Derek Selestera had lived on his old farm for his entire life, passed down to him by his parents the way was custom. His children had grown up there, and moved away when they were old enough to find their own way in life. Their children and grandchildren visited every year with them, the entire family coming down to the old farm. Derek and his wife Lallesti enjoyed the peaceful quiet of the country, and worked hard in the fields to earn their keep. He was driving home from the general store, sitting at the wheel of an old truck that was old when he was young, when he spotted something that caught his curiosity. He only drove this road once every couple months, as there was little they needed he couldn't produce on his farm. Just sugar, salt, and the phosphorescent fluids that kept the lights on the truck running. So he wasn't sure when someone had moved into the farmhouse along this road.

There was what looked to be a young couple standing out on the porch in front of the house. This meant new neighbors, and the only real way to deal with that was to go and say hello. He turned the old truck up the dirt driveway and made his way over to them. It was another two minutes, watching the farmhouse get closer and closer, and the features of the new neighbors getting more clear. The young man stepped off the porch to greet him, turning back to his partner and pantomiming something to her. Derek thought for a moment that perhaps she was deaf. He pulled up beside them. He wasn't about to get out, in the rare case they didn't want him there, but leaned out the window and held his hand out to the man.

"Hello, neighbor. You just move out to the country?"

The young man reached up and shook his hand. "Yes sir. Name's Erman. This is Nagisa."

"Well, I'm Derek. Me and the wife own the farm just to the West, last one before the border. You should come over soon. We'll welcome you properly to the area." He looked up to where Nagisa was standing on the porch. She was staring intently at him, like she couldn't decide what to make of him. He looked back to Erman. "You speak the language well enough, but I can tell you're not from these districts. Does she not speak the language at all, or..."

Erman smiled knowingly. "Nagisa only knows two languages, to the best of my knowledge. I'm still trying to learn just one of them."

He gave Erman a wink. "Trying to understand what women are saying? Good luck, son. I'll leave you to that then. Don't forget to drop by for dinner."

"When's a good time?"

"Oh, once you're settled in is fine. Our door is always open." With that, he sat up straight in his seat and started off down the driveway, heading for the road.

When the sound of the truck's engine had all but faded into the distance, Erman turned back to Nagisa. He wanted to say something to her now, but he knew there was nothing he could say. She wouldn't understand. He sighed and took his time plodding his way back up the stairs and to the front door. His mind quickly went back to trying to think of where to go next with Nagisa.

Nagisa was sure she'd heard that language before. The young man clearly could speak it fluently, and it seemed it was the local tongue. But unlike everything else she'd heard anyone say since the day she woke up, this one sounded vaguely familiar. She decided it was best to test the waters with the one phrase she'd tried her best to learn in as many languages as possible. It was the ideal way of learning if this young man had any way to bridge the gap between them.

"Olen nälkäinen."

He looked at her, just staring for a moment before opening his mouth. "Olenal... kinen?"

She tried again. "Olen nälkäinen." She made sure to draw out every sound for him. He seemed to like it better this time, but still shook his head. Nagisa moved on to something else. "Dwi'n llwglyd." He shook his head again. If she was remembering these correctly, she was telling him that she was hungry, but it didn't look like her message was getting through. She wasn't really hungry anyway, but she could stand for something to eat.

She was beginning to wonder if it was worth the time to try and communicate with him.

The argument had been short and indecipherable, with neither one arguing capable of actually understanding a word coming out of the other's mouth, save the few words Erman had learned from Nagisa. He was pretty sure this was about the beds. His first clue was that she'd started throwing a fit when their beds were put in the same room. He sincerely hoped this wasn't because of some cultural taboo that might ultimately break her trust in him.

She took out the new pad of paper he'd gotten her. He'd thought it was a great idea, considering the adhesive backing. She could label things for him, and had already done so with the front door and the blank walls. This time was different, and it looked like she was going back to her original language, the one she'd shouted at him the first day they met before she started using the even simpler one.

She wrote "馬鹿" and promptly stuck it to his forehead. He really hoped this wasn't some form of ritual curse.

Nagisa proceeded to write something else, and then stuck it on her bed. It read "渚のベッド". She wrote another one and stuck it on his bed. This one said "馬鹿のベッド" She then pointed to his bed and yelled at him. Then she pointed at him and continued yelling. It devolved very quickly into just repeating the one word over and over, increasingly frantic. Part of him wanted to know what 'baka' meant, but the rest of him really didn't.

There was a small meal for the evening, and Erman stood on the porch to watch the last fading light of the day. He could hear the rain starting to fall. Their evening meal would hold him over until the light returned, so he decided he would turn in for some sleep. Walking up the stairs, he quietly stepped into the bedroom. Nagisa was already there, but she didn't seem terribly happy. She saw him and immediately started pantomiming something to him. She traced a big square with her fingers and then made a waving gesture towards her bed.

It took him a few moments to figure out what she wanted, but then he realized she was complaining about something the bed lacked that her previous bed, in the government facility, had on it. A blanket. There was no way to know what kind of blanket she wanted, or if blankets were like beds and all of them were just called blankets. There was a blanket in the back, but it was old and made of a plastic material. It was for keeping crops, tools, or machinery dry overnight, not for keeping people secure in bed.

He shook his head. "I'm sorry. I don't have what you want. We can look for one tomorrow, but we should sleep for now. You'll be fine one time." She calmed down, but her body language told him she wasn't happy about it. It looked to him like she was able to tell from his tone that he wanted to help, but just couldn't. He let out a low sigh, wishing he could help her, but mostly wishing he knew exactly what she wanted. It didn't matter right now, though. It was time for bed.

Nagisa sat on her bed, then rolled onto her back and just lay there, staring at the ceiling. She mumbled something that he couldn't hope to understand. She looked over to see Erman taking off his clothes, and immediately turned bright red. She rolled over, facing the wall beside her bed, and frantically shouting things. He couldn't even tell what she was shouting at or about, so he assumed she was still upset about the blanket. There was nothing he could do about it right now, so he finished taking off his clothes and lay down on his bed. He watched her for a moment, but it looked like she was just going to sleep with her clothes on. He reached over and flicked off the glowing lamp that lit the room, casting it in darkness.

Nagisa hadn't intended to fall asleep like that, but she had eventually, curled up on the hard bed in a pitch black room. She was pretty sure there were no pajamas for him to have changed into, but didn't know if he'd only stripped down to his underwear. Of course, she had no idea if the people of this world had underwear. If she had to guess, she'd say yes, because she'd gotten some, but it might only be the women.

All the same, when she woke up it was still totally black in the room. She remembered that this room had no windows, so she got up and stumbled her way to the door, walking out and slowly making her way down the stairs and to the front door. She opened it to look outside and find that it was almost as dark outside. There was some barely visible faint glow coming from somewhere up above, but not enough to illuminate anything. She could barely see her own hand less than a foot in front of her eyes. All she could discern was that there was something with mass blocking out what little light was coming from the sky.

She knew the porch had a roof over it, keeping her dry so long as she didn't step out onto the stairs, but that meant she couldn't see where the light was coming from. While there was no light in the chilling cold night, there was the constant near-deafening roar of the rain falling. With the low temperature, she was surprised it wasn't hail or sleet, or even snow. Not that she could see it to confirm it really wasn't sleet.

Nagisa wrapped her arms around herself and sat down on the porch, listening to the rain. She hadn't really been all that tired. Being what she was, it would probably take a lot more to tire her out. Still, she thought, she was pretty sure that she'd slept for a good eight hours. There was no sign of light. She began to wonder how long this planet's day/night cycle was.

Getting a little wet wasn't too much of a problem. She wanted to know where that light was coming from. Nagisa stuck her head out from under the roof and looked up at the raining sky. The rain immediately soaked her, getting in her eyes. It was freezing cold and relentless. There was no way she could keep her eyes open long enough to get a good look at anything. She stepped back under the roof and just stood there, dripping in cold and wet misery in the absolute darkness. There had to be something she could do in the darkness.

She was pretty sure the cold, the wet, and the dark weren't enough to stop her. She stepped out into the rain again, this time she went all the way. She set her bare feet down on the squishy, muddy ground and started walking. Every step, her feet sunk into the mud several inches. She managed, by sheer strength, to pull herself forward. It was hard going, with the rain pounding on her from every direction and her feet getting stuck every step of the way, but she was counting her time and keeping track of her directions. If she started to feel like she wouldn't be able to make it much farther, she would turn back. She knew the way.

She had counted to just over half an hour, and nothing of her environment had changed. The light was still just the one faint glow that she couldn't look for. The mud was no softer, and she sunk no deeper, and the rain was not letting up. Another five minutes, and she felt the dirt under her feet change. Whatever it was made up of was slightly different, and she didn't sink in quite as far, but pulling herself out again was much harder. She remembered the direction she'd taken, straight down the driveway, so she guessed she'd finally reached the road. In only a few dozen steps further, she reached the other side of the road. The farmland here belonged to someone else. It was in use.

Nagisa reached out and caught a stalk of some corn-like crop. It stood up remarkably well in the rain, and when she pulled on it she found that it stayed together very well. She used it to pull herself forward, grabbing the next one and continuing that way. She could still find her way back. She knew that for sure. She still knew that an hour later, who knows how far into the field, when nothing had changed. She could keep on walking, forever it seemed, and never find anything. But then, for all she knew, there was something only a few more steps ahead. It was time to turn back. It would start getting light by the time she got back to the farmhouse, unless this world had nights that were unreasonably long. She couldn't imagine they were so long that someone would die of dehydration between sunset and sunrise. It had easily been ten hours now.

How long could the night be?