It was a ship of some sort. The Tranquility. It traveled through the stars rather than the seas.

[Talking seems to help keep his mind off the machinery all around him; his penmanship improves, albeit marginally.]

It was a little like this place in that everyone there had been taken from their own worlds and times, but rather than trapped in a city, we were all aboard this... vessel. Everything was so smooth, metal. Inorganic. Unnatural. And yet, it was said to be alive.