Chapter Text
Silence and darkness, two sensations (or lack thereof) that enveloped Uzi, much like a blanket. She could need see, nor feel, nor hear, though despite that, she felt no fear. One would assume that being trapped within what is essentially an endless, dark void, deprived of all sensations and left with nothing but her thoughts with no context as to how or why she was there would be an utterly terrifying experience, yet she felt oddly tranquil, a sensation she hadn’t felt in forever. Rather than feeling like she was drifting through a vast, open space, it felt more akin to gently drifting down a river, a soothing and slow ride. Where was she going? She wasn’t sure, though she didn’t entirely care. The journey was more important than the destination. The feeling of tranquility was one she had hoped to cling onto for as long as she possibly could. A well-deserved rest after a lengthy life of turmoil and strain.
Then, in the distance, came a faint yet consistent beeping, disrupting the peaceful silence that Uzi had become accustomed to. The source was a mystery to her. She could not see anything in this land of darkness; were her eyes closed? Or was she simply enveloped in darkness, shrouded in the void that she floated in. Would it matter either way?
As time progressed — how much time has passed? — the beeping grew louder. It went from a faint white noise in the background, hardly noticeable yet present all the time, to a screeching wail that made the silence of the void an insufferable nightmare. Uzi wanted to cover her ears and cry out, but her body made no effort to respond to her demands. It was disruptive and ruined Uzi’s tranquility. Her confusion and panic quickly morphed into frustration and anger. It wasn’t fair. All she wanted was a moment of peace, but it was clear that life couldn’t even give her that, and in a fit of rage, she swung her hand out.
A harsh slap and sharp pain in her face followed. Uzi’s eyes fluttered open, only to quickly shut again as she was blinded by the light pouring into her room. Beside her, her alarm continued to wail away, beeping at her incessantly as it begged to be shut up. Uzi groaned, rolled onto her side, and lazily slapped the top of the cheap plastic box, silencing it and letting her room go quiet. Afterward, with nothing else eating up her attention, she focused on the pain in her face, which was odd. She could’ve sworn that’s normally how she muted her alarm, and that it didn’t usually hurt as badly as it usually did now, but the residual sting from hitting herself while half asleep was certainly saying otherwise.
Uzi groaned softly and rolled onto her back. She felt drained, both physically and emotionally. If it were up to her, she’d go right back into sleep mode for another five hours or so. Unfortunately, the blow to the face did wonders in waking her up, more than that stupid piece of plastic ever could have. Why did she even have that? Her internal systems had a built-in alarm clock that would automatically wake her up, she didn’t need a physical one.
Whatever. She was too tired and bothered to think about it. The residual sting from the admittedly hard slap to her face didn’t help things. Either she hit herself harder than she meant to, or her pain sensors were acting up, because she definitely didn’t remember it feeling like this. She groaned with frustration and began to rub her face in an effort to suppress or ease the pain. What followed easily took her mind off of everything else.
Rather than cold glass and warm-ish silicone, Uzi’s hands brushed against warm and tender flesh. Realizing such, her eyes fluttered open once more, she let out a hiss as the light flooded her vision, and squinted in an attempt to limit the amount of light she took on, and though her vision was slightly blurry, it wasn’t difficult to make out the sight before her. Mere inches away from her face were two hands, but not the small, plastic ones she was used to; in front of her were five fingers, palms of flesh and bone. Uzi stared in disbelief, even as the tanned fingers flexed on command — her command.
With eyes wide open, Uzi let out a sharp gasp and quickly shot out of her bed, kicking off the thick blanket that covered her body as she stumbled over piles of garbage and clothes on her floor, and toward the mirror in the corner of her room. All sense of sluggishness vanished the second her eyes locked onto the reflection in the mirror, replaced with disbelief and shock. She questioned if what she saw truly was hers or if it was an illusion, a trick of the eye.
In the mirror there was not a drone. Once purple optics were now ice blue eyes — human eyes — staring back at her. Her formerly snow-white plastic plating and silicone skin was now tanned flesh, riddled with scars. The only thing that brought any semblance of familiarity was the purple hair on her head, shaggy and wild with bangs that annoyingly got her eyes. Uzi’s stomach churned and her throat constricted. It was difficult to swallow, but near impossible to disprove. The disheveled human in the mirror was her; she was the disheveled human in the mirror. She’d move her hand, and the reflection — her body — reacted accordingly. She’d tilt her head, and so would the reflection.
This had to be a sick joke, right? Her mind must be playing a trick on her, or maybe she was still asleep and having a really weird dream. Although, the pain she felt after slapping herself was certainly real. Then maybe her CPU was acting up and making her see things; maybe reality isn’t what she sees it as! If that’s the case, then maybe she got a virus from a fishy website that’s fucking up her programming. She’d need to diagnose her systems and weed the damn thing out!
Except, she has no HUD, no display, no indication of any sort of internal systems. That was pretty crucial to accessing her files and weeding out a virus that just so happened to be affecting her view of reality. She could always hook herself up directly to a computer and dig through her files that way. It was a little tedious, sure, but if it meant fixing her vision then it’d be worth it! Maybe. Did she even have the parts to do that? She was sure she had a spare cable lying around, but the adaptor was an entirely different story.
Uzi sighed; audibly shaken from the world-shattering revelation she was suddenly smacked with. As she attempted to sift through her thoughts and try to make sense of her situation, she rubbed the back of her warm neck, feeling her flesh twist and turn with her hand.
“Okay Uzi,” She quietly uttered to herself. “What were you doing before you fell asleep?”
Her blue eyes locked with her reflection as her brows furrowed. If she hadn’t gone crazy before, she was definitely crazy now, talking to her reflection like she expected it to respond.
“Damn it,” She hissed under her breath. In trying to retrace her steps, she quickly realized she couldn’t.
Although most of her memory was intact, the events leading up to her suddenly waking up as a human were practically nonexistent. It was like a chunk of her memory had simply been erased, cut and dropped into the recycling bin, never to be found again. It did nothing to ease Uzi’s confusion, and the thoughts that beat upon her skull like a jackhammer. If anything, it only opened the floodgates to more questions, and that only served to worsen Uzi’s frustration.
Where are N and V? she asked herself as she gripped her messy purple locks. Are they like me? she wondered as she looked at “herself” in the mirror. Are they even here? she thought and glanced around the room before eventually fixating on the large window in the wall furthest from her.
With the shock of waking up as an entirely different species wearing off to a degree, Uzi quickly realized that the room she was standing in was not her own. Although it seemed that way at first glance, with the black and purple color scheme, and the junk that cluttered the floor, the windows were a dead giveaway that this was something different. Her dad’s apartment was located in the depths of the bunker, far from the surface. Windows were useless, and sunlight pouring through them was impossible. One more mystery to add to the sea of mysteries, a drop in an overflowing bucket of water. Uzi wasn’t even sure where to begin or how to tackle the situation she found herself in.
A knock on her door yanked Uzi from her thoughts, startling her and gaining her attention. Her gaze turned toward the polished oak and remained fixated on it as silence settled in once more. She waited a few seconds, listening to the tick of her clock as time passed, before eventually, the presence on the other side spoke.
“Yuri?” a voice that was unmistakably that of her father’s, yet that name was unfamiliar. “Are you awake yet?”
Silence. Uzi began to panic. Her name wasn’t Yuri, she knew that much, and although the man on the other side of the door sounded an awful lot like her dad, she began to doubt that he really was who she thought he was. As if she didn’t have enough questions to ask.
“Yuri, I heard your alarm,” the man spoke up once more. “You’ll be late for school again if you don’t get up soon.”
After he finished speaking, Uzi noticed the doorknob began to wiggle and rotate. He was trying to come in, and Uzi wasn’t entirely sure she was ready to deal with that can of worms.
“Don’t come in, I’m naked!” she blurted out in a panic, though immediately regretted such cringe-inducing wording.
At the very least, the knob went still.
A sigh followed. “Get dressed and meet me in the kitchen, alright?” His voice was gentle, the vocal equivalent of walking on eggshells.
Uzi bit her lip and chewed on it slightly. Her voice wasn’t different in this world, the man would have mentioned it. That was good to know.
“Yeah, will do,” She awkwardly choked out.
Only once Uzi could hear receding footsteps did she sigh in relief and slouch her formerly tense shoulders. She glanced down at her body, noting the briefs and the loose-fitting tank top she — Yuri? — was wearing. Enough to cover the important bits Uzi learned when she bothered to pay attention in human biology, but…
Another thought came to Uzi’s mind, a sort of morbid curiosity. She was a human now, or at least, occupying a human's body. That meant she had the anatomy of one, right?
Curiosity took hold. Uzi grabbed the collar of her tank top and tugged on the garment slightly, just enough to peer down at her torso. Sure enough, she had everything she was expecting, along with some old scars that withstood the test of time. Uzi wasn’t really sure what she was expecting; maybe she thought her body was actually that of an advanced android, and that by peering down her shirt she’d find mechanical parts unfamiliar to herself, yet comfortable all the same. What she found instead was disappointment that only served to solidify the reality she found herself in.
Throwing that side tangent aside, Uzi went back to analyzing her situation and the options she had going forward. There was no way in hell she’d be going along with what her not-dad asked; whatever the previous owner of this body was going through was not her problem. She needed to figure out what the hell happened and get back to her own body, her own life! Granted, that posed the question: where the hell would she even start?
With no clues as to how she ended up the way she did, and far too little knowledge of the world around her, blindly diving headfirst seemed like a surefire way to hit the bottom of the pool before she even realized it. What if a hidden danger lurked beneath the surface, waiting to pounce on her like unsuspecting prey?
No, as badly as Uzi wanted to get back to her world, and her body, she knew she wouldn’t be able to do so without more information — assuming it was even possible to begin with. She turned to the window, staring at the golden rays that poured in through the thin curtain that covered it. From there, an idea came to mind, half-baked at best, but it was better than sitting around doing nothing. She’d slip out the window and do a little exploring, learn what the world she found herself in was like, and hopefully find something that could point her in the direction she needed to start her mission.
With the first real goal in mind since she woke up, Uzi hurried over to the nearby window, stopping just shy of the vibrant rays scattered across the floor. She stared at them, hesitant to step into the light.
It’ll be fine, she told herself, yet a voice inside her head told her it wouldn’t. It had been so long since she’d stepped into the sun, even longer since she’d seen it. Would it truly be alright? Humans don’t burn in the sun, you’re a human now Uzi. It’s fine, she firmly reminded herself, and even then, she couldn’t find it in herself to inch forward.
Instead, she reached one hand out, treating it like a compromise. If her hand burns, then her instinct was correct, and she’d know not to touch the sun again in the future. If her hand doesn’t burn, then her mind would calm down, and she’d be able to continue onwards. She just took things extra slow, moving at a snail's pace and closing the gap between the sunlight and her body. Even if it was just her hand, and she wasn’t about to burst into flames, the prospect of an intense, searing pain wasn’t exactly one that made her eager for what she was about to do. She closed her eyes, as if that’d make things any better, just as the tips of her fingers breached the sunlight. The warmth from it made her flinch and quickly retract her hand, but…
She was fine.
No severe burns, no intense, scorching pain; Uzi was fine. The sun was safe.
Uzi brought her hand back and stared at her fingers, just to be sure. A few nicks here and there, though that seemed to be pre-existing damage that was present even in spots that hadn’t touched the sunlight. While that, combined with the other various scars on her (stolen) body, made her wonder what the hell Yuri was getting up to before Uzi took her body, it provided Uzi with a sense of comfort she didn’t realize she needed. A sigh of relief slipped through her lips, and she found it in herself to creep into the light. The first step forward was uncertain, as was the second, but by her third and fourth, her legs were doused in the golden rays, and it became clear that she’d be alright.
Realizing that she wouldn’t die a painful death, Uzi smiled; she hadn’t realized it, but the corners of her mouth were tugged upwards. It was oddly relieving to realize that she’d be able to step into the sun. The feeling of the morning light against her skin was warm and comforting even. The sun of Copper-9 was warm too, but it was a harsh sort of warmth that sent Uzi’s cooling fans into overdrive anytime she wished to bask in the light. This was a nice warmth, like a comforting blanket on a really cold day, or a much-needed hug — not that Uzi needed hugs! She was perfectly fine on her own, though she’d be lying if she said she didn’t enjoy the feeling. Of the warmth. Not of hugs. Hugs are dumb. And stupid.
After briefly basking in the sunlight, Uzi remembered what she went over to the window for and shook her previous thoughts aside. Now was not the time to get used to or attached to this world; she (hopefully) wouldn’t be here for much longer. The sun she stood in wouldn’t exist, and what she felt would no longer be possible.
That thought wasn’t helping. If anything, it made Uzi feel weird in an unexplainable sense. She shook her head and approached the window. This wasn’t her world; this wasn’t her body. She shouldn’t get used to sensations and feelings that didn’t belong to her. What her real body could provide was more than enough.
Uzi sighed and placed her hands on the thin black curtains that obscured much of the window. She squinted and hissed softly when the curtains came apart, sending a flood of light right into her unsuspecting human eyes. It burned in a weird way that she couldn’t describe, sending her recoiling back away from the window. At first, she panicked, thinking that her eyes — for one reason or another — weren’t immune to the sun like the rest of her body. As she rubbed her eyes, however, she quickly realized that although her vision was now spotty and blurred, she had not in fact accidentally melted her only means of vision. It must just be a human thing, the way her eyes watered and her vision blurred. Humans really were weak. Uzi understood why they relied so heavily on drones to do any and everything for them! She also really wished she was in her body now. Her vision would have already adapted to the harsh shift in lighting, and she wouldn’t have been sent recoiling back like a vampire. Which, she kind of was in her world, but whatever.
“Stupid human eyes,” Uzi quietly mumbled to herself as she turned back to the window now that her eyes had adjusted, and her vision was no longer splotchy. As her eyes met with the thin glass pane, only three words left her mouth: “What the hell?”
If she wasn’t questioning the former owner of her current body before, she was definitely doing it now. On the outside of the window were large metal bars, an unforeseen element that threw a wrench into Uzi’s only plan. She could open the window, sure, but getting past those bars would be impossible. Cutting through them was an option, but she doubted she could find the power tools necessary to do so sitting around in the trash heap of a room she found herself in. That, of course, didn’t even begin to touch the fact that it’d be way too loud and would draw unnecessary attention her way. She’d be better off leaving through the front door while banging pots and pans together.
Uzi frowned and furrowed her brows, frustrated because her escape plans were foiled, and confused by the mystery that was Yuri. She glanced down at the borrowed body, and its scarred arms. Uniform marks in her skin, some fresher than others. Uzi recognized them, even on the body of a human. A story to tell, marks of regrets and sorrow.
“Who the hell are you?” she asked herself as if the owner of her body was present in the room with her, and unsurprisingly, was met with no response but the disappointing silence of the room.
Once again, Uzi sighed and began to run her fingers through her wild locks. Her escape plan was a bust, thanks to the mysterious actions of her human look-alike, and now she was right back at square one. Confused, crawling through the dark with absolutely no information, and — hungry?
It caught her off guard, the sudden growl of her stomach that cut through the silence, and the dizzy spell that hit her like a semi-truck. She clutched her head as her eyes widened, and a pang of hunger ripped through her. Compared to the hunger she felt as a drone, it was different, and yet the very concept remained the same. Her mouth salivated at the prospect of food, just as it would with the thought of oil, and her body cried for something, anything, to satiate the hunger. In the same instance, a smell wafted Uzi’s way, one unfamiliar to her, yet enticing all the same
Savory with a pinch or sweet. Uzi could tell, even with her muted senses (seriously, how do humans do anything?). Though Uzi couldn’t pinpoint the exact scent, her body seemed to be drawn to it and her hunger flared up once more, and her stomach growled yet again. It was annoying, and frankly, Uzi would love to deal with it as soon as possible. Unfortunately for her?
The scent was coming from the other side of her door. To find out what it was and possibly satiate her hunger would be to confront her not-dad (presumably Yuri’s father) and deal with something she had no part in. With enough fatherly troubles of her own, Uzi didn’t think it’d be worth it.
Then her stomach growled again, and dizziness hit her once more. Her arms and legs shook; Uzi couldn’t help but curse how weak humans were. Sure, she got hungry as a drone, and sure it was uncomfortable, but she was never incapacitated or weakened like this!
Okay, maybe that was a tiny lie. She could recall being incapacitated on a few unfortunate occasions, shortly after the camping incident. If it wasn’t for N — and on one instance, V — bringing her the oil she needed, she definitely would’ve melted from the inside out. Uzi shuddered at the memory, and the vivid sensations that once coursed through her.
Maybe it wouldn’t hurt to grab something to eat, if it meant avoiding the human equivalent of overheating and experiencing a system failure.
Right, new mission.
Uzi turned away from the window and marched toward the door, her mouth watering as the appealing scent grew stronger. She stopped, however, as she passed the mirror, caught a glimpse of her stolen body, and was reminded of her less than adequate attire. Although drones lacked the typical anatomy that humans had, they had the very human trait of modesty, the urge to cover bits and pieces that didn’t exist. A bare drone was an odd sight worthy of outrage. With that logic, Uzi understood, on a basic level, that humans didn’t just walk around in their underwear. She didn’t understand why, per say, but she understood it would draw unwanted attention her way. For now, with her lack of understanding of this world, the less attention on her, the better.
Before she left, Uzi quickly scraped together an outfit with clothing articles she found littered on the floor of the bedroom. A black band jacket akin to her own, soft and baggy, covering the wealth of scars on her stolen body, and a pair of black pants, just as baggy as her hoodie, with a few rips and tears here and there. It was nothing fancy, thrown together in hast, but it did the job just fine and covered Uzi’s body enough to seem modest.
Uzi threw her selected outfit on, took a deep breath in, and stepped out of the room. The door cracked and groaned softly, one of the downsides to using wood as a base. Uzi never liked old fashioned doors, though she suspected that had to do with her dad’s dedication to them. His collection lined the main area of their apartment, neatly polished and dusted weekly. Those dumb slabs gained more attention than she ever did as a child, and maybe some of that resentment was passed off onto them.
As she walked down the hall, Uzi let out a quiet, involuntary yawn and she rubbed her eyes. Oddly enough, the layout of the house was extremely similar — if not identical — to her apartment. The bathroom just outside of her room, the short hallway that led to the main living area, her father's room at the end of the hall and off to the right, and the open kitchen that connected to the main living area. The only change was the small dining room in between the living area and kitchen, made up of a small table with four foldable chairs. Navigating the house was a breeze, Uzi barely had to think about it and instead fixated on the table in the center of the dining room.
The setting was simple; a white cloth covering what looked like a plastic surface. Two plates rested on either side of the table, holding a variety of food items that Uzi had only seen in anime and pictures on the internet. Scrambled eggs, a few bacon strips, and a biscuit on each plate. Inching closer, Uzi realized that these plates were the source of the enticing smell she had caught a waft of earlier, sparking her hunger once again. Her temptation — urge, even — to dig in was oddly familiar, yet surprisingly guilt free. The solution to curing her hunger didn’t involve tearing into innocent drones and feasting upon their blood for once.
It couldn’t hurt to indulge just a little, right?
“Ah, Yuri. There you are.”
The sudden voice startled Uzi, causing her to flinch and freeze like a deer in headlights. Her head whipped toward the voice, a rotund human, middled-aged if Uzi had to guess. He was pretty unremarkable; balding, black hair with a few grey strands mixed in, and a few wrinkles here and there on his face. Uzi wouldn’t have batted an eye, had it not been for the finely groomed mustache upon his face. That, paired with his comfortably familiar voice, sent a rush of emotion through Uzi. She had to remind herself that, much like Yuri, this man was not her father. He just looked an awful lot like him.
He smiled at her, something warm and gentle. “Mornin’ kiddo,” He greeted as he pulled back one of the chairs and took a seat. After settling in, he gestured toward the plate opposite to himself. “I made you breakfast. It’s nothing remarkable, but it’ll put something in your stomach.”
Uzi stared at the plate of food, then the man that looked and sounded an awful lot like her father, as if waiting for an invitation to sit down and eat. A gentle nod from the man served as exactly that, leading to her reluctantly taking a seat across from him and grabbing the fork provided to her. She kept her focus locked onto him the entire time, only looking away to glance down at the scoop of egg she had picked up. Jiggly, steaming slightly — presumably because it was freshly made. The scent was unlike anything Uzi had smelled before. Savory yet slightly odd.
Was it poisoned? Was this a trap, a way to lull her into a false sense of security and strike when her guard was at its lowest?
Uzi groaned softly at the sudden paranoid thoughts that crossed her mind. With how hungry she was, she didn’t have the time or energy to suddenly flip flop between worries and assume the worst of her situation. It probably smelled odd because she wasn’t used to the scent; drones didn’t exactly eat human food, they had no reason to, and flat out couldn’t digest the stuff. Besides, whatever human food remained on Copper-9 was freeze-dried rations, not fresh stuff like this. She was probably just being unreasonably paranoid. It’ll be fine.
Even then, it took her a moment to steel herself and finally shovel the scoop of egg into her mouth. She noted that the man watched her the entire time rather than digging into his own plate of food, which didn’t exactly help ease her worries. The thoughts reached their peak when the eggs touched her tongue, their warmth spreading across the muscle. She gasped; they were hotter than she had expected yet, they tasted good? Salty, savory, a little spicy, a far more complex taste profile than the oil she had spent the last few months or so drinking.
Instinctively, she began to blow on the eggs in her mouth, while also savoring the taste that made her mouth water. Who would’ve thought human food wasn’t absolutely terrible! Not Uzi, that’s for sure. Aside from drones and maybe anime, Uzi had assumed that anything humans made was nothing but bad news. Sure, it could still be poisoned, maybe, but she’d find that out later.
For now, Uzi began to scoop whatever was on her plate into her mouth, shoveling it in as though she had been starving for days. The man watched her, in silence at first, with a concerned look on his face. He crossed his arms and placed them on the table.
“Have you been eating, Yuri?” His voice soft and laced with concern.
Uzi hadn’t heard her father speak like that in ages. She barely even registered the words that he said, fixated more so on the tone they were spoken in. Not that it was her place to do so; that man wasn’t her dad, even if he had his voice. All Uzi was concerned with was shoveling food into her mouth and satiating her hunger; she may have looked a little animalistic while doing so, but she didn’t really care.
Until she choked.
In her pursuit to satisfy, she grew careless. Drones may be fine if they get something lodged in their throats, some discomfort was the most they’d experience, but humans were fragile. Their throat and their windpipe were one and the same, getting something lodged in there could be deadly. Carelessly shoveling egg into her mouth and doing very little chewing had consequences Uzi hadn’t accounted for. One simple cough turned into two, then three, and suddenly Uzi realized that she couldn’t breathe. The man, her not-father, shot up from his chair and rushed to her side as she attempted to take deep breaths in, only to cough more.
“You’ve gotta slow down,” He criticized in a firm tone. “I know you’re probably hungry, but take the time to chew.”
The man sighed and reached across Uzi, grabbing something from the table. He held it up in front of her — a cup, filled with a liquid Uzi wasn’t familiar with and didn’t bother identifying.
“Drink,” was all the man said.
Without hesitation, Uzi grabbed the cup and downed the liquid inside, noting the sour taste, and tangy aftertaste. In doing so, whatever was lodged from her throat was quickly dislodged, and as she finished the admittedly taste beverage, she placed the cup down — practically slamming it onto the table — and gasped for air.
A hand on her back startled Uzi as she was catching her breath, though she somewhat settled when she realized it wasn’t a total stranger (he was still a stranger, just not as much of a stranger). Her not-dad stood beside her and gently patted her.
“I’ll take it you haven’t been eating then,” He remarked, then let out a sigh; it wasn’t a sigh of disappointment, however.
Uzi felt strange, listening to a man that sounded like her father show such concern for her. It almost hurt in a way; she knew he wasn’t the drone that she hoped he was. He was a human, showing concern for an entirely different person whose face was currently being borrowed by Uzi. That care was something she had craved for who knows how long, yet it wasn’t even intended for her. It made her feel... bitter, almost.
A little while after Uzi’s “incident”, the man took his seat across from her and began to dig into his now cold meal, taking far smaller bites than Uzi was. Uzi started eating as well, slowing things down and taking the time to savor the meal presented to her. She assumed that was the extent of the conversation, that she was called into the kitchen for a meal and nothing more. Words fizzled out into nothingness, and silence settled between the two.
Until the stranger cleared his throat. Uzi winced; even if the man wasn’t her father, she recognized that habit. Khan always cleared his throat before he had something to say, something he didn’t want to say.
“Yuri, I—” he hesitated for a moment, then sighed. “I’m worried about you, kiddo. I know it’s been a month since you spoke with your doctor, and I understand I shouldn’t expect to see drastic changes, but I haven’t seen anything change, big or small.”
And, there it is. A situation Uzi had absolutely no part in, with no context building up to this conversation.
“You’re still skipping school based on what your teachers have told me and you’re in danger of being expelled. You’re not eating, you barely come out of your room, and when you do, it’s to sneak out of the house and run off to who knows where,” he continued as his expression morphed into one of concern. “I know you wanted space, but I don’t want to sit around and let my little girl rot away.”
That’s it? Uzi's been doing that for years, and she turned out fine! Probably. Maybe.
Maybe not.
“I haven’t done the best job,” he stated before sighing. “Hell, if she were still here, your mother would definitely be unhappy with how poorly I’ve done,” he added on a strained chuckle, an attempt to lighten the obviously heavy mood in the room. “And I know it’s impossible to get all those years we lost back, but I want to try and be better. For you.”
Each word that came from his mouth gave Uzi more insight into the life of the body she inhabited, and the further down that rabbit hole she went, the more she wanted to stop descending. Yuri shared an awful lot of her struggles, right down to the dead mother thing. It left a sour taste in Uzi’s mouth and sent her right back to the beginning — a confused mess with more questions than answers.
“So, I took some much-needed time off of work to be here for you. I’ll drive you to school once you finish your breakfast, and when you get off, I’ll take you out to dinner. Alright?”
Uzi finished the last bit on her plate, shoveling the cold egg into her mouth and swallowing it before glancing down at the now-empty plate in front of her. She was nowhere near as hungry as she was before, but the pangs still existed; muted, but present.
“Uh—” Uzi murmured. “Can I have more?”
Her not-dad fell silent for a moment, blinking a few times. Uzi initially assumed she did something wrong, but the man smiled and let out a soft chuckle.
“Of course,” he replied as he took the plate from Uzi.
Uzi watched him walk over to the kitchen and toward the stove, where he lifted a pan and scooped the contents onto her plate. After microwaving it just long enough to warm them back up, the man returned and placed the plate down in front of her, then ruffled her purple hair.
“Eat up,” an invitation to dig in. “Don’t take too long though, we’ll have to leave in about,” the man paused and checked the watch on his wrist, “Twenty minutes. Did you take your meds?”
“Uh— no?” Uzi mindlessly responded; her mouth full of microwaved scrambled eggs.
The man nodded. “Make sure you take them before we leave, alright?”
“Yeah, I’ll do that or— whatever,” Uzi mumbled as she finished the plate of eggs she was given. She didn’t actually have any intentions of doing so, but she didn’t want to start something.
“Good, good,” the man replied. “I’ll go grab my keys and get the car started. Meet me out there when you’re done, alright?”
Uzi responded with a half-hearted “mhmm” as she downed another mouthful of scrambled eggs, and from there, the conversation naturally faded out. The man left Uzi to her own devices, walking toward his room — right where Khan’s room would be in Uzi’s world — while he whistled a tune, slow and steady. The sound eventually faded, muffled by the door that shut behind him, and leaving Uzi in total silence.
She finished her meal shortly after the man left, brushing her plate off to the side and leaning back in the chair she was seated in. A sigh escaped her as she looked up at the ceiling. Having eaten a proper meal, Uzi was no longer hungry and could think straight, though she wasn’t sure if that was better or worse.
Sure, she no longer felt dizzy or shaky, but now she was able to let the reality of her situation sink into her skull. She had no idea what the hell was going on, or why someone who sounded like her dad was suddenly caring for her, or why she was in the body of a human who was in an eerily similar situation to hers, and she definitely didn’t know what the hell she’d do in order to get back to her own world, her own body. As she thought, she began to wonder if that was even possible. Where would she start?
This wasn’t something that she’d be able to solve within a day or two. If she wanted to get anywhere with it, to find out more about what was going on, she’d need time. She could play pretend, act like someone she didn’t know, live in a world she was unfamiliar with, but how long could she keep that act up before someone realizes that she’s not who she says she is. What would happen then? Unwanted attention was the last thing Uzi needed; she just wanted to lay low and act like nothing happened. At least until she could figure things out.
Uzi mulled over her options for a while, blankly staring at the ceiling as she did so. The nearby sound of a clock ticking acted as background noise that Uzi used to count the passing seconds. Before she knew it, fifteen minutes passed; the chance to make her choice was slowly closing. Play along until she can gather intel or run off and do her own thing. This world was unfamiliar, their rules and logic different to her own. She had no means of feeding herself, no knowledge of preparing food — unless cooking monsters counted, which it probably didn’t, seeing as monsters only existed in fiction — and she was unfamiliar with the environment she found herself in.
Not to mention the fact that the human body was mostly foreign to her; weaker, with less processing power than her drone body. She didn’t have a connection to the internet, locking her out from answers to questions she had on the human body. It was frustrating, her tethers to and dependance on this world. It was like it was trying to keep her here, dangling everything she needed right in front of her like a shiny pair of keys in front of an untrained neural network.
And unfortunately for Uzi, it was working. Whether she wanted to or not, she had no choice but to stick around in this world for a little longer. It was frustrating, but it was necessary if she wanted to go anywhere.
The final five minutes passed, the time to make her choice had come. Uzi’s mind was made up. Reluctantly, she made her decision.
—
“There you are! You ready?”
Uzi looked up; her eyes met the eyes of her not-father. She shrugged her shoulders and hopped into the old pick-up truck that would apparently be her way to school. “As I’ll ever be,” she responded in an unenthusiastic tone, hoping it was “in-character” enough for Yuri.
The man chuckled and placed his hands on the wheel of the truck. “I was that way about school when I was your age too,” he commented. “It seemed like a boring waste of time back then, but then I met your mother and, well, that all changed.”
Uzi cocked an eyebrow, curiosity took hold. She told herself she didn’t want to get too familiar with the world — at least, in terms of unnecessary details that didn’t serve to push her forward toward her goal — but she was interested enough to ask the question.
“What happened?”
Her not-dad quirked an eyebrow and turned to her. “I’ve told you this story before, haven’t I?” he asked before glancing down at Uzi. “Seatbelts,” he tacked on as a reminder.
Uzi startled slightly before quickly shaking her head. “N— no?” she replied as she put her seatbelt on.
The man hummed and nodded his head slightly. He looked behind himself as he backed the truck out of the driveway. “I could’ve sworn I had, but I suppose it wouldn’t hurt to tell it again, huh?”
They pulled forward, and their drive was set into motion.
“I know this’ll be hard to believe, but your old man was a bit of a delinquent back in the day,” and thus, the story began. “I got into trouble more times than I’d like to admit. I drove my parents and my teachers wild,” he chuckled. “School was just boring for me; I didn’t see the point in any of it. My grades were bad, my parents were certain I’d flunk. Told me they’d kick me out if that happened.”
The man paused and scratched his chin before taking a quick turn around a bend.
“I didn’t show up to class very often either, although my mom certainly tried her hardest to get me to go. One of those days, she bothered me just enough to show up, and even though I was upset with her then, I’m glad now that I went.”
Uzi noted the smile that formed on his face as he spoke.
“We were told two the school had taken in two transfer students. Your mother, and your aunt Yeva.”
Uzi took a mental note of that last fact. If some version of Yeva existed in this world, then Doll may exist as well, and if Doll existed somewhere, then there was a chance that N and V existed too. Uzi just hoped that it was without the murderous insanity that clung to them.
“I guess their parents dropped everything they had in Russia and came here with nothing to their name. Your mother barely spoke English, and Yeva couldn’t speak any. Nori had to translate for her for the first year or so of them living here.”
If Nori was her Yuri’s mother, then it was safe to assume that Khan was her father. Noted.
“On the first day, they sat down next to me. Your mother leaned over to me, mid-lesson, and asked me a question. Our teacher said something she didn’t quite understand and wondered if I could explain it to her,” Khan chuckled again, a sound full of nostalgia and perhaps a bit of hurt. “Imagine, the streetwise delinquent being asked for help and willingly accepting.”
“You accepted? Just like that?” Uzi, who had just been listening up till then, inquired.
Khan nodded. “Something about your mother just captivated me, I wanted to get to know her. So, I helped her out, no questions asked. I even offered to help her with English, even if I wasn’t the best at it. It started as a small thing we worked on during lunch, but she started coming over to my house after school.”
Khan took a moment to shift in his seat before he continued his story. “Your mother was a bright one, I’d say. She caught onto English fairly quickly, and after a while, she was the one teaching me,” a fond laugh escaped him as the memory passed.
This wasn’t Uzi’s world, and yet she felt more emotionally invested than she’d like to admit. It struck a chord with her, made her feel nostalgic for something she wasn’t even present for.
“I started going to school on a regular basis, and at first it was just for your mother, but after a while, I grew to appreciate it for more than that,” Khan sighed. “Of course, that didn’t save me from my already terrible grades. Your mother graduated, and I was there to cheer her on.”
“That’s— corny,” Uzi murmured.
“I can’t disagree with that! I was corny, and I was happy,” Khan replied before his mood changed. The energy and happiness in his eyes faded somewhat. “I miss her every day,” his tone changed too, becoming quieter than before.
It wasn’t her mother, that wasn’t her father, but Uzi could sympathize. She loved her mom, losing her was one of the most difficult things she had gone through. The very thought of it brought a rush of emotions to Uzi.
“I do too,” Uzi quietly responded.
The car came to a stop not too long after. Uzi glanced up and realized they had already reached their destination: a bustling high school, jam packed with teenagers of all ages.
“I know you do,” Khan replied to Uzi’s comment as he placed his hand on her shoulder. “And I may not be the best mom in the world, nor am I able to replace her, but I can try to be a decent dad for you. I’m here for you, Yuri. Don’t you forget that.”
Those words, “I’m here for you,” even if they weren’t directed toward her specifically, broke something inside of Uzi. Like a dam she didn’t know she had, Uzi felt that rush of emotions hit her like a truck, sending her tumbling down. She needed to hear that; she needed her father to say that to her.
Uzi’s breath hitched, starting a chain reaction. Uncontrollable tears streamed down her face, and in the next moment, she lurched toward the man, wrapping her arms around his rotund frame and burying her face in his chest. He was not her father, but the feeling of his arms around her made Uzi feel like a child receiving the attention she had been deprived of for so long. That only made her tears fall harder, and her sobs grow louder.
Uzi wasn’t sure how much time had passed, how long she had spent crying out emotions she didn’t realize she had built up, but when she felt her tears had run dry, and her woes had been cried away, she released Khan from her grasp and wiped the lingering tears from her face. Her eyes were red and puffy, her cheeks soaked with her tears. Khan placed his hand in her matted hair and ruffled it slightly.
“You’ll be alright, kiddo,” he quietly reassured. “It’ll be alright.”
Uzi sniffled and nodded her head. “Thanks— dad,” that last part slipped out, though Uzi made no effort to correct it.
“Of course,” Khan replied. “Now go do great things, make friends, get good grades, alright? I’ll come get you at three, and we’ll go to that ramen place you’ve been talking about.”
Uzi stepped out of the car; her gaze was glued to the ground as her dad pulled away, though she listened to the chatter around her. The messy jumble of voices, high and lower, shouts and whispers, was almost overwhelming to Uzi. She couldn’t focus on one sound, she couldn’t manually lower the volume of what she heard, and she couldn’t muffle certain sounds. How did humans function like this? It was no wonder Yuri skipped school; this was awful!
Uzi hissed quietly and glanced up; her eyes locked onto the bustling crowd of obnoxious students. Between the pushing and the shove, and the noise, and the sudden, overwhelming social anxiety that took hold of Uzi, she quickly began to regret her decision to play along with whatever this world had in store for her. She really should’ve just asked her not-dad if she could stay home because she wasn’t feeling well or some dumb excuse like that. She did it all the time in her world, and it worked just fine there!
This was going to be a pain...