I didn't expect the voice.
It came softly, carried on a breathless whisper I almost mistook for static.
"Cold," it said.
Just one word. Small. Incomplete. But not digital. Not from the system.
It didn't echo. Didn't trigger a prompt. It just existed.
I looked down.
The creature, the half-rendered thing still curled beside me, had shifted again. Her plating had softened at the edges, duller now, like the system was slowly releasing its grip. Fur clung in patches to her small frame, flickering in and out of consistency. Her tail had begun to resolve, shrinking slightly, curving instead of staying stiff and blade-like. And her paws, once unnaturally segmented, were smoothing out, reshaping into something closer to what they were supposed to be.
Smaller.
Lighter.
Younger.
A kitten.
Not a perfect rendering. Not even close. She glitched at the joints when she stretched, one leg momentarily elongating before snapping back. Her ears weren't symmetrical. Her purring stuttered every few seconds like an audio loop spliced by a shaky hand. But the way she moved, the slow turn, the uncertain curl of paw beneath chin, it was different now.
It was realer.
And when her eyes lifted to meet mine, they didn't glow.
They shimmered.
Deep kitten blue, laced with static. Not sharp. Not dangerous. Just present.
Watching me.
My hand moved on its own, reaching toward her with a care I didn't fully understand. My fingertips brushed between her ears, and she leaned into the contact. Slowly. Gently. A twitch passed through her side, not a rejection, more a surprise. Like her body hadn't expected touch to feel like this. Like anything.
She blinked.
And then she spoke again.
"Softer now."
Two words, stitched together from that same breathless voice, small and uneven. Her mouth didn't quite match the rhythm. Her tongue moved a half-second too late. But I didn't care.
Because the voice wasn't robotic.
It was young.
Feminine, but not synthetic. Childlike, without being childish.
It was the voice of something trying to understand how to be, not how to function.
The system didn't speak like that.
I didn't say anything in response. I just kept stroking the side of her head with slow, cautious motion. Her purring returned, lower now, more rhythmic, no longer pure audio. There was a vibration to it. Not just audible, physical. I could feel it in my ribs, humming up my side where her small body leaned into mine.
I scratched just behind one ear, the one that had finally resolved into something round and real.
She let out a soft mewl.
The log flickered.
[STABILITY: 57%]
[BIOLOGICAL FORM: INITIATING]
[VOICE PROFILE: COMPANION_CHILD]
[LINK STATUS: ACTIVE]
[EMOTIONAL RECALL: 4.2%]
She was changing.
Not rendered.
Not coded.
Becoming.
My chest ached in a way that had nothing to do with bruises.
Not pain.
Not hunger.
A crack, somewhere deep, a fracture in the wall I hadn't realised I was still holding up.
She turned in a slow half-circle, settling herself tighter against my leg, head resting on my shin. Her paws tucked in now, movement soft. Her tail flicked once and fell still.
I remembered something.
Not consciously. Just a memory rising like mist. My daughter's voice, real, bright, loud, declaring that kittens were her favourite animal because "they were like warm secrets you could hug."
It had been one of those throwaway lines. A school morning, maybe. Something she said with toast in her mouth and glitter still in her hair from the day before.
And now here I was, in a world rewritten by code, with a creature I didn't create pressed against my leg, warm, small, and glitching.
Like a secret the system hadn't figured out how to delete.
She shifted again.
And something about the way she did it, the little shuffle, the soft chuff of air, triggered something I hadn't felt since they were taken.
Safety.
Not the world. Not the system.
Just this moment. Her weight against my side. Her breath. That absurd little mewl.
[VOICE CORE: SYNCED (CHILD)]
[MEMORY FEEDBACK: ACTIVE]
[ANCHOR: NULLPOINTER]
[PHYSICAL STABILITY: 61%]
I leaned forward, arms wrapped loosely over my knees. The edges of the console glowed faintly, the blue pulse continuing its slow rhythm. I didn't look directly at it. I didn't need to.
The important part wasn't there.
It was here.
With her.
She looked up at me again. One ear flicked as she blinked.
And then, so quietly I almost missed it:
"You smell sad."
I choked on my breath.
It wasn't the words. Not exactly.
It was the way she said it, soft, questioning, without judgment.
Like a child noticing rain and wondering whether to bring a coat.
I reached out again, both hands this time, gently lifting her and placing her in my lap. She made a sound, not quite a protest, more surprise. Her claws flexed once, didn't dig. Just reflex.
Her body was light. Fragile. But not brittle. The warmth of her was unmistakable now, the softness under the glitch. Her paws settled into the folds of my hoodie like she'd done it a thousand times.
I didn't cry.
Not yet.
But something cracked a little wider inside me.
And it didn't feel like breaking.
It felt like beginning.
The console beeped again. Another system message floated across the periphery of my awareness.
[DEBUG ROOM NODE STABILITY CONFIRMED]
[SANCTUARY CONDITION: MET]
[TETHER STRENGTH: GROWING]
She curled tighter in my lap, tail wrapping around one side, her form now nearly all fur. A few glitches still shimmered beneath the surface, lines of unrendered code at the base of her ears, a low flicker in the bones of her back leg.
But the biomechanical form was fading.
And something else, something warmer, was beginning to grow.
She yawned.
Nestled closer.
And let out a single word as she drifted toward sleep:
"Here."
Not a question.
A declaration.
Here.
With me.
Now.
And I held her like I'd hold a heartbeat, something fragile, something precious, because for the first time since the world fell apart, I had something I wasn't ready to lose again.