“You don’t have a name?” Mickey asks me. I shake my head no.

“How did you get your names?” I ask them. “Are they normal names?”

“I was told mine on a note.” Mickey answers.

This word is strange to me. A note? His name was on a note? Like it was written on? Who did that? “What is a note?” Is the first tanong I ask about this.

“It’s a piece of paper people use to put words on. You haven’t heard of those before?” tsauder informs me.

“No I haven’t. Should I?” Was I… did I start with the wrong information? W-was I supposed to have more? That would explain why I didn’t know everything but… did this mean I’d forget things?

“We both started out without knowing a lot of things.” Says Mickey. That’s good. Then they are just like me… I hope.

“I got my name from the first thing I read.” tsauder answers.

“What is a ‘chowder’?” I reply. He makes an angry face at me. I ilipat back a bit slightly afraid. What did I do wrong?

“It’s a…” He rubs the back of his head… is he scratching an itch? He’s looking down now. What is wrong, is he madami upset?

“It’s food.” Mickey finishes.

Oh. I see why he is upset now… I think. Being named after pagkain is a bad thing… why is it a bad thing? If I was named after the Raench I wouldn’t be upset.

“Raench?” tsauder asks me?

“Did I say that outloud?” I ask. I didn’t mean to do that.

“Yes… what’s Raench?” He questions. For some reason me knowing something they don’t feels… good. There is a word for this but if I ask them maybe they will get upset. I might ask them later.

“It’s a white cream… thing. I put it on salad.”

“Maybe we should call you Raench then.” tsauder says this in a strange way… it sounds a little like someone singing, but only barely… I think it’s a mean kind of way to say it… m-… mocking, he is… mocking, me…

“Chowder be nice.” Mickey looks at tsauder angrily. I’m happy that Mickey is helping me but I don’t want them to be angry with each other. I try to distract them with a different thing to talk about.

“Wh-where do you live?” They look back at me now. They don’t look angrily but they look surprised instead.

“We live in the same house.” Mickey replies. “Do you live with someone?”

“No.” I feel… ashamed. I feel upset and bad for myself. I lower my head while feeling ashamed. I look back at them. Maybe I can go with them now. W-… will I have to go back to being alone soon? “Can I stay with you? Please?”

They look nervous. Did I scare them? Oh please don’t let them be scared, I don’t want them to leave. They give a strange motion to each other then begin to walk away. I walk after them. “Please don’t go!” I yell out nervously.

Mickey turns back to me. “We’re not leaving.” He raises his hands… this is another signal I guess. “We just need to talk alone for a minute.”

I don’t like this but I nod anyway… then I start counting to sixty. If we aren’t alone, who created us? Did the arms do it? They were the only other things I’ve seen act around me, but I do like being around Mickey madami than I do the arms… maybe tsauder too.

When they walk back I smile, I want to seem nice. They were gone for less than a minute. Why did they say “for a minute”? Did they count wrong? Did I count wrong? What will they say?

“We don’t know if you can stay with us.” Mickey tells me. “We... aren’t in control of anything really.”

“But… aren’t we out now?” I question. I begin to look around while confused about this. Are we still inside? Is this a trick?

“This is a play-yard.” tsauder says.

“A play-yard?” I don’t want to keep asking them questions. I feel like it bothers them.

“Do you know what play is?” He demands.

“Well…” Play… A play is… something with a curtain? When people dress up and pretend to be things. I say this. tsauder looks at me angrily again. I wish he wouldn’t.

“You’re not wrong but this is a different kind of play.” Mickey tells me. I like Mickey. He doesn’t look at me angrily. I want to balutin my arms around him again but he doesn’t seem to like that so I control myself. “Play,” he continues, “is enjoyment. It’s connected with a word called ‘game’. Games are things you play. There is a goal, and the goal is what you want to get to, the end of the game. And sa pamamagitan ng winning it means that you reach the goal.”

“When did you learn that?” I ask. “Was that on a note too?”

“No I knew that when I first woke up.” He says.

“But… why didn’t I?” I feel stupid. tsauder doesn’t like me because I’m stupid. It’s not my fault is it?

“We learned different things from our houses before we were put in the same one.” Mickey replies.

“Oh.” That’s better. At least I’m not… completely stupid. “You lived alone?”

“For two weeks.” tsauder is ipinapakita his teeth now. He scares me and I crouch. Mickey looks over at him angrily again. I don’t want them mad at each other but is tsauder going to attack me?

“She’s ten, Chowder. Keep your hostility down.” I’m ten? My age is ten? I-is that normal? What do ten-year-olds act like? How does he know I’m ten?

“H-how do you know that?” I’m still cowering but I’d like to know.

“I don’t know, I just do.” He shrugs his shoulders. I know what this gesture means. It means that he doesn’t care or doesn’t know… I think. “Maybe you know what our ages are.” He suggests.

“I…” look at them back and forth. tsauder isn’t ipinapakita his teeth anymore. They have… smooth faces, but I don’t know what age that makes them. I’m ten… and they are almost twice as tall as me. Ten twice is… twenty. I hope that’s right. “Are you twenty?” I finally guess.

They look back at each other, going down and up with their eyes, then nod and turn back to me. “You’re right.” Mickey tells me.

“I, I-I am?” I could have… I thought I’d be wrong, how did I get that right? I think I’ll leave it alone and just accept that I was right.

I want to know when this ends. I don’t want it to end if tsauder scares me. I just want them to stay here. “Do you know when this ends?”

“It ends… after a few hours.” Says Mickey.

“How long has it been?”

“Ten minutes.” Says Chowder.

“That’s short, right?” I want to make sure.

“Yes. Ten minutos is short.”

The susunod thing I want to know is why I am here, why are they here, they are bound to know. “Are we here for a reason?”

“We were never told if there was one.” Mickey answers. “We spend our time walking, sitting, swinging-“

“Swinging?” I cover my mouth and close my eyes. Will tsauder be mad again? My voice is muffled but I still say “I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry” I keep saying it over and over. I don’t know when to stop.

“You can stop.” It’s Chowder’s voice that says this. I stop but I keep my eyes closed still.

“Here, I’ll ipakita you.” Mickey offers. He waits a few segundos then tells me “You need to open your eyes first.”

“Is tsauder angry at me?”

There is a pause. I hear… low voices… I can’t understand them. They sound sort of like grunts. It stops and Mickey says “He’s not angry, you can open your eyes.”

Trust… do I trust him? Mickey has been nice so I don’t have a reason to- I mean not to… why would I have a reason not to though? Would this be a trick? Why am I saying that, of course it isn’t a trick, he’s… he’s nice…

I open my eyes. Mickey is smiling, tsauder isn’t, but he isn’t being angry either. He makes his eyes go up then around… why was he doing that? I’m staring at tsauder now, I don’t mean to, but Mickey waves to me before tsauder does anything about it. I look back at Mickey. He’s susunod to the wood attached to the metal strings. I walk over to him.

“These are swings.” He says, gesturing to them. They come up to my neck. What do I do with them? “What do they do?”

“Here.” He grabs my waist and begins to lift me up. This feels weird, I didn’t expect him to pick me up. It reminds me of the… arms, the metal arms. I remember how they’d hold me still… and… I freak out. I jerk a bit, letting out a short scream, and he lets go. I fall and almost hit my head on the wood. Mickey stops me before I do.

He hates me now doesn’t he, he must at this point. All I keep saying is that I’m sorry over and over again. But then he tells me “It’s alright.”

Mickey pushes me back up to stand again. I don’t freak out this time. I look back up at him. He isn’t smiling but he doesn’t look angry… then, he tells ME “I’m sorry. I should have asked you first.”

I don’t know why I had to feel so bad when he picked me up. I was wrapping my arms around him before, he should be mad at me. “I just… I… there were these arms…” I don’t know how to explain it, will they believe me? I have to try at least. “I- in my house there were arms… metal arms, they woul-“

“They did that to you?!” Chowder’s voice is loud, and he sounds angry. I jump onto Mickey, and even crawl around to his back, hoping that tsauder won’t attack me while Mickey is in front of me. Then I realize what he said. What does mean by- “What do you mean?” I ask him nervously.

“They grabbed you, and made you eat the pills?” tsauder demands. I nod quickly. He looks down, his hands clench like a fist, and his teeth show. He kicks the ground yelling “I can’t believe it!” Is… is he angry at me still or someone else?

“I’m sorry, did I-“

“He’s not mad at you.” Mickey tells me. He doesn’t seem to mind me climbing on him I guess, he’s not saying anything about it. “He’s mad that that happened to you.”

“So… he…”

“He feels bad for you.”

“Is that good?”

“I think so.”

He must be right. tsauder hasn’t sinabi anything mean to me right now, so I’ll believe Mickey. They know about the pills. Maybe they know what the pills do. “What do the pills do to us?” I tanong Chowder.

“They make us fall asleep I think.” He answers. His voice still sounds upset but he seems calmer. “I don’t remember any other change.”

“Is there another way to sleep?” Will we always need pills to sleep?

“We don’t know.” Mickey answers. He sets me down and turns around to face me. “Whatever is going on we aren’t in control of it. But at least we aren’t alone.”

I do enjoy being with people. Even if tsauder scares me he does seem protective. This ends every two hours, so I want to spend it at least happy. Then I can go live with Mickey and Chowder! … I hope.

“Could… could we try the ugoy again?” I ask… t-timidly. I’m beginning to enjoy remembering new words, and Mickey and tsauder will be able to teach me new ones.

Mickey smiles, nodding. “Do you want help this time?”

I’m not sure. I don’t really mind being picked up but will it make him feel weird now? I don’t know. “Is, is that alright?”

“Of course.” Mickey kneels down and puts his hands on the ground, cupping them. What does he want me to do?

“Um…”

“You put your foot here, and I’ll push you up so you can go onto the seat.” He explains. Why did he change the way to get on? Maybe it DID feel weird to him. I don’t want to hurt his hands but I step on them anyway. He doesn’t look hurt and begins to push me up.

I’m not sure what he wants me to do susunod but I feel myself beginning to fall. I remember falling the first time, but what if Mickey doesn’t catch me again? Before I know what’s happening, I’ve launched myself upward, spinning in the air, then landing on the swing, standing.

Mickey looks at me surprised. tsauder does too. Did I scare them? I feel the ugoy ilipat forward. I don’t want to fall again so I crouch down quickly and grab the metal ropes tightly. I’m okay now.

“That was cool! You’re really athletic.” Mickey says.

Cool… that’s a good thing I think, but I don’t know what athletic means. Does it mean I’m able to ilipat quickly or spin? If I ask again tsauder might be angry at me again so I change how I ask and reply “I am?”

Mickey nods. “Did you learn that?”

I shake my head no. “I was afraid I’d fall so…”

“Nice move.” He smiles. I smile back. Mickey sits on the ugoy susunod to me. I didn’t know we sat on them so I do the same. He begins to ugoy his feet- Oh I get it now. He swings his feet back and forth, pushing his arms back and forth too. The ugoy moves pasulong and backward, kind of like a circle. I try to do the same. Mine moves a little but it sort of just jerks around.

“You have to use the momentum.” He says. “When you feel the ugoy is at the highest it can go, you lean and push in the other direction, back and forth.”

I don’t know what momentum is, but maybe the segundo part was describing it. I try it and my ugoy moves more. It goes forward, then back, then pasulong longer, then back longer. I keep doing this until the ugoy goes as high as the pole above us.

“Careful not to go too high.” Mickey warns. I slow down. This is fun. I like the wind going back and forth against me, and a weird… tickling-like feeling. It wasn’t like the lamp, it didn’t hurt, so that’s good.

Mickey calls out to tsauder “Are you going to sumali us?”

I don’t see Chowder’s reaction because I’m facing up while I ugoy but I hear him walk over. After a little while we are all swinging high up. Then, Mickey lets go of the ugoy and flies pasulong in the air, spinning like I did, then landing on his feet.

“Are you okay?” I call out.

“Yeah I’m fine. I do that sometimes.” He replies. “You want to try?”

I don’t know. What if I fall on my face? Maybe… “Can you catch me?”

“Sure.” He opens his arms and waits. I take a little while nervously, but when I think I have the right amount of height I let go and I start flying pasulong too. Mickey moves around so that he can aim correctly, and catches me.

“That was fun!” I laugh. We both laugh. He sets me down and turns to Chowder. “I’m not catching you.” He says. I think tsauder is going to be upset but he actual smiles “Oh no, what will I do?” He says it in that strange tune again.

“What does he mean when he talks like that?” I ask.

“Sarcasm. It’s… joking.” Mickey tells me. “He says something but he doesn’t actually mean it.”

“So… if I sinabi I wanted to… um…” I can’t think of an example to use.

“You’ll get it eventually.” He says. Maybe I will. We all go back to swinging. We do this for a long while. None of us talk very much but it’s still fun. Eventually the blue in the air turns orange.

“Why is it…”

They both look up. “It’s the sunset.” tsauder says. “It happens when the araw ends.”

“Ends? Days end?”

“Yes, then night comes.” Mickey continues. “At night people… sleep…” The way he says it makes me think he just found out. Does this mean though that the pills in the arms will come back? I start to get scared again and stop swinging.

“Does that mean the arms will come back?” I ask.

They stop swinging now too. Mickey takes a little while before answering. “I… think so… I guess, we’ll just have to protect each other then, right?” He smiles trying to make me happy again. I’m still scared but he’s right. I want to protect them just like they want to protect me. Maybe we will be able to get out of here one time. Maybe we’ll find out why we are here… eventually.