Guest- You have no account, so I can't PM you this, but my answer to your question is yes. :) In fact, I'm honored that of all the stories to choose from, mine was picked. Is it okay if I can see the video when it's done? I'm really interested as to how this story is represented.
He decided his body was the only hope of communication with these two and held his arms out. He then brought his wrists in and tapped at his throat, shaking his head and opening his mouth. He breathed out a very forceful breath just to make his message a little clearer—after all, they could only speak Esperanto thanks to that flat machine on the table. They didn't know it naturally like he did.
"Ummmmmm...I think he's telling us he can't speak," Tucker mumbled.
"Ya think?" Sam replied, tone indicating extreme sarcasm.
Sarcasm among English-speakers was rare, but still present. Thankfully they never used it on him. Something about...messing him up or something like that... He really didn't pay attention to the parts where he would be a ruined experiment—apparently just like all the other 427 experiments subjected to Projekto Nivelo Up. They would not hesitate to terminate and replace him if he was labeled "ruined". It proved to him all the more that he needed to find some way to tell them he could understand what they were saying, but he couldn't make any verbal sounds to create a vivid description or image.
He suddenly threw his arms up and waved them around a bit—there was an explosion. He crossed his forearms over his chest in a plus sign—it wasn't his fault. He tapped on his head—he had no idea what caused it. He waited for them to wipe the confusion off their faces.
Tap tap tap. Tap tap tap tap. Tap.
"Mi ne scias, kion vi diras," Sam said.
They couldn't understand him at all... Body language was the only thing he had and it didn't work...
He rubbed his throat and forced out several breaths, each one completely void of sound—he'd lost his voice for good, but not because he was born mute. It was just...it was just that he hadn't used it in so long that now he couldn't use it... But at the time he wasn't really allowed to speak so...why was he now? Why couldn't they understand him?! He was giving it his all and it still wasn't enough! What were they expecting from him?! He couldn't do anything! He tried! He tried... He tried so hard...
Sam grabbed his shoulders and stopped him from beating on his throat.
"It's okay! Stop this!" she shouted, effectively causing him to let his arms go limp and his mind go blank. "You can't help that you're mute. It's fine, okay? Tucker and I can figure something out."
He felt tears forming on the edges of his eyes out of pure frustration. They wanted him to speak—he knew they did—but he just couldn't. It wasn't because he was being stubborn about it; it was because he literally could not speak to them. What else did they want? He couldn't provide anything anymore...
"T-Tucker, translate that please..." she groaned. "Say that being mute isn't his fault and that he can't help it."
He looked up and tried to blink away those accursed tears...but was getting nowhere in doing so.
"Okay, uh..." Tucker took a small breath and turned to him. "Vi estas muta, sed ĝi ne estas via kulpo. Vi ne povas helpi ŝin."
He took deep breaths and for once, made a sound. Sadly it wasn't the sound he wanted to make and it didn't come from his voice, but it did come from labored breathing through his clenched teeth and it was a noise nevertheless. Apparently it showed his frustration because Sam panicked a bit.
"Tucker, tell him to calm down!"
"Trankviliĝu!" he shouted after a small bit of tapping on the flat thing.
How could he possibly calm down? The one time he tried to communicate had resulted only in a miserable failure. Wouldn't they get frustrated too? Even an English-speaker, no matter how different they may be, had to get frustrated. They didn't speak fluently in Esperanto...but they also knew he couldn't tell them anything. He wanted to tell them that he didn't know he would stumble across their building, that he assumed it was empty from the start, that he knew very well he was trapped here...but not knowing why they were acting so strangely to him. To him. Why couldn't they act like everyone else? Why couldn't they treat him the way he was used to? Why did they have to be so...so different?! And why did it feel so nice to have them act this way for once? It wasn't supposed to be this way... It was never meant to be this way... He was supposed to be the subject of Projekto Nivelo Up but these English-speakers had finally cracked under the pressure or something...because...because this wasn't right! They should've been ordering him around by now yet they chose to make him suffer by not doing that. All he ever did was follow what they wanted him to do. Why would they do this to him? What did he do to deserve it?
And now they told him it wasn't his fault but he had always been blamed for everything that went wrong. Why would...? W-Why would they do this...?
"Hey, um, Tucker, I think he's hyperventilating! SAY SOMETHING!" she screamed.
"Ĝi estos bone! Spiri!" Tucker cried after abusing the flat thing.
He felt the tears roll down his face and tried again, shaking Sam's hands off him and backing away from her to give himself room to act out his thoughts.
He pushed his arms forward, his wrists pointing at Tucker, then at Sam—they. He pulled his wrists to his temples and swirled them around—confused. He then tapped his chest with his wrists, which he was hoping they realized acted as makeshift hands and fingers—him.
The two English-speakers exchanged confused glances and shook their heads, Tucker shrugging his shoulders as well.
"It's like he playing charades and we're not getting any of it," Sam stated.
No, no, no! They weren't supposed to be the ones confused! They were confusing him!
He tried again, this time making one movement per word at a time. Arms forward with wrists pointing to them—they.
They were more specifically pointed at Tucker, but he moved them to Sam as well just so they would know that Tucker wasn't the only one he couldn't get.
"Wait, wait... I think he's saying something about us..." Tucker looked at Sam. "What's he saying? You're better at charades than I am."
She shook her head in response and ran a hand through her hair.
He jerked his wrists forward several times in what seemed to be a futile effort to get them to understand.
"Well...try a bunch of words that looks like whatever he's doing," Tucker said.
"To me, it looks like he's trying to hula dance. Somehow, though, I highly doubt that's what it is," she replied.
"Hm... Take a closer look, Sam... Without his hands he can't do much. He can't hold things, he can't snap his fingers, he can't p—" Tucker gasped with a realization. "Point! He can't point!"
"Translate it and ask him if he's pointing at us."
God forbid the tapping should ever end...but if that was what it took, then whatever worked.
"Okay, uh... Cxu vi montras al ni?" he asked.
Yes. Yes, yes! He could only nod about a billion times to show them his answer—at least they managed to figure out the first word in the sentence. Okay. Now onto the next word.
He brought his wrists up to his temples again and swirled them. He knew this one would be a tad harder than simply pointing to them. Confusion. Confusion, confusion, con—please just let them guess correctly...
"He's um..." Sam started.
He had gotten used to that "um" word. He didn't really know what it meant but it was commonly used, apparently.
"He...is...ummmmm... I don't know... I-I think...maybe...uh, stressed?"
"Ĉu vi emfazis?" Tucker asked after he tapped that flat thing yet again—which he had come to recognize as their translator.
He shook his head and swirled his wrists faster.
Sam ran another hand through her hair. "I guess he might be, um, crazy...? Kind of what it looks like..."
"I doubt it but..." Tap tappity tap tap. "Freneza?"
No! Why in the world would they think he was— Well...he was acting out his thoughts and confusion probably wasn't the easiest thing to guess...
"How about...imaginative?" she suggested.
"Imagitaj?"
No... Where did they get that from?
"Um...maybe he's saying...headache?" she said.
"Kapdoloron?"
He shook his head. He lowered his wrists and tried something different, cocking his head with a confused expression.
"Oh! Oh! Confusion!" she shouted. "He's confused! ...Right?"
"Konfuzo?"
Yes! It finally worked! He nodded both in relief and in response. Too early to celebrate though... On to the next and thankfully last word.
He pulled his wrists to him and tapped his chest. This one should be easier...hopefully...
"He's saying himself," she said.
"Mem?"
Wha...? No... Oh, not again... He tried again, this time practically punching himself.
"Errr..." She sighed. "He's saying... Oh, wait a minute, Tuck... Put the sentence together from his perspective. The first word was 'you', the second was 'confuse', so the third has to be 'me'. He's literally saying, 'You confuse me.'"
"Well that's just great! Does he know Esperanto or not?!"
"He answered all the questions and even tried to talk to us, except without his voice. He knows Esperanto so it's not the language that's confusing him... But if it isn't the language then what else is it?"
"Awesome. Just awesome... He's confusing us by us confusing him..." Tucker muttered.
No... They didn't get it... All of his efforts just...for nothing... Wait, wait! No, there was one thing left that he hadn't tried yet!
He walked up to them—just a few inches away from Sam—turned around, and used the ring in one of his hands to point at the branding on his shoulder blade, rubbing it a little. He then turned back around to face them, held a wrist up to his mouth, and bit down on the designated ring, shaking it by bobbing his head up and down.
"Okay, I know this one," Tucker said. "He's definitely saying that his rings have something to do with Project Level Up."
"Check," Sam replied. "You know, just to make sure. We don't speak his language and we have no idea who he is or where he came from—he might be saying something else."
Tucker turned to the flat thing. More tapping, and... "Ĉu tiuj ringoj parto de Projekto Nivelo Up?"
He let go of the ring and nodded. Finally they got something... Maybe his efforts weren't in vain after all. They didn't seem to have a connection to Projekto Nivelo Up so they could help him—assuming they kept their unwavering gentleness. All he had to do was somehow tell them who he was. He needed to hide his identity but now he realized that in the Outside, he wouldn't survive without help. The only way he could receive that needed help was to reveal himself to someone.
...Even if that someone was an English-speaker.
And so far these two strange and very different English-speakers were two people he could rely on—and actually had been relying on since the day of his true escape from the facility. They took him in, sort of, and never harmed him even once. Yes, the bandages on his hands had hurt, but he knew they only had good intentions by doing that for him.
But...the enormous rift in communication posed a major problem. He needed them whether he liked it or not, but he couldn't tell them that. They couldn't help him if they didn't know about his connection to Projekto Nivelo Up. He was the furthest from partial to the idea, but what needed to be done needed to be done and unfortunately for him, this was the only way. It wasn't like he wanted this. He would much rather have had them already know about Projekto Nivelo Up. Instead he was being forced to show them through means of whatever it took. And they...they were English-speakers. If they knew what he really was... He didn't know what they would do to him if they knew. Even though it was his only shot at hiding from the other English-speakers, it was all too possible for them to catch him and turn him in. He would then have to undergo Projekto Nivelo Up again. And if he was to be considered a ruined experiment because of his escape...and if he was blamed—which he would be—for the explosion that allowed him to escape...they could easily destroy him. And learning English; that could ruin him as well... But he had to learn English or he would never be able to understand any of the English-speakers. If he was caught and they spoke English to test him, he would have to pretend he didn't know it—something he had never done before. Lies were completely taboo. Anyone else could do it but him? Did Sam and Tucker catch the scars on his back? They had to have seen them. Talking, lying... It was all the same to them. It all had the same results and that never changed. Maybe with these two it would change but at the same time...maybe it wouldn't. Despite the encouragement, if he talked and they decided he was ruined... He didn't want to die.
A/N
Dramatically shorter than last chapter but you can't seriously expect me to continuously write 4,500-5,000 wpc, right? ^.^" I just can't do that...
Well, here's to the poor thing trying to communicate. And yay! He's trying to trust someone!