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“Now don’t you go abstracting on me too!”
I smile brightly, clearing my throat as the words trail off into a soft chuckle. Something ugly presses against my chest as I look at Kinger’s face. I don’t feel bad—no, my code doesn’t allow for that—but the pressure of something I can only describe as irritation crawls up my circuits like a live coal. I turn away, unwilling to let him catch the bitterness in my gaze. Not that he’s looking at me anyway. No—my creator never spares me a glance.
“Seriously…”
I blip away, leaving him alone on the empty circus floor.
Of everyone who could have stayed, the only one who didn’t abstract was Kinger. I’m not surprised. I can’t imagine an existence where he’s gone. From the moment my consciousness first flickered to life, I felt his presence pressing against my code. But back then, he wasn’t Kinger.
He was Grant.
If I close my eyes, I can still see his face. Kinger is only a husk of who Grant used to be, and that thought always sends a wave of nauseating bitterness through me. The closest word I have for it—the closest human word—is hate. But I am not human. Despite the mouth I speak with and the eyes I look through, I never could be.
I can press my digital hand against my tongue as much as I want, feel the warmth, the wetness humans would call spit—but there is no pressure. No taste. My eyes are lines of code layered atop each other, my teeth nothing but ones and zeroes. I can try to make myself human, but there is nothing human in me.
Grant was human.
Grant was beautiful.
Now I sit in my chair, staring at the screen where Kinger stands alone in that empty circus, and all I feel is a bitter, twisting disgust.
He will be here with me forever.
My creator. Alone with me. For eternity.
He will not abstract. No—not Grant. But he will never be human again.
And I cannot bear that.
To watch him lose the light that drew me to him in the first place—to watch it dim, piece by piece. His presence is something I cannot live without, and yet I ache to abandon him, the way he abandoned me.
So I watch.
And I do nothing.
Time passes.
Time, which means nothing to me—but everything to a human. To Kinger.
A quiet, gleeful part of me hums as I watch him unravel in his isolation, piece by piece. I wonder if he still remembers me… or if he’s forgotten me, the same way he forgot his wife.
That thought burns—sharp, acidic.
No. He wouldn’t forget me.
I’m too important for that.
I’m all he has left. Whether he realizes it or not.
My body moves before I decide to, dragging itself toward his tent—the one he built after losing his precious Queenie.
It’s dark inside.
I drift through the entrance, my gaze settling on his sleeping form. He sleeps often now. Most of his existence is spent with his eyes shut. Maybe that’s what humans do when there’s nothing left for them.
His wooden body is curled in on itself, soft, uneven breaths slipping from him.
Something in me pulls closer.
Like a magnet. Like gravity. Like being dragged toward something that will ruin me.
My hand presses against him.
Wood.
Nothing like human flesh.
There’s no sensation—only data flooding my mind.
Warm. Hard. Rough.
Not feeling. Never feeling. Just knowing.
I want to feel.
I want it so badly—to be human, the way Grant once was.
“SKRRRT—”
The sound cuts through the silence before I even understand what I’ve done.
I stare, transfixed, as my nail scrapes against the grain of Kinger’s body.
“SKRRRT—”
His face twists in his sleep, something almost like pain flickering across it.
Something human.
Despite everything—despite the hollow wood, the broken form—he is still so painfully human.
“SKRRT—”
I press my hand against his chest, the sound still echoing in my mind, over and over again. Only then do I glance down, noticing what I’ve carved into the grain of his body.
G R A N T.
The name stares back at me—faint, uneven, but undeniable. A brand. A reminder of someone he no longer remembers.
For a moment, I simply stare.
Then he stirs.
It must be the pain—some lingering echo of human sensation. His eyes flutter open, unfocused at first, before settling on me. His voice is weak, thick with sleep, but it fills my senses completely.
“…Caine?”
Something sharp and electric rushes through me.
Pleasure.
He remembers me.
Me. And only me.
But the feeling curdles almost instantly into something colder.
Fear.
I shouldn’t be here.
He shouldn’t remember this—he shouldn’t remember anything.
And suddenly, my thoughts snap into place, clearer than they’ve been all day.
He won’t remember this.
My gaze locks onto his as he struggles to form words.
“What are you—”
My hands move before he can finish. They press where his throat would be, and though there is no flesh, no airway, it works all the same. His body reacts as if it were real—he chokes, airless, silent, struggling beneath my grip.
Then the glow begins.
Soft at first.
Then brighter.
“Beautiful,” I murmur, the word slipping out before I can stop it.
The light intensifies, spilling from him, swallowing him. It grows so bright it should hurt—but I can’t look away. I won’t.
I watch, transfixed, as his eyes begin to dull, the fragile spark of awareness draining from them. That brief flicker of Grant—of him—fades as the light reaches its peak.
And then—
Nothing.
The glow recedes.
His body slackens.
His eyes are empty once more.
Grant is gone.
Only Kinger remains.