What drew his attention was one of his new father's arms.
From the head of humerus at the left shoulder's joint and all the way down to the fingers, his arm was a prosthetic without a hint of flesh or bone on it. A mixture of metal and some kind of synthetic white plastic were keeping an aesthetic balance between them as the hand moved like a real one.
Observing even closer, Sol also noticed a faint greenish light coming from its most inner sections; it was the same green color as the strange circles under the cooking pot.
His eyes lit up the moment he saw it.
'This unknown element again!' he thought in marvel.
That green color, along with that metallic luster and smooth plastic covering, that beauty of a machinery stirred inside him what he thought was long lost from the years he worked as an energy transfusion and convergence engineer, at the Energy Defense Department in his previous life.
At that period of his life, along with a few others, he was tasked with monitoring and repairing everything that was part of the Fusion Reactor and the Energy Barrier Generator of the fortress city where he lived.
The Fusion Reactor was mainly built for producing the necessary amount of energy for the Energy Barrier Generator, a device specifically designed to counter the increasing magnitude and appearances of solar storms, with its refined and compressed energy barriers.
During those years, he cherished the moments when he handled machinery and energy related projects, as they were by far the happiest of his life.
When he saw his son's eyes glow with amazement at the sight of his prosthetic arm, warm feelings swelled in the father's heart.
Although when he had lost his left arm in an accident a few years back he was heartbroken and thought his life was over, a small fortune his late father stashed in their house was more than enough to replace it with a fully operational Proto 5 - Arm Model.
Its functions were more or less the same as a real arm's but with only two differences. Since there was no flesh, he lacked the feeling of touch, but the structural durability and strength it featured, more than made up for it.
Having his son show interest in this prosthetic arm of his was all he could hope for as that meant having one more topic to bond with him in the future.
Even though he knew his infant son didn't have the ability to understand him yet, he was so excited he couldn't wait.
The facts and circumstances of the overall experience merged with added stories and tales as he began narrating his ordeal with his - at the time - new prosthetic arm, as if he was storytelling a myth of legend, without really caring if his newborn son understood him or not.
Sol, of course, couldn't understand what he was being told, but he knew at the very least his new father was very proud of what he was telling him.
Even though his new mother was done preparing the table and the two of them had sat down, Sol continued to be held by his new father and listening to his never-ending gibberish.
By the time both of them had finished their dinner, Sol thought his ears might fall off. It wasn't as if his new father was screaming or something, but that he has never stopped talking! Not even when he was munching on the bread or slurping the soup, so absorbed he was in telling his son stories he just kept talking nonstop.
So great was the torture in forced to listen to all that gibberish, Sol vowed to himself that no matter what this life had in store for him, he had to learn this foreign language without fail and as fast as he could. Otherwise, he couldn't imagine his sanity surviving many years under his new father's rich storytelling without it at least being coherent to him.
Thankfully, his new mother came to his rescue as he took him away from the blabbering father and carried him to the other room.
This time, he was carried in a cradling position and had ample view of this second room where he first had awoken to; he could now see and observe what before he failed to.
The first thing that entered his vision was positioned right across from him. It was a double-sized bed with a wooden frame, made from an unremarkable material of no special quality. On the right side of it was the familiar crib while on the stone wall next to the crib two windows were allowing the unseen evening setting sun to illuminate the room in hues of golden orange.
On the left side of the bed, and right next to it, was a bedside table with three drawers while more to the right, a small table with two chairs were occupying the empty space that was left.
In addition, on this side, instead of windows a door existed. What was on the other side? Sol could only guess it was a bathroom.
On their immediate left and right, on both sides of the door from which they had entered, two identical dressers of dark brown wood were placed.
Finally and most importantly, he could not spot anywhere any kind of lighting system! He could not see any form of lighting devices, not even an archaic bulb operated one. There was not even a switch nor any interface on the walls to light them even if they existed!
He had had a feeling since the day before that something was missing but he couldn't quite put his finger on it. The whole thing about being reborn as an infant in another world was already too much to come to terms with. The novel existence of that oven-like appliance and the prosthetic arm have only distracted him even further from detecting this major lack of a lighting system.
Thinking about it now, the only source of energy he had witnessed so far was the green colored energy powering those two objects!
'Could this unfamiliar energy be the main energy used in this world?!'
While deep in his bewildered thoughts, his new mother proceeded to walk towards the door on the left, shaking him enough to lose his train of thought.
Of course, this discovery was too important to slip out of his mind, but time was needed to properly address and investigate it; a luxury he didn't have right now. Sol mentally shelved it for later, just as the door in front of him opened.
Inside, the expected bathroom indeed presented itself.
Square tiles of a smooth stone were composing its floor and walls, while the ceiling was properly varnished wooden planks tightly connected to each other. The spaces between the square tiles were similarly sealed with some kind of glue material, preventing moisture from sipping inside the inner parts of the walls. A sink with a mirror on the right wall and one adult-size bathtub across from him were all that was part of the bathroom.
His new mother started undressing him for a new shameful display and Sol knew what was coming but lacked the means to do anything about it except reluctantly let it happen.
Fifteen minutes later, he was carried out of the bathroom smelling like spring breeze and flowers.
He had also learned that there were plumbing systems in this world, and they worked just fine...
His new mother held him in a soft towel as she went and sat on one of the chairs nearby. He was expecting to be put in the crib but obviously something else preceded it. Although Sol was knowledgeable and had many years under his belt, he wasn't sure of what came next.
A movement from his new mother though, undressing herself until her bosom came into view, cleared all his doubts and filled him with horror at the same time.
Ten minutes or so later, judging by the receding daylight as the day drew closer to its cosmic closure, the nightmare ended and Sol found himself back in the crib. Candles were lit, illuminating the room with their dancing light and the shifting shadows.
The nightmare had ended, but he was still paralyzed by the dread of what he had experienced. What he had just endured, he still couldn't believe it, and he was almost reaching the border of denial for his spirit to be able to endure it. If his body was still that of a seventy years old man, he would have had a heart attack by now!
In a bit to forget the incident and not think about the many times he would have to endure the same thing along with the other two embarrassing events he had already experienced withing the near future - one just fifteen minutes or so before and another earlier that day - he quickly distracted his mind by thinking about the new energy and his immediate needs; one of whom was to learn the unfamiliar language.
There, as he was lying in his crib, even after his new parents entered the room and fell asleep on their bed, Sol kept thinking about his next plans for the future until he eventually drowsed off into peaceful slumber.