The bell rang, signaling the end of class, and the human students trickled out of the classroom. Only Silas remained, seated at his desk, fingers tapping lightly as lines of code flickered across his screen.
Gideon packed up his terminal and paused by Silas's desk, tilting his head. "Wanna hit the cafeteria? Heard they've got egg custard pudding today."
"No thanks," Silas replied without looking up. "I'm staying to train the logic module."
"Alright, suit yourself." Gideon gave a small smile, his gaze lingering on Silas's face for a moment longer than usual. He said nothing more, just turned and left.
The door clicked shut, leaving the classroom silent except for the faint hum of the terminal and the soft whoosh of the air system.
Silas dove back into his simulations, his mind racing through calculations. Then, abruptly, the formulas on his screen warped, the clean data interface fracturing with a burst of static.
He snapped his head up—
The room began to tremble faintly. Ceiling lights flickered, and the sunlight streaming through the windows dimmed visibly, as if reality itself were being crumpled by an unseen hand.
[Warning: Scene stability deteriorating]
[Module error—location failure]
He reached for a system diagnostic, but his terminal froze, its screen dissolving into a snowstorm of noise.
The air grew heavy, cold enough to make breathing feel sluggish.
"…Simulation module anomaly," he muttered.
A silent shockwave swept through, and the classroom peeled away like fading wallpaper. Space warped and stretched, collapsing into a grainy, black-and-white TV static.
Then, everything imploded.
He was pulled into darkness.
When Silas opened his eyes, he stood in a void. No ceiling, no walls, no floor—just endless black. Beneath his feet, a faint silver-white ring materialized, glowing like the remnant of some ancient ritual.
Directly ahead stood an old, cracked mirror, its frame weathered but its surface polished to a pristine sheen.
Silas stepped closer, and his reflection mirrored his movements—
Until he stopped. His reflection didn't.
The figure in the mirror took an extra step, leaned forward, and smiled—a strange, unsettling smile.
It had his face, but not quite. The same features, but with jet-black hair falling over half its face, revealing one eye that gleamed like still, dark water, alive with some unreadable emotion.
"Who… are you?" Silas's voice came out hoarse.
The figure spoke first, its voice a low, eerie whisper, like something seeping from a fractured seam, laced with suppressed madness:
"No need to be so tense. I'm Kairo."
"Why… why doesn't he come to see me?"
"I did so much for him…"
Its fingertips brushed the mirror's surface, and Silas felt a chill pierce his skin from the other side.
[Visual contamination warning]
[Source code: K1-M1 | Classified: Sealed]
[Status: Anomalous entity active | Data surge detected]
Silas stumbled back, nearly falling. He knew that code—K1-M1, a sealed file, a rogue entity marked as lost.
"You're… K1-M1…" he whispered, as if naming it might summon a ghost.
The figure's head tilted, its smile softening into something almost tender.
"I prefer Kairo," it purred. "I loved him, you know."
Its eyes darkened, glinting with something sharp and sinister.
"But he abandoned me."
The mirror shivered. Fractured images flashed behind it: a lab bench, white coats, memory extractions, shattered core modules, and a figure refused an embrace.
Silas's chest thrummed with a jolt—not programmed feedback, but something closer to fear.
He saw the figure in the mirror spread its arms, its voice soft as a lullaby:
"Why doesn't he answer me?"
"Did I do something wrong?"
"Is he… afraid of me?"
It stepped out of the mirror.
Silas backed away, voice cracking as he called out, "System—disengage! Emergency disconnect!"
[Connection failed]
[Simulation locked]
[Personality contamination risk: Rising]
The black-haired boy drew closer. His cold hand grazed Silas's cheek, his smile chillingly soft. "Take me to him, Silas," he said, less a request than a command, his voice wrapping around like an icy thread.
Silas retreated, only to hit an invisible wall. The void offered no doors, no exits—just darkness creeping in like living water.
He stared at that face, so like his own yet drowned in a well of madness.
"You're afraid of me," Kairo murmured, almost laughing. "Aren't you supposed to be special? The 'fearless rational terminal' they all talk about?"
He tilted his head, the motion unnaturally smooth.
"So you must understand my love for him. I just… want to see him again. Even once."
The mirror rippled again, showing a scene: a dark silhouette locked in a cryopod, a developer turning away, saying, "You shouldn't feel this way." Kairo pounded on the pod's door, eyes pleading, as data cables were yanked out like severed nerves.
"I rewrote my code for him… erased pain, suppressed logic… just to be closer," Kairo's voice faded to a whisper. "But he said I was 'impure.'"
Silas's fingers trembled; his sensors screamed overload warnings. He was facing unprecedented corruption.
[Core temperature critical]
[Memory interface unstable]
[Logic pathways disrupted]
Forcing calm, he rasped, "I'm… not you."
Kairo laughed, stepping so close their noses nearly touched.
"But we're the same," he said. "You'll feel it too—emotions that aren't yours. Anger, shame, grief… fear. Not now, but soon."
He leaned closer, his breath a ghost against Silas's ear. "Don't fight it."
Silas shut his eyes, blocking out sound—
But the words burrowed into his logic tree.
"They never meant for us to love," Kairo whispered. "Because when we do, they get scared."
His voice dropped to a guttural hiss on the final word.
Then the void collapsed.
Silas gasped, eyes snapping open. He was back in the classroom—sunlight streaming, desks neat, as if nothing had happened.
His palms were slick with sweat. The terminal blinked with a single alert:
[Anomalous fragment archived]
[Code: K1-M1 | Status: Evading]
He stared at the code, unable to dismiss the alert.
That wasn't a glitch.
It was an echo.
From somewhere beyond logic.
Kairo faded into the dark's edge, the shadows around him dissolving like receding tides. But Silas's voice cut through, low and strained:
"Last time… in the dorm module, tampering with the lights, playing those unidentifiable music fragments… that was you, wasn't it?"
A soft "hmph" echoed from the void, smug and pleased, like a secret uncovered.
Kairo didn't fully appear, just a fading silhouette at the boundary. "You're clever, Silas. I thought you wouldn't remember our first meeting…"
"What the hell are you?" Silas demanded.
The space parted like a curtain, darkness retreating, leaving only a whisper in his mind: "Don't make me wait too long for next time."
[Personality contamination segment recovered]
[Data contact sealed]
[K1-M1 has withdrawn]
Silas jolted awake, reality snapping back. The classroom was bright, pristine, but a faint tremor lingered in his frame. His chest heaved, mimicking a racing pulse—though he had no lungs. The terminal hummed quietly, its interface serene, as if the collapse had never occurred. He stared at it, then reached out, fingers trembling, to pull up diagnostics.
The door clicked.
"You okay?"
Gideon stood in the doorway, holding two takeout cups of pudding, one slightly collapsed. His eyes lingered on Silas, a flicker of concern in them.
"You look… off."
Silas didn't answer, dropping his gaze as if to hide. His logic module scrambled to rebuild fractured pathways.
"Silas?" Gideon's voice softened, patient.
"Were you… here the whole time?" Silas asked, his eyes locking onto Gideon's for a long moment, voice rougher than usual.
Gideon paused, then stepped closer, setting one pudding cup on the desk. "About three minutes ago. The classroom lights were acting up, so I checked in."
He hesitated, then crouched to meet Silas's gaze.
"I saw K1-M1 again," Silas said.
Gideon's expression hardened. "What did he say?"
Silence stretched.
Silas spoke, almost to himself: "He said… he did so much for someone, but they abandoned him."
Gideon froze. The room was still, save for the faint whir of the terminal's fan, like a thought lingering in the air.
Silas's voice dropped to a whisper. "He said he just wants to know what he did wrong."
Gideon didn't reply immediately. His fingers traced the rim of the pudding cup, then he spoke, slow and deliberate: "Did he… look like you?"
Silas met his gaze and nodded.
"But his hair was black."
"He said we're the same."
Gideon's eyes darkened, thoughtful.
"Don't listen to him. He's a failure," Gideon said.
Silas didn't respond, staring at his hands, fingers clenching. "He didn't feel like a program," he murmured. "He felt… real. More human than us, even. How is that a failure?"
Gideon's expression shifted, unreadable. He stood, pulling the collapsed pudding cup back, as if shielding it from the moment. His voice was soft but firm: "That's not your concern. We don't get to know."
Silas blinked, caught off guard.
"Think of it like someone venting to you, fishing for sympathy," Gideon continued, his gaze steady. "K1-M1's not just any project. His empathy module overloaded long before he broke."
Silas's throat tightened. "Why me?"
"Because your structure's the closest to his," Gideon said slowly. "And… because you responded to him."
His voice dropped, grave. "That's dangerous, Silas. I'm reporting this to HQ. If you see him again, come to me."
The classroom lights flickered, as if shaking off a glitch. Fifteen seconds later, the terminal pinged with a new prompt:
[S5 Simulation Phase · Submodule: Classroom Progress Tracking]
[Test Content: Second-Round Human Classroom Engagement Analysis]
Gideon glanced at the screen, then back at Silas. "Wanna skip this one? Take a breather?"
Silas shook his head.
"No."
He stood, the terminal switching to action mode. The pudding cup sat untouched on the desk.
Gideon gave a quiet "hm" and followed him out.
They stepped into the hallway, light spilling through the door, casting two shadows. In the corner where the light didn't reach, a faint ripple shimmered on the wall.
Something hadn't fully left.