Chapter 26

No English-speaker had come through the door in the few minutes he had taken to decide whether or not it was a good idea to leave the room or stay where he was. He hadn't been told to do anything and nothing the younger English-speaker had done suggested what she wanted him to do. This was very similar to his first moments in the Outside, when he was being forced to make his own decisions even if they were being driven by circumstances. Making decisions was the thing he hated most about the Outside.

In the end he'd decided to exit the room and cautiously make his way down a set of stairs that were way too long for his liking or his comfort. Not only did every movement he made somehow aggravate his throat, but his rings were clopping uncomfortably against the wooden steps as his wrists held the rails for balance.

Sam and Tucker never made him do this…

He heard them mumbling among themselves, some hushed whispers thrown in here and there. He could only assume they were talking about him, having some secretive discussion on what to do with him now. It wasn't like he could turn back. They had definitely heard him coming down, coming closer to them.

When he finally did enter their room, he was met with three uncomfortable stares and clearly fake smiles. The younger red-haired girl was nervous, that much he could tell. But the man and woman? He didn't know what they were hiding behind their smiles.

At least a minute of silence went by, with no one doing anything except looking at him, before something underneath the table started buzzing and sounds started to come from it. The woman reached down and brought a small device that he had seen on many occasions out from her pocket, placing it on the table. She pressed a green button followed by another one that he couldn't quite describe.

"Good morning, Sam," the woman said to the little device—the "cell phone."

It wasn't the first time he had heard this method of communication. It was absolutely impossible to understand how this worked, but sometimes, if Tucker couldn't come, Sam would "put you on speaker" and he would hear Tucker's voice from the cell phone. Tucker would greet him from the cell phone and Sam would just talk as though Tucker was actually there. He could only conclude that somehow Tucker was trapped in the cell phone, despite the size problem. They were still English-speakers, so being strange came naturally even to them.

Thus far he had only ever heard Tucker's name being addressed, but now Sam was trapped in the cell phone and like Tucker, she had no problem with it. It was one of those things in the Outside he just had to accept and never question.

"Morning, how's Daniel?" Sam asked. "Is he alright? Did he get enough sleep?"

"And did he talk yet?" Tucker's softer voice added. "Did we miss his first words? What did he say?"

So Tucker was trapped too. Tucker was always trapped…he must've dragged Sam with him this time, or maybe she tried to get him out but ended up in the cell phone too. At least this time Tucker had company, he supposed. Neither of them ever sounded very worried so he was never worried either. Still, it was so…weird.

"Well, he just got down here," the girl said. "I never heard him say anything."

"It's probably for the best," the woman sighed. "The metal was fixed into his vocal folds for so long that the membrane tried to heal around it. We managed to get the metal out but in order for him to be able to talk again we had to cut the folds—"

"WHAT?!"

"Relax, it's not harmful at all. We had to cut them a little so the folds would join to the back of the throat like they're supposed to. We put dissolvable stitches to aid in this process but right now I would really rather him not try to talk—it puts an amount of strain on the vocal folds. I also wouldn't get my hopes too high yet. There's still that possibility that they won't connect to the esophagus, in which case he won't be able to talk again. Ultimately it depends on how his body heals. He has an extraordinary healing ability, I would give it just a few more days to make sure."

"Poor guy, his throat's probably killing him right now…"

"He's had sore throats before, give him Gatorade," Tucker said.

Sam laughed sarcastically. "I don't think so. Give him plain water with a lot of ice in it—oh, and don't be surprised if he won't drink it at first. He's pretty cautious around new things and he's not in my room anymore so just let him, you know, go at his own pace. He'll drink if he gets thirsty enough."

"And do not try to make him nap somewhere he doesn't want to."

"Yeah, he slept in the same place in my room every time, never grew out of it."

"Oh and you should introduce him to meat, Sam would never let him have anything good to eat."

"Meat is not in his diet and I gave him plenty of healthy foods that he happened to love."

"I think he really just pretended to like it for Sam's sake, pretty sure he likes her more between the two of us."

"He likes me more because I take care of him."

"Uh, excuse me, I handle all the hygiene. Kind of important."

"I brush his hair."

"I brush his teeth."

"I—"

"And I handle clothes—"

"I handle laundry!"

"I'm also in charge of baths."

"I feed him."

"You feed him garbage food, Sam, he needs protein. Know what an excellent source of protein is?"

"You can get just as much protein on an all-vegetable diet as a very unhealthy all-meat diet, we've talked about this."

"The boy needs meat, he's skin and bones!"

"If you mean he has healthy skin and healthy bones you can thank my meals."

"Where's his muscle?"

"Right, because your meat diet is a perfect example of muscle growth."

The man and woman suddenly burst out in laughter and even the girl snickered. This gave him a new insight into what was happening. True, they were talking about him, but Sam and Tucker were making them laugh, a sign of cheerfulness within the group. It was oddly relaxing to know that the only tension going on was actually between Sam and Tucker with another one of their arguments. There was nothing to be concerned about when these kinds of little fights broke out between them—it happened quite often, in fact—because they remained close.

Sam and Tucker waited for them to stop before asking, "What's so funny?"

"Nothing, nothing," the woman chuckled. "You argue about the chores but you split them pretty evenly."

"What do you normally feed him, Sam?" the man asked.

"What?! Why does she always win these things?!"

"He likes all veggies, cooked or not. Coconut milk ice cream, if you're looking for cold foods, but that's a treat. Applesauce—"

The man, woman, and girl all looked up at each other and frowned.

"—Cream corn. I made vegetarian lasagna, he was really into that. He also likes most fruits. So far I've only tried pecans, walnuts, almonds, and peanuts for nuts. And I think that's about it. Oh, but he doesn't like rice or soy products except for soy milk. Almond milk and coconut milk are fine too. I try to give him only whole wheat bread. For drinks, it's mostly water but he also likes the milks I mentioned, orange juice, apple juice, grape juice, lemonade, and sometimes he likes green tea, sometimes he doesn't...guess it depends on what mood he's in. No dairy products, no meats, and try to limit the sweets."

"O-oh…alright then. We'll be sure to get some groceries today and after school you two can come over and see him," the woman said.

"Oh, we plan to, and when we do, he better be in tip top shape."

In a last ditch effort to bring them back, he slapped a wrist over the cell phone, hitting the one button that he assumed was a means of exit—a red one on the left. It didn't bring Sam and Tucker back, and instead he was met with a miserable beeping sound in place of their voices.

The younger English-speaker clicked her tongue. "Well, that was a dramatic ending. Why'd he hang up on them?"

"I don't think he meant to, sweetie," the woman answered.

"He might've been trying to reach them," the man said. "I highly doubt he knows how phones work and all he hears is their voices."

The woman slid the cell phone out from under his wrist.

"Can't you teach him?" the girl asked. "You speak his language, right?"

Both the man and woman sighed and ran their hands through their hair.

"I still remember a little but, Jazz, honey, it's been a long time," the man replied. "We're talking twenty years here."

"Even if he could talk we might not be able to understand him like we used to," the woman added. "I mean, I could pick up bits and pieces but the saying holds true: use it or lose it. And we haven't used it since way before we had you."

"After we walked away from that life, we never had to," the man said. "Not until now, anyway."

The girl shrugged. "So you're rusty, just take some refresher courses or something."

"Jazz, it's a dead language, you'll never find a teacher."

"Who said anything about a teacher? What about a linguist? They literally spend their whole lives studying languages, I'm sure one can tell you where to find somebody who knows it."

"I don't think that would be such a great idea," the woman said. "I know it sounds very exaggerated but there are dangerous people out there who'll be looking for him. It would be hard to believe they've simply forgotten about us, and if they ever discovered there were two people looking to re-learn Esperanto after what happened, well…that would be a little too convenient."

"The whole reason he's here is so we can help him though. How can we do that if he's finally able to talk and tell you guys what's going on and you can't understand a thing he says?"

"If we can't piece things together based on what little Esperanto we know left, then we can try an online translator."

"Why not just do what Sam and Tucker did? They only ever used a translator."

"Because Sam and Tucker had no idea about him. If anyone had tracked what they asked or translated, it clearly wasn't enough to raise concern. Even the experimental part, for all anyone else knows they could be an author working on a novel about fictional human experimentation. But we on the other hand know exactly which questions to ask and that's what could expose his location—if anyone finds us, they find him, and we can't have that."

The girl leaned back and crossed her arms. "Good luck convincing Sam and Tucker. Maybe you told them a little too much."

"If we told them any less we would have no credibility and therefore no way of explaining that he's safer with us."

"They already know you're scientists, they probably would've assumed you would know more than them."

"True but our history gives us a stronger case."

The girl sighed. "Whatever you think is best."

The man cleared his throat to interrupt everyone. "Speaking of what's best, we should get a few things from the store. Maybe they have a frozen vegetarian lasagna."

"Good idea, that might make him feel more at home," the girl said. "Unless it backfires on you and he ends up missing Sam even more."

"There are a lot of new things he'll have to adjust to and one of them is Sam being gone."

And just like that, the discussion became more serious and less relaxed, as was the case prior to him silencing Sam and Tucker. He took a seat at the table and waited patiently as the English-speakers argued amongst themselves about whatever. Just having to listen to them was agonizing… From the light coming in through the windows, he could calculate the position of the sun, and Sam and Tucker were still at the School Building and wouldn't be coming here anytime soon. He would have to hold out until they came and then he could show them the mistreatment he had endured. They would finally understand why he shouldn't be here and they would take him back. He would never have to come back here. All would be well again.

A/N

Me: I'm so exhausted...

Mind: Update this.

Me: What, no, it's not even finished yet.

Mind: Update it.

Me: But it's not done!

Mind: You promised them "within a few weeks."

Me: Yeah but-

Mind: "But" means "forget everything I just said." UPDATE IT.

I'm considering this a crappy ending but at least I was able to keep a promise. That, and Covid-19 (Corona) has taken over to extremes now. As you may know I do attend college and my college has reached Pandemic III, which means ALL classes are restricted to online-only and all campuses are completely closed. Well, three of my four on-campus classes require me to physically be there, and the fourth class that can easily be done entirely online refuses to post any work online, including a mid-term we were supposed to have taken two weeks ago. The ones that require physical attendance, I have no idea how that's going to work. It's stressing me out a lot. To top that off, my area had been hit with seven tornadoes which meant people here and in surrounding cities were blocked in. Classes were cancelled due to the destruction, which is a nice and fair thing to do since it's no one's fault, but that set us a workload behind. Now Spring Break is extended, setting us further behind. Now it's all online-only which increases the course difficulty by a landslide BECAUSE I CAN'T BE THERE. All this crap is going to amass to a ton of work and stress down the road and just, I hate this so much. Add to that, we're all in self-quarantine and everyone's shutting down so I'm getting stir-crazy even for an introvert.

*deep breath* Anyway, I know it's mostly dialogue but I hope you enjoyed this chapter nevertheless. The next update may be very delayed because there isn't a shadow of doubt that I'll be drowning in schoolwork. As for Flowers Will Grow, I'm sorry but I don't think I'll be able to pump out an update within the time frame I said I would. I have time to write but I can't calm down enough to write. School in particular is always on my mind. I know it's a huge inconvenience for everyone, I'm so sorry, I'll try to write, I swear, just please give me a little more time.