Chapter 4. Friends are not Food

Halankuo was wearing only a long T-shirt that covered her buttocks and some of her thighs.

Tuot touched his owner's eyes with his upper paws and opened them, but Halankuo did not wake up.

"Is she really dead?" Tuot thought. "This is bad for people. But... I've been looking at her delicious meat for so many years. Now I have the opportunity to taste it."

Tuot summoned the interface and entered the inventory. It contained several knives of different sizes.

"Halankuo is your friend. Friends are not food," the dinosaur remembered the words of Halankuo's mother. 

... There was thick fog in the coniferous forest. A small dinosaur with a long tail, covered with white-blue feathers, hid behind a tree and trembled with fear. He was afraid that someone would come out of the fog and do something bad to him.

Footsteps were heard. The dinosaur tried not to move, because it could be detected by sound. The animal thought that someone would accidentally bump into him and it would end badly.

But the steps were no longer heard. The dinosaur looked out from behind the tree. Suddenly he felt something holding him by the tail and not allowing him to move forward. The dinosaur screamed loudly and jumped - so he tried to free himself.

"Don't scream, I won't do anything bad to you," the dinosaur heard a human voice.

Unlike other people, this voice was high-pitched. The dinosaur did not understand human language, but this voice did not seem dangerous to him.

The dinosaur turned around as best he could and saw that he was being held by the tail by a human child with long black hair in some dark clothes.

"I'm lost," the child said. "Do you know how to get out of the forest?"

The dinosaur did not understand what the child was saying. But he felt that they were trying to force him to do something.

"I really don't want to go to people," the dinosaur thought. "But this child has me by the tail. I'll have to go somewhere. Maybe then this being will let me go."

The dinosaur walked towards the exit from the forest. The child followed him and held the dinosaur by the tail. Along the way there were trees that suddenly appeared out of the fog. The dinosaur went around them, but sometimes did not have time and hit its head on the trunk. After some time, a small dinosaur and a human child came out onto a stone road that led down into the river valley...

... The forest is over. A palisade appeared, behind which a wooden house could be seen.

"We came to the village," the child said. "I'll be home soon. Want to go with me? You will be my pet. I really like birds. They walk so funny. I have long wanted to have my own birdie."

The dinosaur did not answer anything, because he did not understand anything.

"You seem to agree," the child said. "Now you are my birdie. I will call you Tuot. My name is Halankuo."

... Tuot took the knife in his hand and began to cry. He felt sad at the thought that he would eat someone he had been with since childhood.

"Halankuo is my friend," Tuot thought. "I can't eat it."

Kyotyoryon came into the kitchen.

"Stupid dinosaur, the creator doesn't wake up," the spirit of metal said. "I pulled her by the hair, but she didn't wake up." Maybe it needs to be pierced with something?

"She called me stupid, but at least I'm not a chicken," Tuot thought. "It's good that she didn't think of piercing Halankuo earlier."

Tuot put the knife back into his inventory, hidden the interface and ran into the corridor. Halankuo was still lying on the floor and did not move.

Kyotyoryon approached her creator and knelt down. A short blade appeared from the bracelet on her hand.

"What happens if you cut off her head?" Kyotyoryon asked.

"She will die," answered Tuot.

"Forever?"

"Yes."

"What if you cut off your arm or lower arm?

Tuot realized that the "lower hand" was a leg. The dinosaur imagined Halankuo's leg, separated from the body, and remembered that recently he wanted to eat it.

"Maybe we should cut off the leg and eat it?" Tuot thought. "Her character doesn't mind... No, I shouldn't think like that. Friends are not food."

"What will happen?" Kyotyoryon pointed the blade at the dinosaur.

"Blood will flow," answered Tuot. "And she will die."

"This is bad. I am not allowed to cut anything."

Kyotyoryon touched the eyelid of one of Halankuo's eyes with her index finger and opened it. But the girl did not wake up. Kyotyoryon smiled faintly and looked at Tuot.

"If you insert this thing here, the creator will not die?" the spirit of metal brought the blade to Halankuo's eye.

"She won't die," Tuot answered.

Kyotyoryon tried to thrust the blade into Halankuo's eye, but missed and hit him in the forehead. A scratch formed and blood came out.

Halankuo opened her eyes and screamed loudly in pain.

"Sorry, creator, I missed," Kyotyoryon said. "I wanted to get to this place."

Kyotyoryon pointed her index finger at her eye. Halankuo stopped screaming and looked at the character.

"It's an eye," said the girl. "You can't poke anything sharp there. If an eye is damaged, it will not be able to see."

"You have one more eye," Kyotyoryon said. "You will be able to see with one eye. Why do you need two? One eye can be pierced."

Halankuo wiped away the blood that had flowed from her forehead with her hand, and then covered one of the character's eyes with her hand.

"This way you will see with one eye," Halankuo said.

"I understand why two eyes are needed," said Kyotyoryon. "One eye is missing. The second eye is not superfluous. I just wanted to wake you up, but you didn't wake up. Then I decided to cut you."

Halankuo removed her hand from the character's face, went to the bathroom and returned from there with a towel on her head.

"I was just fast asleep," Halankuo answered. "Yesterday I freed you, and then I wanted to sleep. Apparently, this is due to the fact that I was not the one who slept at night. If it weren't for my character, I might not have woken up. It's a joke."

"And I thought that you died, and I already wanted to try your meat," Tuot admitted.

Halankuo stroked her own thigh with her hand.

"You're hungry," the girl said. "Go to eat. But first, take the food out of the package. "

"I'm not stupid," Tuot objected.

... A few years ago, Tuot came into the kitchen, took out a package of meat from the refrigerator and looked at the packaging. There was a block with symbols on it. Among these symbols, the dinosaur found a line with the name of the animal to which this meat belonged.

"It's good that this is not an animal of my species," thought Tuot. "I wouldn't want to eat the meat of one of these creatures like me."

The dinosaur opened its mouth and threw a bag of meat into it. A few moments later, he realized that he was chewing the meat along with the packaging. 

"First I had to get the food out of the package," Tuot thought. "The packaging is kind of tasteless"...

"What do you mean 'slept'?" Kyotyoryon asked.

"This is..." Halankuo thought. "I was charging."

"You should have connected to electricity," the spirit of metal said.

"She doesn't run on electricity," Tuot said. "Halankuo is alive."

"Am I not alive?" Kyotyoryon asked.

"No," Tuot answered. "You are an artificially created being. In this world, there are living beings that come from an egg or from the belly of another creature, and non-living beings that someone created. These are robots, action dolls, characters transferred from the program."

"I want to be alive," Kyotyoryon objected. "I want to be a normal being. Creator, am I alive?"

Halankuo didn't know what to answer. She understood that Kyotyoryon was not a living creature, but she did not want to offend her character.

"Creator, answer!" Kyotyoryon shouted.

The spirit of metal looked at Halankuo and did not move.

"It doesn't matter," Halankuo replied. "Because you were created in the program, you are no worse than other creatures."

"Is it true?" drops of transparent liquid appeared from Kyotyoryon's eyes.

"Can she cry?" Halankuo was surprised. "This is not mentioned in 'Mausoleum of Nature."

Tuot walked up to Halankuo, grabbed her hand and pointed with his free hand towards the kitchen.

"Kyotyoryon," Halankuo addressed her character. "Go to my room. I need to talk to Tuot."

Kyotyoryon began to walk along the corridor, but could not stay on her feet and fell. The character had to travel the rest of the way to Halankuo's room on all fours.

"She's still very clumsy," Halankuo thought. "She reminds me of Tuot as a child."

... A small dinosaur that looked like a bird approached the stockade. He was held by the tail by a little girl wearing a long T-shirt that reached her knees.

"Mom!" the girl shouted. "I came!"

A robot buyer with a black shell on skis drove up to the fence.

"Mom's not here right now," the robot said in a thin machine voice. "Dad's not here either."

"So, no one will know that I went into the forest," Halankuo was happy.

The dinosaur saw the robot and tried to run away, but the girl was able to hold him back.

"I found the birdie," Halankuo said. "Now she will live with us."

"Should I put the bird in the refrigerator?" the robot's shell opened.

"No! It cannot be eaten! He will be a pet. Like a dog. Now I'll throw it to you. Catch him!"

Halankuo threw the dinosaur over the fence. Tuot had the opportunity to free himself if he could fly. But the flightless dinosaur ended up on the other side of the fence and then inside the shopping robot. Only his tail protruded from the open shell.

Halankuo climbed over the low palisade and found herself in her yard. The girl often ran into the forest when her parents were not at home. The forest, the view of which opened from the window of Halankuo's room, attracted the girl. It seemed to her that something interesting and unusual was hidden there, and perhaps even alive.

Birds often sat on the branches of trees that grew in the yard. Halankuo liked to watch them from the window, but could not catch them.

"The birds are flying away from me," the girl thought. "I need to feed them and then try again."

Halankuo left the grain in a blue energy capsule on the windowsill. The birds saw the food and knocked on the window. The girl laughed at them, but at the same time she felt sorry for the poor stupid birds. Halankuo opened the window and the birds pecked the grain. But when the girl tried to catch the birds, they flew away.

Now Halankuo was happy. Her dream came true...

... Halankuo and Tuot gathered in the kitchen. Tuot told his friend what happened to Taikuron.

"So you can go outside," Halankuo smiled. "I want to go for a walk with Kyotyoryon. Show her the city."

"And me?" asked Tuot.

"You can come with us. You are my pet."

***

Yueret reached the central square, where four roads converged. Red glowing arrows and symbols appeared on the stone column.

"The store is over there. There's even an arrow pointing there," Yueret thought. "There must be a robot buyer. But why are there no people here?"

Yueret approached a gray, one-story building with several wooden doors and small round windows. All the doors were closed. Near the edge of the building, a man noticed a girl with long red hair lying face down on the stone sidewalk.

"What happened here?" Yueret asked. "Why are there no people in the town?"

The girl didn't answer. A purple energy aura appeared around her. Yueret realized that something was wrong with her and summoned a large rectangular-oval shield.

The girl's body assumed a vertical position, but her eyes remained closed. After that, she rose up and hung in the air at the height of a two-story building.

A window broke out of the store building and flew towards a person along with the glass. Yueret covered himself with a shield, around which a blue energy aura appeared. The window reached the aura and went back into its opening intact.

The wind has noticeably increased. Pieces of stone, doors and windows with intact glass began to break out of the buildings that stood on the square. A blue translucent protective barrier in the form of a sphere appeared around Yueret. Stones, doors and windows touched him and flew away.

Suddenly the wind died down. Objects stopped moving in the air. The girl sank to the ground. The protective barrier around Yueret disappeared.

The square was strewn with stones, intact windows and the remains of doors.

"Who are you?" Yueret asked.

The girl opened her eyes. Yueret saw them: violet glowing pupils, sclera that glittered in the sun as if made of glass.

"This is a battle doll," the guy guessed.

Yueret felt a severe pain in his head. It seemed to him that his head was going to explode. The guy let go of the shield and fell to his knees. The pain subsided a little, but blood began to drip from my ears.

A whistle was heard in the air. A small metal arrow hit the doll in the forehead and got stuck there. The doll noticed a girl with shoulder-length brown hair near the window at the edge of the square, wearing large black headphones with short antennas. Her large breasts barely fit into her purple T-shirt, and her wide hips barely fit into her black leather shorts. On her legs were black stockings that ended in small purple sneakers. In his hands is a small purple bow with an energy string of the same color.

"Yueret, this girl wanted to kill you," the girl said. "I told you that you shouldn't talk to other girls."

Yueret looked at the girl. The pain in his head lessened and the blood stopped flowing from his ears.

"Unana," Yueret turned to the girl. "I told you to stay home."

"You are my older brother," Unana answered. "I can't leave you with other girls."

The doll took off, hung in the air above the square for a while, and then disappeared.

Unana approached her brother.

"Does something hurt you?" the girl asked.

"It's okay," Yueret replied. "My head hurts a little, and there was a little bleeding from my ears, but it's stopped now."

A pink arrow surrounded by a red energy aura appeared in Unana's bow. The archer pulled her energy bow and shot her brother in the head.

Yueret no longer felt pain in his head.

"Where is the robot?" Unana asked. "You followed him, and met some woman."

"I knew that my little sister was very jealous," Yueret thought. "But I didn't think it would be that much."

"The robot may be in the store," Yueret replied. "I approached the store, but couldn't get inside because the doors were closed. And then the doll attacked me."

"Maybe you pestered her, that's why she attacked."

"I just asked why there are no people in the town."

"For some reason I didn't notice that there were no local residents in the town," Unana thought.

Due to the doll's actions, a hole appeared in the wall of the store building. Unana and Yueret entered it. In the large hall there were shelves with goods. Among them, on the floor, lay a creature that looked like a black beetle with a shell like a turtle.

"It's him," Yueret said and approached the creature. "This is our robot."

Yueret walked up to the robot, summoned a virtual screen and pressed a few buttons. The shell opened. Inside were several bags of food and a bottle of water.

"It seems like nothing is missing," Yueret said. "We need to take the robot and leave here. I don't know why there are no people in the town, but this is not normal. Let's go to the station. If we don't return home, our dog will not be able to stand it and will go looking for us."

"He said 'our dog,'" Unana was delighted. "Yueret, you are such a good big brother."

The railway station was located on the outskirts of the city, near a mixed forest. It consisted of a wooden one-story station building, a stone platform and one rail.

Inside the station building there was a large hall with a high ceiling, in which several rows of round light bulbs were mounted. In the farthest part of the hall, a virtual scoreboard hung in the air with an inscription of red glowing symbols.

"So the trains were canceled due to the invasion of dolls," Yueret read the inscription. "They were sent on another branch. We'll have to go there."

The guy left the station building and went to his sister. Unana sat on a bench and looked at a squirrel that was running along the rail.

"There are no trains here," Yueret said.

"I already understood that," Unana said. "This squirrel knows that the train will not arrive, so it is not afraid to run along the rail. Wild animals understand this. They are smart, but we are not. Otherwise we wouldn't be here."