Itinit woke to the sound of an incoming message and instinctively waved his hand in front of him.
"If Noru and Kimchan come, that should help."
The vibration didn't disturb the guy's sleep, unlike his pets.
His eyes opened briefly. Itinit saw a tree branch with light green leaves just beginning to unfurl, but he paid it no mind. Sleep had taken hold of his mind again, as it often does after a sudden awakening.
… Itinit stood again on that same island, but this time not in the inner part where the lake was, but in the outer part, on the shore of the bay. From here, a view opened out onto mountains covered in dark green coniferous forests that stretched in a semicircle along the sea.
"I haven't been here in a long time. The robot ship we arrived on was somewhere around here. Stop. This island is flooded. It shouldn't exist."
"But it exists," a purple mushroom cap with black horns emerged from the water. "And it will always exist. Myuryuri and I will be here forever."
"I think I was somewhere else," Itinit looked at the black stone beneath his feet. "But I don't remember where exactly."
"When you sleep, your consciousness becomes distorted. Thoughts go where they want. That's why dreams are so beautiful. Even though they seem strange, they sometimes make more sense than anything real."
The mushroom cap sank into the water. Itinit sat down on a large black rock and began to survey the mountains around the bay.
"Noru and Kimchan are together again," the dog girls' creator said. "They don't need me anymore."
The horned mushroom cap emerged from under the rock.
"That's not true," the voice under the mushroom cap answered.
"Why?" Itinit looked at his interlocutor.
"Because they'll want to eat," the lower part of Sanachan's face appeared from under the mushroom cap, with a smiling mouth.
"Exactly," Itinit winced. "They're animals. All animals are very hungry."
... The sharp sound of an incoming message woke Itinit for the second time. This time, the program's beeping was joined by a distinct dog's moan.
It was the only sound capable of rousing the creator of the dog girls from the deepest slumber. Itinit raised his head, opened his eyes, and saw the wall of a domed energy barrier, behind which sat a girl with dog ears and a tail, kneeling and uttering that very same moan. Her hands were pressed to her forehead, giving his pet an even more pitiful appearance.
"Are you hungry, Kimchan?" Itinit asked. "Open the fridge. You know how."
"We're not home, master," a voice came from the other side of the barrier.
Itinit turned the other way and saw another dog-girl behind the barrier, but with a serious expression on her face.
"Noru, why did you steal me and Kimchan?"
"I didn't steal anyone, master!" Noru's ears began to smoke. "You're the one who left and didn't tell me where."
Itinit looked around. Instead of a cave cafe or some other room, he and his characters were standing on an old stone path in the middle of a mixed forest.
"When Kimchan saw you, she immediately flew away," Noru continued. "I warned her about the trap, but she was really afraid that you had actually been stolen by the mushroom spirit."
"Something happened here," Itinit saw the remains of a fence and immediately realized he wasn't just in a forest, but in an abandoned village.
"How did you find me?"
"The girl with tha-a-at me-e-etal thing told us," Kimchan slapped the top of her head with her palm.
"Halankuo did the right thing by not coming for me," Itinit thought. "She's too smart. It's a shame I can't make her my character instead of those two stupid animal girls."
"She said you were in an abandoned village," Noru continued. "I didn't find the village, but I found you. I'll find the village later."
"But it's abandoned," Itinit smiled.
Noru tilted her head to the side, as if trying to hear something hidden.
"We need to get out of here," Kimchan stood up and sniffed the air first on one side, then on the other.
"Do you smell something?" Itinit asked.
"Yup," Kimchan looked down. "At first I thought I was imagining things, but then my sister did, too. It's like there's something underground."
"Can they really understand each other without words?" Itinit noticed the dog girls' faces had grown too serious. "Just recently, they were happy. But that's not surprising. According to the Mausoleum of Nature, these two dogs are the single character."
"Master, get on me," Noru said, getting on all fours.
Itinit was about to reply, but a loud canine groan from the other side interrupted him.
"Kimchan, I can't ride both of you," Itinit shifted his gaze from one dog girl to the other.
Kimchan lay on the ground with her eyes closed. A groan came from her barely open mouth, and her chin rested on one of the cobblestones.
"Maybe we should walk?" Itinit suggested.
"It'll take a long time," Noru knelt down. "But if my sis agrees, I agree too."
Itinit and Noru looked at Kimchan. The "little sister" opened one eye, and then stood up abruptly.
"Uh, that's good," Itinit stood between the sisters and extended his arms. Noru and Kimchan placed their heads under their creator's palms...
Two nearly parallel waves of groans rolled across the valley, covered in dense mixed forests. From a distance, they could have been mistaken for the roar of some monster from a game, but in reality, they were the voices of girls with dog ears and tails.
***
Yueret awoke from a sharp chill. He was lying on the floor next to his bed.
"This isn't the first time I've fallen like this. There's something wrong with this bed. Maybe it's broken?"
Yueret tried to return to bed, but then felt something cold and wet under the blanket, and had to change his mind.
"If that lizard is there, then it'll be that scene from the game where it bites off the head of the player who peers under the blanket."
Yueret carefully lifted the edge of the blanket, afraid to see Timnichan's smiling face. But instead, there was only a puddle of water.
"What's that?" Yueret thought out loud.
"It's an ice crystal," Timnichan's head finally popped out, not from under the blanket, but from under the bed. "I put it there to remind me what day it is."
"Is today Wet Panties Day?"
"Of course not, the ice just melted for some reason, even though it's solid. Today is the day when it warmed up in the north."
"Exactly," Yueret rose from the floor and walked over to the window. "The lizard mentioned this, but I forgot. It's good that dad created such a stupid but useful character. Ugh, it's disgusting to even think about it."
"Let's go to the main base," Timnichan crawled out from under the bed. "We need to stock up before such an important expedition. I think the fridge has already been replenished overnight."
"She still thinks the food in the fridge is being replenished. Thanks, dad." Yueret thought.
"Did you put an ice crystal in Unana's as well?"
"Of course," Timnichan smiled. "I gave it to all the bear cubs."
"Only Unana sleeps without clothes," Yueret thought and shuddered. "She'll freeze."
Yueret ran to his sister's room. The big brother's brain "pictured" scenes of his little sister sleeping and simultaneously screaming from the cold, but the reality turned out to be much simpler.
Unana lay on her side, hugging a pillow. On the floor, near the blanket and headphones, a puddle of water glistened in the sunlight.
"Well, at least the fish aren't swimming," Yueret sighed with relief, but then he heard his little sister's voice and became wary.
"Squirrel, give me your small tail."
Unana extended her hand forward and clenched it into a fist.
"Unana's going to wake up now. She usually talks in her sleep when she wakes up."
Yueret carefully exited the room, but couldn't get far. Something blue and slimy blocked the corridor.
"Didn't your creator tell you to keep your tongue in your mouth?" Yueret seemed to have guessed who was behind this entity.
The blue thing began to curl, as if being sucked into a funnel, until it became an oval tongue hanging from the lizard girl's mouth.
"Sohry," the tongue finally disappeared into the mouth. "I couldn't help myself and went to the main part of the base. There's plenty of food there, but it's old. The fridge didn't replenish overnight. We'll have to wait some more."
"That's good. Unana will have more time to sleep and the water to dry off."
"When the fridge is replenished, we'll take the food and go to the station," Timnichan continued.
"Do trains go north?"
"We'll go to the northernmost station. But trains run on time. If the fridge doesn't replenish, we won't make it."
"It will replenish. Just don't go into the kitchen."
"But there's food there, and my tongue demands it."
"Go catch some insects. They're slow now, so your tongue will handle them."
"Ahh... The first creator didn't say anything about that. So I'll do as you say."
Timnichan walked to the nearest window, unlocked it, then leaned over and opened her mouth. Her tongue escaped from her mouth and formed a mound, down which its owner descended.
"She descended on her own tongue. Somehow, I wasn't surprised."
Yueret went to the window to close it, but then heard footsteps coming from Unana's room and realized he wouldn't have time.
"My big brother, do you know where the thing they put on their heads is?"
Yueret looked at the door and saw his little sister standing on the threshold, raising her hands to her head and showing something with them. The pillow was on the floor, but due to its large size and Unana's short stature, it reached mid-breast.
"She didn't call me by my name, as usual," Yueret said, looking at his sister's face and confirming that she was barely awake.
"Find this thing and put it on," the archer bowed her head, speaking in a sleepy yet childish voice. "You're my big brother, and I'm your little sister. That's what bear cubs do."
"Who told you that?"
Unana lowered her arms and began to slowly sink back onto the pillow.
"I was chasing a squirrel for food, but it ran away from me," the archer continued her sleepy ramblings. "It's bad being a little bear. I want to be a big bear that runs fast and eats a lot."
"Actually, bears have already come out of hibernation."
"Yup".
Unana woke up as suddenly as she'd appeared on the threshold. Little sister looked in confusion, first at the pillow, then at the wooden floor, and only then did she notice her brother's legs, clad in gray pants and fur socks.
"Why am I here?" Unana rolled onto her side and looked at the creature before her. "You're Yueret."
"I'm not a brother anymore," Yueret made sure that his little sister had woken up.
"That lizard dragged me out here," Unana said, moving toward the wall and hugging a pillow. "Yueret, can you go to my room and check if she's there?"
"Okay."
Yueret went to his younger sister's room, but not to check for the Timnichan. He was interested in the water the ice crystal had turned into.
Luckily, only a small part of the puddle remained, which the caring brother wiped away with a blanket, after which he rolled up the "rag" and threw it on the bed.
"Now we can go as far north as we can," Yueret said, turning toward the room's exit. "But first, let's go to the kitchen. The fridge won't replenish itself."
Tuot and Etinnei ran into the apartment corridor, after which the dinosaur blocked the door.
"We've come home," the Arctic fox girl said. "To your home, that is. I thought you'd run to my creator."
"I ran to where it was closer," Tuot explained. "The main thing now is to hide."
"But this creature can walk underground, which means it can also walk inside walls. What would happen if it emerged from a large bowl that no one drinks from?"
"There's a bathroom here. It doesn't have that bowl, and the faucets are too narrow. You can't even fit your eye in there."
"Ooh..." Etinnei lowered her ears and tail.
"We could go to your creator, but the shop is already open. The robots will just cut us down if we go into the wrong room."
"I understand. Check the fridge, and I'll look under the bed. Maybe someone's hiding there."
Etinnei entered Tuot's room, but then stopped. A sudden fear prevented the animal from looking under the bed or even coming closer. Fortunately, Etinnei noticed a large brown pillow and became intrigued.
The fear vanished as suddenly as it had appeared. Etinnei jumped onto the bed and was about to bite the "food" on the ear, but then she noticed something strange...
...The pillow resembled the head of a girl with bear ears, wearing a hood disguised as fur.
"Uh..." Etinnei jumped back a step and released icicles from her sleeves.
"There's nothing there," footsteps and a voice came from the corridor.
Etinnei continued to stare at the pillow and soon realized it wasn't moving. At that moment, Tuot entered the room and saw his friend in a strange pose.
…The animal girl's legs were spread wide, and her torso was bent forward. The ends of icicles protruded from her drooping sleeves, and her tail hung straight between her thighs, motionless. The arctic fox girl looked at the pillow lying on the bed and sniffed loudly.
"Did you find something?" Tuot was a little scared, took a step back and reached the threshold.
"Yup," Etinnei continued to stare at the pillow. "But I don't understand what kind of creature it is. It doesn't do anything, like that lizard."
Tuot craned his head forward and noticed the pillow his beloved little animal was looking at.
"It's not a creature," the dinosaur's invisible fear meter dropped to zero. "It's just a pillow. It's non-living."
"Is it really non-living?" Etinnei leaned forward even further, almost on all fours. "But it looks like a fluffy girl."
It took the arctic fox spirit a few moments to realize it wasn't a creature or anything resembling one. Etinnei slowly rose to all fours, approached the bed, and then cautiously sniffed the pillow.
"Yup, it's a pillow," the icicles hid in the sleeves of her fur top. "Why didn't I realize it right away..."
"Yup, it's a pillow," Tuot confirmed.
"I can..."
"No, you can't chew on it. It's fluffy."
"Where did you get it?"
Etinnei looked at her friend as if she'd found a fridge full of food.
"I ordered it on the network," Tuot scratched his head with a claw. "But that was a long time ago. I don't remember anymore."
"Now I understand why I didn't see it or even smell it. Was it in your inventory?"
"Yes. I wish I could remember where I bought it."
"You said you bought it on the network."
"But the network is large. There are a lot of stores there."
Etinnei fell on the bed and picked up the pillow.
"It looks like something from the game we play," the Arctic fox girl said. "What's it called?"
"I don't remember. I'll have to look it up."
Tuot sat down on the bed next to his friend, summoned the screen, and entered the game. Soon, a text of white characters appeared on a black background.
"Ears and tails," Tuot read. "It's so simple I didn't even remember it."
"That's a cute name," Etinnei looked at the screen. "It suits this game."
"Yup, there are a lot of characters with ears and tails."
"Tell me, Tuot," Etinnei looked at the bear-shaped pillow. "Why do you like characters like that? Don't tell me they're cute. That's a must-have trait for all animal girls. Noru told me so."
"Uh..." Tuot looked at the open door, through which part of the corridor wall was visible. "They're inedible. When I see a normal human girl, like Halankuo, for example, I want to eat her, but when I see you, and then your ears and tail tell me that if I start eating you, I'll end up eating your fur."
"Ugh... that's disgusting."
Etinnei's ears twitched and the animal girl herself opened her mouth, closed her eyes, and stuck out her tongue.
"Did you imagine this?" Tuot asked.
"I didn't mean to. It just came to me."
"Tell Minniges to erase your memory."
Etinnei raised her hand to where a human ear should be.
"Minniges come out!" the arctic fox girl's face became serious. "If you don't show up, I'll pierce that ear. I don't care. It barely hears anything."
Tuot looked at his friend in fear. He hadn't expected his words to lead to such an action, but he didn't dare stop the character.
"Minniges, I'll eat your ice cream," Etinnei growled.
Only then did the answer appear, in the form of a single, brief thought:
"If you want to eat ice cream, eat it with your mouth."
A wooden train, consisting of two identical locomotive cars, with a "beak" on the "heads", stopped at a small station surrounded by pine forests.