Ever since she woke up the first time, this suddenly appeared in her vision.
And it always stayed in that position ever since, even as she closed her eyes.
The symbols were not static.
After some time, she noticed some slight changes in the symbols.
There was also a long horizontal box beside it.
As time passed by, this box seemed to be slowly filled in.
Now it had only filled up to two-thirds of the space inside the box.
As she had no way to count the passage of time, she only recalled that it had always been there since she first briefly woke up and had remained in place, so it must have been a very long time.
After watching for a while, she looked away.
Regardless of all the uncertainties, one thing was for sure.
She was now in the peaceful era where the world had not been devastated by any asteroid or tower on the global level.
She was clearly being cared for, and at least since she woke up until now, she had never seen a monster suddenly appear out of nowhere.
The bed was comfortable, and although she felt extremely weak right now, she sensed no immediate danger around him.
This current world was countless times better than the previous one.
Feeling drowsy, she comfortably fell into a deep sleep.
….
The next morning, when the little girl woke up again, she saw the man and woman who had visited her yesterday.
They were smiling at her, but they seemed to be forcing themselves to.
They were speaking to her in that strange language again.
She blinked, pretending not to notice their awkwardness, just innocently gazing up at them.
During the past months she had been awake, she learned that pretending to be a clueless child worked wonders.
No one suspected that she was no longer the same person, and no one found her ignorant behavior abnormal.
The couple were clearly husband and wife, given the natural air of intimacy between them.
And…
was the original body the child of these two people?
Or were they her other family members?
She thought, Being unable to speak is a blessing in disguise in times like this.
The man pointed at himself, “I am Edmund.” Then he pointed to his wife, “She’s Emily.”
“Edmund, Emily.” They kept repeating while pointing to themselves.
The child looked at the couple blankly who kept speaking unintelligible words and understood their intentions.
The couple did not give up and kept repeating themselves patiently, until the child nodded in defeat.
Did you both forget that I can’t speak?
Are you expecting me to repeat after you?
Seeing her nod, the couple were happy.
It seemed their child finally recognized their names!
The man cleared his throat and tested, “Edmund.”
There was a brief silence before the child, with a blank expression, raised her thin but heavy arm and pointed at the man.
The man’s eyes showed approval.
“Good girl.”
The woman excitedly said, “Emily.”
The hand shifted to point at the woman.
“Edmund.”
“Emily.”
After several repetitions, the child was exhausted, both of her arms felt heavy as if filled with lead.
Finally, she ignored the couple and turned her head away in annoyance.
The couple, Edmund and Emily, finally realized that they must have pestered the child a bit too much.
After glancing at each other, they pointed at the child and said in unison, “Alice.”
Hearing this new and unfamiliar word, the child looked back.
Seeing the hands of the couple who kept repeating themselves while pointing at her, she realized something.
Unlike in the previous life where she had never gotten a formal name and was simply called ‘little brat’ by the madwoman, in this life, she had a formal name of her own.
Alice.
That was her name.
Alice.
Alice.
The child kept repeating this strange name in her mind.
In the following days, Alice stayed inside the room without complaints.
There was no reason to complain.
She had delicious food to eat, clean water to drink, and she even had various entertainment tools to accompany her.
The most useful was the flat screen on the wall where Alice could watch various cartoons and shows.
She spent most of her time staring wide-eyed on the screen, captivated.
Despite her mental age, everything was new to her, and she thoroughly enjoyed herself.
Alice had never been so relaxed!
Perhaps the language learning videos for children that were being shown on the wall helped a lot.
She now began to recognize some verbal words and could now link them to objects, different actions, and concepts she had previously read from the salvaged books from the Old World.
She learned basic arithmetic, alphabet, and other basic common sense like the days of the week and months of a year from the cartoons.
She also learned the names of the people she mostly interacted with.
The two people who often checked on her were doctors called Dr.
Matt and Dr.
Smith.
Dr.
Matt mainly took care of her daily needs and hygiene, while Dr.
Smith took charge of her routine exercises, daily diagnosis, and often performed various actions like taking her blood for tests and putting her under various apparatuses.
The couple, her nominal parents, were also doctors, but they were often busy and could only see her once a day for a short period of time.
From what Alice observed, she was currently either in a hospital or a laboratory, recuperating her health.
For some reason, she could not speak despite having intact vocal chords.
She also could not walk, and was very weak.
Still, Alice was much stronger than months ago, when even turning her head was difficult.
Now, she could at least sit up with difficulty, move her upper body, and raise her arms.
Her hands were still finding it difficult to hold objects though.
These were her own findings, which perfectly coincided with the diagnosis gathered by Dr.
Smith’s team.
After a further period of observation on the patient, the laboratory researchers and doctors finally announced: due to the trauma caused by the accident, the child had lost the ability to speak at a psychological level.
The previous brain injury sustained during the accident also caused damage to some extent, causing complete memory loss, and a reset on the child’s language faculty.
Also, the central nervous system had not fully recovered yet, causing motor issues on the lower part of the child’s body.
In other words, Alice also lost the ability to walk.
These issues were not apparent during the child’s coma due to inactivity, but after several detailed checks when the patient gained consciousness, the harm caused by the accident to the child’s brain and nerves finally became clear to all.
Unable to speak, unable to understand language, unable to remember previous memories, and unable to walk.
The child Alice had become an embodiment of disabilities.
Despite their mental preparations after seeing the child’s lack of notable improvements this past two months, Edmund and Emily were both devastated.
They looked at their clueless child who could only lay helplessly on the bed, unaware of the gravity of her situation, and tried to keep their composure intact.
No matter what, they were now both the pillars of the child.
They must stay strong for Alice.
After bidding good night to the little girl and closing the door, the group walked in the hallway with a somewhat downcast mood.
Edmund patted his wife’s back.
“Fortunately, we are part of this laboratory.
Our child can be on the priority lane for the relevant biotech pilot studies to improve his condition.”
Emily sighed.
“But the latest clinical trial doesn’t seem to show much effect.
I heard that the other test subjects at least showed some positive trends to varying degrees, but our child showed none at all…” She turned to look at Dr.
Smith, who was also a core researcher of the integrated experimental project.
“How is her neural interface report progressing?”
Dr.
Smith looked at his tablet.
“Still showing as unresponsive.
Based on my observations, the nanofluid seemed to be in low power mode.
The child’s brain had much higher activity levels than average kids her age, so the energy generated by the self-sustaining nanobots inside her body appears to me as insufficient.” He glanced at his assistant meaningfully.
His assistant, Dr.
Matt, saw his signal and kindly reminded the couple: “There is an ongoing project in the nano-assistive technology department to increase the storage capacity of the self-sustaining nanobots.”
Edmund: “That one?
I remember it’s still in-vitro?”
“That was a year ago.
Now, they have already passed the advanced pre-clinical levels.
I heard they are applying for testing to the headquarters.
I’m just not sure when the early clinical trials will start rolling out.
The headquarters has already prepared the groundwork in parallel with the integrated project, so the progress now is incredibly fast.”
Emily’s eyes lit up.
“Then wait for at least the first phase results of an early clinical trial.
As long as the results are not disastrous, we’ll sign up our Alice for the second phase.”
Edmund thought for a moment.
“Aside from this, is there other news from the headquarters?”
Dr.
Smith paused on his steps.
He looked at the couple, observing their expressions.
“…From what I understand, it seems you don’t plan to let Alice join just this one experiment?”
Edmund and Emily looked at each other with determined looks in their eyes.
There was no hesitation in their gaze, only confirming what they had previously discussed in private.
The couple had long reached an agreement about this even before they even considered their marriage.
They owed the organization too much and wished to return the favor, and at the same time hoped that the organization would continue to protect their child.
A glint flashed briefly in Dr.
Smith’s eyes.
His mind calculated various possibilities as he thought of the conditions of the patient Alice.