My duty is essentially janitorial. Not the worst of it, fortunately, but I'm still a glorified maid.
No, actually...
Glorified is the wrong word.
There's still nothing glorious about it.
I'm still just...
Whatever the aliens think of us. A slave in training?
A human.
But in the month since I've started the duties, I haven't had to do the stupid rock pushing thing a single time. Apparently that's been replaced by tidying up locations for the aliens.
I wish I could say it also stopped the shocking lessons.
But no.
Of course not that.
I don't even know what the point is. It's been months, and I can't learn it, not a single word, but we keep going through it. I don't get why I need to, at this point, since I can't even understand a word of what the alien I work with says. But they're all in on this torture plan, so he still makes me listen to the lessons.
Any reasonable course would have flunked me by now and I could exist in my failure soup and not understand anyone without a Mia around and not worry about electrocution every day.
I'd like to say that over the months that have passed the pain has lessened, that I've gotten used to it, that I'm somehow more resilient and electrocution resistant.
Only one of those is somewhat true.
I have gotten used to being electrocuted each day now.
I don't feel dread or fear about it, not really.
But the pain hasn't lessened.
Not at all.
Apparently I don't get the luxury of going numb or losing feeling even after all this abuse. I still have all the feeling. I can feel it, all the way through me. I don't know if it's worse than being numb, or better.
Probably worse.
But the fact remains I can't do the language, and that's that.
So. What else is there?
I've found that I'm actually good at doing work around the aliens. At least, they never seem angry at my efforts, so that must mean I'm doing alright. I'm still not sure exactly what I do, because I don't understand them when they say it to me, but Mia explained that I have a 'position' and it's to 'keep these rooms tidy and neat', which is basically just saying I need to clean things and pick up messes.
It's a very physical job. I can see why I ended up with it and not something more cerebral.
I don't really need to know what any of my 'employers' are saying to do the job. I just need to have eyes and hands.
That said, Mia is still determined that if I immerse myself in the language long enough, by actually being around them and listening to them speak to each other all day - unlike how I've been staying as far away from them as possible until this job - I'll learn.
Can't say that's happened yet.
But I am faithful it will be.
I have to be, right?
The only way to get through all of this is by believing I will.
Mia says the most important thing about being optimistic is just...deciding to be. To not give in.
And I have to do that.
So I have.
If Mia says immersion will help, then I believe it. Because it has to.
It has to, because I'm so sick of being shocked every day, I'm so tired of not understanding.
But at the end of each day, I go to bed and the lessons continue. The electrocutions keep going.
And I still don't understand.
For now, I can only focus on doing my part.
It's just, what if it doesn't happen? If it's not just a matter of time or of immersion? What then?
Mia has to be right. I don't want her to be wrong, because I'm not sure what I'll do if I never learn their language.
Not only would that make the rest of this time here even more hellish - not being able to learn anything at all from the aliens around me and always having to rely on other people to translate everything - it means I couldn't join the rebels at all.
Not in any meaningful way, at least.
I doubt they'd just. Refuse to let me escape or anything.
But I'd be...
Freeloading a rescue. Letting everyone else do everything for me, including carrying the risk.
I don't intend to do that.
And...
That's the only thing I have right now.
That hope is the only thing I can cling to, that someday, maybe soon, maybe a long while from now, I might escape this place. So...
Mia has to be right.
She will be right. I just have to keep waiting. She'll be right and it will happen.
It's a little more difficult now than usual to keep that belief in my heart. The lessons haven't stopped or lessened in intensity even though I can't speak or understand a word. It feels like a constant reminder of the fact that I can't learn.
Every morning before my shift I go in, and sit through the lessons.
Sitting is too generous a word.
Experience with the shocking doesn't stop me from ending up on my face.
But afterward, I end up every day in another random building in the compound I haven't seen before.
I don't have to necessarily understand everything I see. I can be useful in some ways without that.
It's not a lot, but. Still. There are places I can go and memorize, and things I can interact with, that I could never do before.
Nothing I've been to feels particularly sensitive or important yet.
But it's early yet.
I haven't crossed paths with Mia and Eric yet. Both of them have duties, but clearly their language abilities have brought them elsewhere, deeper. Hestia recently got a duty too, but I haven't seen her, and I'm not quite sure what it is.
It's something manual labor related like me, of course, I know that much. But that's all I know of it.
Still.
At least we can say that the first step of our plan...
Is actually working.