Year 2

  Two weeks ter

  While sleeping I feel a soft fist hitting me stantly; I try to ig and go back to sleep, but then it starts hitting me more, and I hear, “Capti” repeatedly.

  Still, I don’t feel like getting up yet, so I will ig, but then I feel a hard impay head.

  Did that brat just headbutt me; “LEAVE ME THE HELL ALONE,” I say as I jump from the bed.

  Then in the er of my eye, I see the boy trembling with tears in his eyes. Crap, it seems I scared him, but it’s his fault for messing with me in my sleep again.

  I guess he won’t learn anytime soon. Oh no, his hair is starting to turn yellow, so I should still apologise. Now in my most soothing voice, I say, “Sorry”, he seems to cheer up after that, so I guess I should start my day.

  Ever sihat day when he asked my he boy and I have been talking much more. Well, talking might be a stretch since he goes silent whenever I ask a question or looks bewildered, so it’s usually me just answering his questions; which aren’t hard because he has a very minimal vocabury.

  He usually goes, “Whut is dis”; from stantly doing that I have learhat even though it seems he lives here, he doesn’t know anything about the house. We have gohrough most of the house with me identifying objects in it for him.

  He didn’t even know what a bed was. I was also surprised he had a cept of a name even though he doesn’t have one. When he respoo me asking, he just poio himself.

  All his questions posed a problem for me, because the boy’s literacy level was utter crap. He ’t read or write; so I ’t eveion him even if he wao respond, because he literally ot uand most of my words.

  Though I have learned he likes to draw, but refuses to show me what he drew, and he sleeps while tightly hugging his drawings, so I ’t evehem without waking him.

  The impertinence of him even though I supplied the paper and pencils that I found ioreroom. Also just like the spices and seasonings their was a ridiculous amount of paper.

  Even so, because of the drawing, he could pick up the names of colours at least, but he must have learned all the words he knows via versations with another person. All these questions without answers hurts my head.

  Though at least I have my soce, which is the almost never-ending supply of books, I have started a new game, so to say. I take all the books with nguages I don’t know and try to pair them up with each to try and decipher them.

  All nguages in the world derive from one of the trinity nguages. Hence, even these different vernacurs share some simirities to one of the trinity, so little by little, I find on words between the books and based on the flow of the story, I try to trahem. However, it has been very hit or miss.

  I am pretty sure I have transted some books entirely, while for others, there aren’t enough books to double-check if the words are used in the same way in differes.

  So just like always, I tih my game while the boy is c beside me, but while reading, I feel him staring at my book ily with brown hair, which I have assumed is nervousness if he won’t say anything it is best to ignore him, I think to myself as I try to get bato reading.

  But he is staring so ily that I ’t focus, so I sigh and say, “ Do you want to read with me” with aig smile. So he es up to me and stares at the book I’m reading with his hair green, which is what I have presumed is excitement.

  He starts to look fused as he stares at the words on the page, so I decided to read it out loud as clear and precise as I , while doing this I turn to look at the boy.

  His hair is a dull grey with a befuddled expression. Then I remember this is written in a different nguage than what he speaks. He only seems to know a broken version of the saviour’s song; all this is going over his head.

  I start to auto-transting from the book to the saviour song in my head and say it to him so he uand, which brings back the green hair of excitement.

  I tio read, but while reading, he asked me, “Whut duht meuhn” I think he meant: what does that mean, but regardless of his horrible pronunciation, I said, “It means rain,” but he started staring at me in fusion then he said, “whut duht.”

  Which firmed something for me. He has never seen rain; he must have been raised in a region where you ’t see or learn about the rain, which means he was raised here in Fimbulwinter. So, I reply, “Tiny drops of water like that fall upon the p.”

  “whuhtz wuhter uhnd pluh”, he says excitedly. I think he asked: what water and the p is. I almost didn’t get that one. He looks at me excitedly for the ao his questions, so I say, “Water is the liquid in the fruits we eat. It keeps us alive; the p is the pce all people and animals live, even us”

  Then he asks, “Whutz liquid und animal”. Huh I now see a pattern f.

  3 hours ter

  “Whuhtz duht meuhn” he asked again. In all the time we had been reading, we barely progressed 20 words since we started, and I ’t keep describing the meaning of every word in the book. But as I was menting, an idea popped into my head.

  “Hey, do you want to learn how to read?” I said to the boy.

  His hair turns green, and his face looked delighted. “eez,” replied. He got up and started saying “reuhd” repeatedly, running around eically, but the only thoughts going through my mind were, yes, I don’t have to listen to his horrible pronunciation anymore.

  So I got up and said, “We will have css tomorrow m, so we should go to bed a,” his hair turned white as he looked tremendously sad, but he still decided to head to bed, so I decided to get started on preparing the materials for tomorrow; where to start is all I think to myself.

  Profile of the boy

  Name: None

  Age: 7 (approximately)

  Hair: white (normal?) Red (anger), Greeement), Yellow (fear)

  Brown (nervousness) Grey(fusion) Cream(hunger) Lime(lying)

  Eyes: Blue(left) Ght)

  Likes: Drawing, Food, Captivant?

  Dislikes: Unknown

  “OK, time for css to ence, get excited!”

  The loudent in front of me looks as if he is about to jump out of the bed iement.

  So, to start with, I chose the saviour song to teach him si’s by far the oldest nguage with all uages having parts of it in them, eveher two of the trinity, it also being the one he is most simir with was also a factor.

  So, I taught him the sylbary to start with. I created a few worksheets yesterday to help with this. So, we went through all the letters and worked hard on the pronunciations of each. It took a few months, but he could get it down rather quickly, given that he seems to have never seen any of them before.

  But not without some issues. First, he is terrible at artig why he is stuck, so when we run into a problem, he ’t tell me what is wrong, but to teract this, I try to figure out what is wrong through trial and error.

  I do something and check for his rea to it by the colour his hair ges. By doing this, I usually get past the problem. The sed issue is motivation.

  It seems this whole learning process is taking lohan he expected, so he has grown impatient and keeps saying he wants to read, but by giving him pliments like: good job, amazing, wonderful, etc, he cheers up with his hair bright pink. So, through all of this, we could pletely quer the sylbary.

  Lately, we have been moving on to whole words, and he seems to be getting worked up more and more with his hair being red more often. It seems he really ’t get these words down.

  The usual methods haven’t been w. I believe he has trouble memorising the terms; si’s hard for a child with no cept of a forest to uand it from just words alone. I didn’t want to resort to this pn, but I had no choice. It is time to

  “PLAY IN THE SNOW!” I say to the boy beside me. I’m in my full cold-resistant gear, and the boy seems resistant to the cold anyway, so we should be able to py in the snow.

  I’m risking my life by doing this, but I think some pying would help rex the boy. I tell he already agrees with me because his hair is green, so we both start rushing toward the snow.

  But as I cross the threshold of the snow, I’m immediately reminded why it’s called the storm of the apocalypse. “It’s cold, it’s cold, it’s cold”, is all I could say, but as I say this, I feel my throat being frozen by the cold air, so I immediately shut my mouth.

  But the kid Is running around utterly ued by it. He seems to be more in his element here.

  I itted to this; I should do this to the best of my ability, so I ruo him and say, “Do you want to see something cool.”

  He eically replies, “Yes.”

  Ahh, his saviour song is no longer unintelligible. I ’t believe I get to feel the satisfa of raising kids at this age. So, I go on to start building objects and animals.

  “What’s that.”

  “A boat is eople use to travel the o, the big mass of water.”

  “What about that.”

  “It’s a Spercera, one of many animals you find at the base of Fimbulwinter.”

  After this, he starts gathering snow to make a snow sculpture like me, but he is really bad at it. Still, he seems happy while pying with the snow.

  Though lucky, it seems my pn worked as he is sculpting the things I showed; he is repeating their names which he was stu. It seems he is a visual learner. I should use this method and more pictures to help him memorise better.

  So, we tinue sculpting, but thearts shaping all the snow into a wolf.

  So, I ask, “What’s that” but upon asking about it, he immediately starts c the snow sculpture, and then his hair instantly turns e. He looks unfortable, so I ge the subject to “Do you want to go eat”, thearts perking up with a smile on his face.

  So, I begin to crush the snow sculptures, but while doing this, the boy screams “NO”, as he runs headfirst into my leg. “Stop killing them,” he says.

  Bewildered by his statement, I tell him, “You know they are not alive.”

  But the boy replies, “Yes, they are, and if they get crushed, they’ll be gone forever like wol” he suddenly stops midsentend gets sad with tears in his eyes.

  So, I say, “Sorry, I won’t kill them anymore, so let’s go get something to eat”, so we both head io eat.

  Now over the few months, we tiudying. Using pictures and sculpting, I increased his vocabury quite a bit. It is shog the number of words he has wholly memorised, but with nothing else to do; it makes sense, since all his energy is going towards this.

  But due to the fact we ’t break down any of the snow sculptures, retty a rge museum outside. If that’s what it takes for him to learn, then I have no issues with that.

  It’s almost been a year, and I haven’t just been sitting around. I have been w on a pn to reward him. The pn will be going into effeorrow. So, I told him to go to bed early tonight, saying, “I have a surprise for you tomorrow”. The boy looked excited ao bed immediately after that.

  So, I woke up early to get ready and leave a note under his door so he will see it when he opens it. I wonder what his face will look like; I ’t wait.

  -Break-

  Φ “I’m awake,” I say as I jumps from his bed. “I should go see Capti. I wonder what we are going to do today,” I say as I rush to the door; I jump for the doorknob, twists it, kick off the wall and open it “Woohoo,” I say as the door unlocks with me flying back still holding the knob.

  I ruically to Capti’s room to wake him. Jumping on his bed, I saying “Capti” repeatedly, but he isn’t there. “He must be in the library.”

  So, I rush dowairs and quickly arrives at the library. Looking around; I ’t find anything. I start to panid looking in the mirror I see my hair turn bck. Running to the kit I scream “CAPTI”,

  Buti hear no response. Uo find him I run outside as tears form in my eyes, looking and Screaming “CAPTI”, but when I fully circles the house, I fall on the ground and cry. “, Don’t leave me just like wolfie” I say as I begin to cry louder.

  “Didn’t you read my urning my head to the location of the sound; I run headfirst into Capti’s leg while g then I bite his leg.

  Φ “OUCH!” How did this even happen

  As we head baside, I say “I heard a lot of running, so I came out of the museum area to see what you were doing. Then I found y outside. Why didn’t you read the note.”

  The boy replies, “What note” while holding Capti’s leg.

  Letting out a sigh I say “I left a note in front of your door but you probably ran right past it when you opehe door. The note said to meet me in the museum for a surprise”,

  So, after telling him that I asked him to “Close your eyes”.

  “Ok” Orb says quietly; he must really be upset.

  Then as we walk into the museum, I say, “Now open them.”

  “HAPPY BIRTHDAY!” I say as the boy looks at the decorated museum with wonder. His hair turns a dull grey, and then he says to me, “What’s a birthday?”

  I reply, “It’s the day you are born, so people decide to celebrate, and since we both don’t know when that is, I decide this day, Capri 28th, the day you asked me my o be it, so yet again, happy birthday.”

  The boy’s hair then turns bright pink as he runs around the museum in delight. Interrupting him I say, “It’s time for your presents” then I hand him clothes and five books.

  “These are clothes you wear instead of what you’ve been wearing; you’ve grown and it doesn’t make seo keep wearing those clothes, and here are five books, I recreated from my memory there, their all at a skill level where you should be able to read them by yourself. All your hard work has paid off.”

  The boy jumps around with excitement after receiving his books and clothes, but I say, “Open the front cover of one of the books,” and on the front, it says property of Orb. The boy replies, “Who is an Orb.”

  “It’s the name I choose for you. It’s a see-through spherical piece of gss. I think the s. Do you like it?”

  “Orb, ORB, oRb, orB, orb,” the boy repeatedly says with excitement. “I love it”, he replies.

  After orb settles down and starts reading his new books in the library, I take down all the decorations to store them. It was easy enough to put this together. All I had to do was take materials from the ste to make decorations ahe clothes.

  Even writing the books was easy enough; since I have never fotten anything I have seen in my entire life, but the back pain from writing at my age was intense.

  Still, regardless of that, he looks pleased, so I hope the year is as lovely as this year but hopefully with more answers.

  Year 2 End