image [https://imgur.com/JRMYUnw.jpg]

You wouldn't believe how dark it was outside when I woke up! It was kinda giving me PTSD from almost drowning in a void of darkness last year...

Indena's fire was barely a flicker at this point, holding on to a tiny piece of bark in a pile of ash.

-Night vision engaged-

A glowing outline went over everything when my night vision kicked in. Indena highlighted green, like when the IFF tags were active.

“Hey, Indena, it’s pretty dark out tonight,” I said. “But I have night vision, so I can see.”

“You too?” She nodded. “If I close my eyes, I can see things using Infrared.”

Huh, that was cool. I guess if anyone could see heat, it was a fire mage.

Indena and I switched places and I took watch while she got a few hours of sleep.

Samael kept me company, since he woke up too. He slithered around, keeping watch as well.

My map was pretty good at catching anything around us, so he didn't exactly need to do that, but that's okay.

While fiddling with the map, I changed some of the settings. Apparently there was a legend here, it just needed to be toggled.

I changed Samael’s avatar into a PNG of him I had in my memory. I did the same with Indena, only I picked a moment where she was smiling last night. It was a cozy picture.

Apparently, I could tab the map into the corner of my vission, like a mini map in a RPG.

-...-

Boredom was starting to kick in after a while. Without much thought, I picked up a stick and wrote my name in the dirt all fancy like.

“Ya-l-da. A-sa-mo.”

My name was written using Nazalian. It looks like a bunch of lines all coming together to form a picture. Each character is made of a collection of lines, read from top left to right.

After making a really elaborate frame for my name in the dirt using swirls, stars and hearts, I noticed the sky was getting bright pink. It must have been dawn, but I couldn’t see the sun.

Boy, what I wouldn’t do to see the sun…the real sun. I’ve never seen it. Stars are so cool. Hopefully these stars clear up soon. Something about giant orbs of flame in the sky captivated me with wonder.

With the morning light, Indena started to wake up.

“Crap…” She rolled around. I heard her back crack a few times. “Christ. Sleeping on freakin’ rocks SUCKS!”

*CRACK!*

With one big hoist of her arms, a thunderous crack ripped through the air. She was like some statue coming to life with all that noise.

Once she stretched out her stiff muscles, I called back Samael and he slithered into my hair.

“Good morning.”

“Egh.” She grunted. “Morning sucks.”

Morning was the best time of the day…breakfast, cartoons and family time. Of course, we didn’t have any of that here.

“I hate you people who wake up and act all perky. Screw that.”

“You hate me?” I sniffled. "I thought we were starting to be friends…"

“Huh?” She raised her brow. “I don’t hate you. Stop being so sensitive! And who said we were friends?!”

She'd pretty much said she'd hated me twice. Now she was taking it back? No, she was acting like she'd never even said it at all. I don't understand her.

“Come on. Let’s go get some food. Can’t stand my stomach right now.”

“Okay.”

She said that she saw a river not far away. We could catch some fish and eat them.

One of my video games had a fishing mechanic in it. With a little good bate, fish would chomp down on your hook. Then you could reel them in!

If you caught a fish, you’d bring them to a guy and he would cook them for you. It looked like he put them into an oven and they came out looking like a meal.

But, wouldn’t catching them kill them? Or maybe they didn’t actually die, they just transformed into something new that we could eat after the guy took them.

The babbling river came into sight. The rush of water was a soft, yet powerful sound that soothed us. We knew why we were here though, and it was to catch some fish.

My map said that there were animals in the water. I peeked into the river from a rocky vantage point and didn’t see any fish. I saw a frog, a turtle, and a…was that an eel?

Eels were like snakes of the sea. Some of them were electric. Did that mean they knew lightning magic? Wouldn't that be interesting if animals were smart enough to use magic? Maybe that would make them monsters actually…

“See any fish?”

I shook my head. “Nope.”

“Let’s go further up then. I think fish like to jump up waterfalls or something.”

Oh, she was right! I watched a nature documentary that said bears like to catch salmon around waterfalls.

Wait, were there bears around? I certainly hope not…

“Shrimp!” Indena called out from up the river. “What’re you waiting for?! Come on!”

Shoot, I got distracted…

There was one of those flat waterfalls pretty far up the stream. I saw more animal icons in there, so maybe those were fish.

"Ooh ooh! I see one!" I announced.

Indena quickly leapt into the water and snatched it up without a struggle!

But...

“Oh my god…”

“Eww…”

The fish looked like a zombie. It was really scary.

-Identifying animal…Identification complete-

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

-Esma Salmon-

-Status : Alive :: Organ failure due to recent spawning cycle-

Is this what happens to them when they’re dying? Oh well. Poor little thing. I hope it had a good life.

Indena tossed it back into the water and it slowly swam away.

We once more stepped back into the water. Samael actually went in too. I didn’t know this, but he could actually swim. Pretty weird, right?

He looked a little like the eel I saw before. I lost track of him when he went close to the waterfall, but my map said he was still there.

“YES!” Indena pulled up a fresh salmon. Oh wait, she got two of them!

Those were some big looking fish! Bright red too. What a great catch! We’d be eating pretty good today.

Since we didn’t want to head back to the overhang, Indena just built another fire pit and started to prepare the fish to transform into food.

While she was doing that, I went near the waterfall to find Samael.

“Samael!” I called out. The map said he was right around here. “Where are you?”

He came slithering up my leg and went right into my hair. His head peeked over my forehead and I noticed he had something shiny in his mouth.

“Now, what did you…Oh!”

He found a crystal heart! Oh my gosh, what on earth!?

This crystal heart was purple with blue swirls on the inside. I don’t think an Exceed would have used this, but it looked like it was something I could interface with.

So, I had three crystal hearts on me. One in my chest, and two on my forearms. The extra two were copies of the main heart.

I couldn’t unplug the main one, because that gave me mana to live. But I could take out the other two and plug other crystal hearts in temporarily, kinda' like thumb drives.

I took out the crystal in my right arm, then plugged in this one.

-Downloading information…Water Sonar ability now available!-

Huh? Water Sonar? That sounded interesting…

As the ability completed downloading, the crystal heart cracked and turned into dust. I placed back my other crystal.

I don’t know how useful a water sonar would be, but it would be cool to test it out.

-Water level not deep enough to use sonar-

Maybe I’d have to find deeper water. I couldn't really tell if this ability was cool or not, since I couldn’t even test it.

“Oi, Shrimp!” Indena called out. “Quit playing with the fish and get over here!”

I raced over, smelling cooked fish in the air. The transformation process must have been a success!

But, when I got there, the fish didn’t look right…was I supposed to eat this? It had a face. It didn’t look anything like the fish fillet I saw in my video games, or the ones Uncle would synthesize for dinner.

"This is yours," she said.

I shook my head, not wanting to eat it.

"Why not?"

"It has a face," I replied.

She took a look at the fish, inspecting the head and the rest of it.

"Oh yeah, how about that…"

She used a sharp rock to cut off the head, right in front of me!

"Eeeeh!"

I screamed in fright! She just cut off the poor fishies head!

I ran away, hiding behind a big rock. She'd just murdered a poor fish before my very eyes! Oh the horror!!!

"Oi...Shrimp! Where'd you…" she turned a corner, seeing me quivering on the ground. "There you are."

"How could you?!" I cried, tears rushed down my face. "That poor fishy is dead now!"

"You saw me cook it, right? That thing’s been dead since I cut its…"

Cut its what? Why did she stop talking? Her lips were twisting like she was rethinking her words.

"You killed it. Now it's in heaven."

She must not have transformed it properly. She just killed it. That was the sign of a bad chef.

"Okay, look…" she sat down next to me, "you probably lived a pretty sheltered life, but food comes from animals and plants. Fact of life. You can't eat them alive, so you have to kill em'."

"No. Uncle always synthesized food in the kitchen. He made things without killing animals."

"Oh brother…" she slapped her forehead. "Well, if Uncle can bring me some synthesized steak, that'd be great. But hey, he's not here right now."

What was she getting at? Of course Uncle wasn't here. It would be nice though. I bet he's out there looking for me right now.

"Do you even need to eat?" She asked me.

Duh. Everyone needs to eat!

See, my body breaks food down into subatomic particles and fuses them into new elements in my Quark Fusion Core. Combine that with mana from my crystal heart, and I get all the elements I need to grow up big and strong.

"What the hell are you on about?" she didn't seem to understand the processes. "I'll take it as a yes, you need to eat."

I tried explaining it again, but she didn't know what a quark was. Didn't she learn about it in science class?

"Forget it." She pulled up the fish and held it out for me again. "Food comes from these guys. If your God didn't want us eating them, he shouldn't have made em' taste good. That's the circle of life for you."

Maybe that was true. They did taste pretty good.

Was our fate to eat animals? But they were so cute...how could I take their lives?

"I get what you're saying, but..." I looked down with sorrow, "they deserve to live too, you know? What if something big came along and wanted to eat us?"

"Then we defend ourselves like sentient beings. These guys aren't like us, they're just here to help keep the World turning."

So, sentience was how we judged what was edible and what wasn't?

"Look...just eat the damn fish already."

*Bing!*

-Second Commandment in effect-

"Order acknowledged."

Without even thinking, I snatched the fish away from her and started munching on it.

What was going on? I just accepted the order without question...oh, wait, this was part of my Three Commandments.

1. Thou shall not kill a human, or allow a human to come to mortal harm.

2. Thou shall obey a human, so long as it does not conflict with the First or the Third commandment.

3. Thou shall protect one’s own existence.

I was supposed to accept any order given to me by a human, as long as it wouldn't harm myself or another person. That's why I took the fish and ate it.

Oh boy, I really needed to find a way to turn that off. Otherwise she might work me to the bone. That sly smile she was giving me told me she already figured out how this worked.

"Hey, stand up."

*Bing!*

"Order acknowledged...stop it!"

"Do jumping jacks."

*Bing!*

"You big jerk!"

"Now do a hand stand!"

“-WARNING-” a loud male voice projected out of my head. It almost sounded like dad a little. “-Any further abuse of Second Commandment privileges will result in termination-”

My eyes and heart turned red. Big few big rings appeared out of my heart, aiming at Indena like targeting reticles…

-New ability unlocked! Mana cannon coming online-

"Christ…!" Indena looked really scared, she was scrambling behind a tree for shelter. "Fine, sorry! I was just messing around!"

-Mana Cannon powering down. All systems returning to normal-

Oh my gosh! That was so scary! I totally lost control of myself. My body was going to kill her for just messing with me!

How in the World would it be able to do that? I'd be violating the First commandment.

I checked my subroutines for a list of command scripts that were active. Apparently, my body was actually completely able to subvert the First Commandment with a script called 'Protect Yalda.'

This worked by bypassing the First with the Third Commandment, which was to protect my existence. With that priority, my life came before anything else. You see, the Third doesn't specify that I can't protect myself if it costs human life, but neither did the First specify the opposite...what a paradox.

I think that's why this script was at work, to justify my priority and solve the paradox. It looked like it ran a complicated algorithm to determine if the danger was necessary or not. But, what counted as 'necessary' danger?

It also stated that if an order was too unpleasant, it would be forcibly denied. If the person kept trying to abuse their human privileges over me, then they'd need to be terminated. Why would dad put such a violent counter measure to this?

I looked a little more into the script. Turns out it wasn't just a single script, it came from a file's worth of executables for self-preservation. There was a text document in the file...from dad?

It read, -'Yalda, I'm sorry. But this needs to be done. You'll hate me for what I've made you to do, but one day you'll understand.'-

Why was he sorry? Maybe it was because it was possible for me to harm a human if my life was in danger...wasn't this a bit extreme though?

Indena was still quivering, I felt like a bad guy for scarring her so horribly.

"I'm so sorry!" I started crying.

"I haven't been this scared in a long time." She huffed out a few steady breaths. "You're something else, Shrimp."

As a show of forgiveness, she stood up, then put a hand on my shoulder as she crouched in front of me.

I kept saying I was sorry, but she just sighed.

"Forget about it, Shrimp. I'm the one who screwed up, alright?"

"I could have hurt you."

"Nah. Not much hurts a bitch like me."

There she goes, swearing again.

Honestly, it was a little goofy. Why call herself a bad word?

"Hey, why are you laughing?" She gave me a disapproving look.

"Because, people in video games call other people that when they're doing bad things."

Her head slowly titled and closed in on me. It was a bit sinister.

Then, she smirked.

"You aren't supposed to play those types of games, Shrimp."

Uh...oh…

"Does your uncle know about that?"

"No…"

Uncle told me to play games, he never said what the games rating had to be.

Indena started laughing now. She seemed pretty pleased with the situation.

"Ha! That reminds me a' when I used to sneak into horror movies with my friend Sasha. Man, those were good times."

I didn't like her comparing me to something bad like sneaking into movies without paying...but either way, we both were doing things we shouldn't have. I hope she won't say anything to Uncle about it.

"You aren't going to get me in trouble, are you?"

"Hmm…" she put a finger to her lips and turned curiously to the sky. "Maybe…"

Oh no! If he found out, he'd definitely take away my TV time again!

"No! Please don't tell! Or I'll...I'll report you for movie hopping!"

"Heh…" her devious smile mellowed. "Alright. But only as long as you keep playing games like those and having fun with them."

What kind of…? You know what? I could deal with that ultimatum.