiraled, she could see that thin blue line of her fate once again, emerging from huir chest—only this time, it didn’t lead her back to those warm, familiar days she spent in Goldtown. This time, it led straight into the void.

~ ~ ~

When Kiri barely came to, she was greeted by the view of a car ceiling and a soft rumble emanating through the soft, faux leather cushions she lay on. She could hear the faint sound of chill orchestral-electronic music in the background. She could only hear it for a moment before she fell asleep.

She woke up for real in a hospital room after eating some yogurt and drinking two whole glasses of water. She was somewhat relieved to find herself in a comfortable bed instead of the hard wooden floor of a boat. She finally took in her surroundings. White curtains surrounded her, but she could hear the sounds of people outside. Must’ve been in a subsection of a much larger room. She noticed the stranger from before sitting in a chair in the corner of her “room,” and a doctor in scrubs preparing something on a rolling cart next to her bed.

Ah, a hospital. Last time Kiri was at one, zei was nine and in for a dislocated arm. She feared for her life, but Uncle Jim was with her the entire time. Now, her life could really be in danger, but she’d have no one.

The doctor and the stranger were chatting in that language she didn’t know, and she sank further into her bed, realizing that she wasn’t back home. She probably would never get back home.

When the stranger noticed Kiri was awake, she beamed. Stood up and approached her, then turned to the doctor and said something. The doctor also looked glad to see Kiri awake. She responded to Sage before turning to Kiri and saying something in a gentle, sweet voice. Kiri guessed they were trying not to sound threatening. It was working a little, at least. But she was mostly resigned to her doomed fate.

She was resigned when the doctor brought out a suspicious-looking electronic headband and showed it to her. The doctor placed it on her head and started tapping on a holo screen. When Kiri heard a buzzing sound and felt a strange electric sensation around her head, she closed her eyes, convincing herself it wouldn’t be so bad if she just died. No one really cared about her anyway.

Suddenly, something popped inside Kiri’s brain. Like an actual pop.

Words got jumbled around in her head. Huir head. (Zei now could relate enself to a genderless pronoun).

For a moment, it even seemed like zei had blacked out for a split second.

And then…

“See?”

Kiri gasped. Glanced between the stranger and the doctor. Huir own (Kiri’s own) eyes were wide, and huir mouth gaped open. The doctor took off the head device. Nei (the doctor, or the second subject) asked, “Now, you understand us for the most part, right?” 

“Not possible…” zei whispered, now in the language zei didn’t know existed until today. Zei covered huir mouth with huir hand. “I—speak a other language now. I—I mean, how?!”

It was like the words had altered huir worldview in the most literal sense. Was this what learning a language was like? Except… not in three seconds?

The stranger clapped excitedly. “Sweet! You know the Ajhingen language now. I’m sorry for kidnapping you, but you fainted, so I brought you to the hospital. Oh, and my name is Sage Xesein, by the way. You can just call me Sage.”

The doctor bowed slightly. “I’m Dr. Reunko. To bring you up to speed, you may have noticed the drone that scanned you earlier when you came in. Basically, it did a health screening. It appears you have a few issues that may require vaccinations, but besides that, everything looks fine. You appear to have fainted from exhaustion, but it looks like the food and rehydration got you back to normal.”

Kiri looked dazed, unsure if it was still exhaustion or relief overtaking en. So at least huir biology didn’t out en as an alien. So that meant the people here were basically human. Thank god.

“May I ask what to call you? It doesn’t have to be your real name,” Dr. Reunko asked.

“Oh, ah. Right, um—I am Kiri.”

“Nice to meet you, Kiri,” Dr. Reunko flashed a friendly smile, then continued, “So, as a doctor, I’m obligated to inform you that you don’t need paperwork or achsain to be treated. You are also not obligated to disclose any personal information unless you intend to come back for regular treatments. Everything you say is treated confidentially unless you specify otherwise. Lastly, if you need any assistance getting around Rokon or perhaps getting home, we have plenty of resources to help you. I say this only because not many folks come in without knowing the common language, so I suspect you might be far from home. I’ll let you think about it for now while I get your vaccines ready.”

“Oh, uh—” Kiri stalled. Dr. Reunko waited for her to finish that thought, but when Kiri gave up, zei smiled and said, “Oh, also the info will all be in writing, so don’t worry. I’ll be back with the pamphlet, too,” and disappeared behind the curtains.

Kiri was left alone with Sage. Zei blinked as huir brain tried to catch up with everything zei had just heard. Sage saw neir perplexed expression and chuckled. “You don’t have to worry about it. Doctor talk.”

Nei looked at en. “You saved I.”

“You mean, ‘you saved me.’ I think you were just dying for some food, not gonna lie.”

“True. Yogurt is help.”

Sage’s holo watch began to vibrate. Zei looked down at it and winced. “Finally, this little xollt…” Kiri wondered which translation of “xollt” was correct—troll, goblin, or gremlin?

Sage sighed. “Sorry, Kiri. Mind if I step out for a moment? I’ll be on the balcony, at the end of the hall. Just turn left out of this room. If you’re out before I’m done, just meet me there.”