These estimations when meeting someone new were drilled into me throughout my apprenticeship. It was one of the many additional skills required to graduate as a spatial mage aiming to be a trader.
"I was asking about how you were feeling."
Her voice took me out of my thoughts once more. The headache was mostly gone by now, maybe due to the startle she gave me. It wasn't her fault, though.
"I'm feeling… alright, thank you. Can I ask who you are and where I am?"
"I'm Suuru Ableo and this is my house. What's your name? How did a young girl like you end up collapsing so close to the dome?"
"I'm a man."
"What's a man?"
Damn it. I didn't know what this person was thinking but I wasn't in the mood for jokes. Not at all. Even though I might appear ungrateful to someone who helped me, I just couldn't take it anymore. I felt the hopelessness surge again from deep inside.
"Sorry... Could you leave me alone, please?"
"I can see something bad happened to you. You can talk to me if you want."
"Please."
She looked at me with pity.
"…Alright. I'll go back to work. You can call me if you need anything."
She turned around and left the room after closing the door. In different circumstances, I could have felt guilty about my treatment of a woman who seemed like a good person. Yet, my thoughts right now were miles away from this.
I was on a different planet. Alone. This morning, I left my family after a long farewell to start my career in the capital. My family was one of the very few elements that allowed me to endure the harsh fifteen years of training. They had always been supportive of me and soothed me back to health the few times I was allowed to visit them. I couldn't have done it without their mental care.
Now, I would never see them again. My strong but caring father. My smiling and soft mother. My dynamic and cheerful little brother. All gone, forever.
But that wasn't all. All the relationships I built, all my hopes for the future, the brilliant career that was finally open to me, the obvious future success I would experience. All of that disappeared into smoke, all because of a gate incident, all in a single instant.
'Damn it. Damn it. Damn it. Why me? What did I do to deserve this? Why? Just why? Damn it. Damn it all!'
For a long time, I was lost in my distress, within these dark thoughts. The other reason I managed to endure the apprenticeship was because it was all an investment for a great future. I knew that if I managed to complete these fifteen years, the rest of my life would be smooth sailing. Now, I only had regrets left. Why did I try so hard if things were to end like this?
I couldn't feel time passing while my thoughts were running in circles. Eventually, I heard knocks on the door. I heard the woman's voice state some gibberish and moved ryl toward my ears again.
"…Feeling now?"
Even though I only got the last part of her sentence, it wasn't hard to imagine what she wanted to express. How was I feeling? I was feeling like crap. Still, it was now crap I was stirring for hours. I might as well answer her.
"Not too good."
"I see. I think I made you upset before. I'm sorry about that. Would you like to talk to me now?"
'Well, why not? I don't care about anything right now. Might as well listen to her. Or should I just end it all?
"Okay…"
She opened the door and entered the room. Her behavior was a lot more careful now, as if she was dealing with a prickly teenager.
'I guess that's how I look from the outside. I wish my troubles were only on the teenager's anxiety level.'
She approached the bed and looked at my face, which made her wince. She didn't seem to be good at hiding her feelings.
"You really don't look that well. Do you want to eat something? I don't have a lot but we can share a meal."
This last sentence finally woke me up a little.
'That's right. No matter how terrible my situation is, I'm intruding on that nice person's home and probably using her bed. She doesn't have a lot of food but still wants to feed me? Is she being generous while being poor?'
"I'm fine. You don't need to feed me on top of everything else."
"No can do! You look so pale! I can't starve you on top of that. Don't worry about me, I have enough to share a few meals with you."
"But…"
"No buts. Let's have dinner now. Can you stand up?"
Was it dinner time already? Come to think of it, I departed in the morning in my world, but it could have been any hour in this one. I wasn't sure how much time passed while I was unconscious or lost in my dark thoughts.
"Yes."
I left the bed sheets' comfort and stood beside her. It wasn't like I had any physical issues, after all. She grinned encouragingly while gesturing at me to follow her.
"Good. I'm glad. Come to the living room. Dinner is prepared already."
I nodded and followed from behind. The room next to this one was seemingly the living room. It was bigger than the bedroom, still full of items I didn't know the use for. I could guess some of them, like the chairs and table, where two sets of metallic plates half full of food were placed. In front of these were metallic glasses half-filled with water.
"You can sit here. It's just a simple meal of beans. I hope you'll like it."
The word "beans" was what I automatically translated it to but these were vegetables I had never seen before. They were green and roundish, a bit like a smaller version of the churuk from my world. The plate was only half filled with them, with a few sprinkles of spices. It was clear the woman had divided her normal-sized meal into two to accommodate me.