The Race to Freedom

Uzimati 1

"You speak my way" he said to the newcomer evenly, one eye still watchful over the prowling beast that wore sharp teeth like a crown. 

"He is only playing. This one is a little baby". Uzimati saw she as a woman and watched as her form traipse over to it. Gently, she placed a hand within the rough coarse brown hair and stroked rhythmically. Gradually, the bear's snarl began to soften, replaced with a  tranquil sense of calm. He growled softly, but it wasn't threatening or alarming, more soothing. Like a pussycat purring upon the brink of sleep. 

"Bearbots aren't designed to attack" the woman with skin the colour of gold told him, looking directly into the eye, and then through right to the centre of his brain. "They're just part of the workforce". 

Uzimati, having let alone never seen a bear before, crept slowly toward the bizarre pair. 

"Do not be shy". She said to him again, with blunt force. Her blonde hair swept toward the bear again, continuing to rub the same point of its back routinely. 

"I must... I know not you. Who are you?" 

"What do you mean, who am I? I am a shuman" She said with complete sincerity.

"But for identification purposes, I am called Yula". 

"Yula" he frowned. Such an unusual name. "Where am I?"

"What do you mean, where are you? I do not know".

Uzimati felt uneasy. This woman was odd -  her tone of voice never faltered. The women in his tribe had constantly changing emotions as if being shaken about like seeds in a pot. Sometimes they were happy, sometimes sad, occasionally angry or confused. But never constant. Was emotion only for people like him? He thought to himself. No, he remembered the Dante boy and his skin was even lighter than hers, and he had felt a far more human connection, as if they were locked inside an invisible shack of infinite size. 

"I think we are in a simulation" she said. "This has the appearance and the feeling of a simulation. They do this sometimes... for experiments". She gazed around the clearing. The dark leafed trees and plants surrounding them, and the piercing dark brown earth beneath them, covered in straw-like foliage. "This place. It is not real. Maybe you are not real either". 

"Experiments? Who they? I am real..." Uzimati's face was creased with confusion. This day was so bizarre. Everything was changing, a whole new universe had replaced his former one and his head was hurting from the effort of constantly having to accept brand new rules and brand new scenerys, and there just so much and more seemingly! 

He slumped onto the ground, spear by his side; the final thin connection to a regular life. 

Puffing gasps guffawed onto the clearing. Uzimati glanced up, irritated at the intrusion of this loud and idiotic white man. White man has no sense to be quiet and at watch. But watching the bear, and admiring the bulging muscles bursting out of its arms and legs, he reckoned they were safe even if there was some other predator in the vicinity. Even then, if this humungous bear was possible, what else could be lurking in the unknown?

Dante thudded onto the ground in a tidal wave of leaves and earth, next to Uzimati. The man with the old spear shifted away slightly. He didn't trust him. 

"Greetings" said the woman, which Uzimati could understand. 

Dante mumbled a hello in response, but it was tough. He was painfully shy around the opposite gender, and having this strikingly beautiful person in front of him had frozen his tongue into one hundred knots. His throat had caught his breath like a child grabbing the string of a kite. He hadn't even acknowledged the perplexity of her affection with the bear he had thought just a few moments ago was going to kill him. 

"I'm sorry for running" he announced, simply. Immediately he had known that Uzimati was not following him, but fighting the beast would have been madness! He had no ability with slaying something so monstrous, and in that moment he had simply assumed that Uzimati had run in a completely different direction. It was all that made sense. 

He locked gazes with Uzimati, who instead of shock showed distaste in his eyes. Tentatively, he held up a pear. A gesture of apology. 

Slowly, Uzimati took the pear and took a massive bite out of the juicy fruit. He still wouldn't look at Dante. 

"So you know we are in a simulation" the girl said automatically.

"Actually that might not be true". Dante stood up suddenly to make his voice sound more authoritative. 

He told her everything. Every word from the man in the screen, or whatever it was. He couldn't genuinely believe it to be real, but it was one step closer to figuring out what actually was happening and how on this earth they could return home. 

She didn't look shocked. She absorbed the information like a robot, processing and calculating this new fresh new intel. "Right" she nodded at Dante mechanically, and then passed the information onto Uzimati like a relay runner with a baton. 

"So what do we do?" She stepped toward the two still-confused young men who had no answers to anything she was asking. She looked up, looked to the left, looked to the right. It was time to make a detailed and efficient plan to properly execute escape. The bear was not going to reciprocate answers so she left it behind. It was practically asleep now. 

"I will not be staying here" she informed them casually. Her eyes themselves to gaze high into the heavy branches above. Dante may have been speaking pure fact, or perhaps she was right. Either way, she needed to find escape. There had to be some hole somewhere in this experiment or plan of sorts. Smiling to herself out of sheer and purified randomness, she launched herself into the wilderness above, and begun to climb.