Beneath the Waves ➵ Carlton Drake

[04] LEARNING

   "When you get that funny
feeling way down low.
Just stop what you're doing
and go, go, go."

   Brina's eyes slowly opened, her gaze slightly blurry at first. The last thing she remembered was hearing the door open to her little room, but then it was black. She scowled when she realized they must have used their magic powers to make her sleep like they did when she was first caught.

   However, Brina soon felt that her pelvis area was no longer wet, and the room around her no longer smelled like food.

   Not to mention, all that Brina could hear was the quiet chatter of the scientists and some sort of human song. Brina could not decipher what the words of the song meant, but the toon was slow and childlike. Turning her head to the right, Brina was met with the sight of some sort of magic box with images flashing across the screen.

   The images were animated with bubbly bouncy characters. It was bright and happy, something which immediately caught Brina's attention.

   The sheets ruffled as Brina sat up in her bed, watching the television. Her eyes were wide with wonder, flickering over the screen. She had never seen anything like this, were those people trapped in the little image box?

   Standing from the bed, Brina took notice that her attire was now different from before she woke up. She still wore sweats, but the color scheme of them had simply changed.

   Bending down, Brina grasped the television, running her hands over the screen. She studied the odd device for a few moments, deciding that the people on the screen could not see her as she could see them. With this conclusion, Brina once again stood up, backing away toward her bed.

   Crawling back onto the comfy piece of furniture, Brina crossed her legs, involuntarily beginning to play with her toes as she watched the television.

   On the screen was a children's nursery show, meant to aid kids in potty-training. Because it was meant for kids, you did not necessarily need to know what any of the words they sang meant as long as you understood the motions of what the animated characters on screen were doing.

   Tilting her head, Brina watched as the characters danced around a toilet pointing to it. She recognized the toilet as the odd seat she had seen in the smaller room connected to the one she was currently residing it. Not only was there the odd chair in there, but there was also a weird bed-like looking contraption along with another tall counter thing. Of course, these two things were only a bathtub and sink, but Brina had no clue to that.

   It took only seconds for it to click in Brina's mind that this show was trying to teach her how to use the weird-looking chair. Eager to know more about this human technology, Brina sat ideally, listening and absorbing the information by watching the motions of the character.

   "I went to the potty,
and washed my hands too.
I went to the potty like
the big kids do!"

   'Potty?' Brina thought to herself, finding the name of the contraption rather strange.

   Not only had the characters released themselves into the 'potty', as Brina now knew it as, but they had also washed there hands in the counter-thing afterward.

   Was this what they wanted her to do? Brina suddenly thought back to when she released herself, realizing that happened just minutes before she was sedated. She figured that must have been the reason they sedated her, to clean her up.

   The thing about sirens was that they were incredibly clever creatures. Alike to humans, sirens learned at a fast pace. It would not take long for Brina to truly pick up on the ways of humans and their cultures. After all, she had already deciphered that the scientists currently standing outside of the glass watching her, played this show to explain that they wanted her to use the toilet from now on.