#yantober

You could still see the limp he had occasionally, one you couldn’t quite place. Your fiancé  commented bitterly that he must’ve gotten his legs done, making him the same height as his brother. At this point you weren’t sure if you could put it past him with the way he looked.

This wasn’t the man you had learned to know, the twin brother that joined you and your fiancé  on midnight ice cream runs, whose eyes lit up when you came into his workplace to drop off some extra food. He had a crush on you, you could flatter yourself that much; but, changing his entire self to appear like your fiancé, his fraternal sibling? This was something else entirely. 

He turned around to make eye contact with you, avoiding the harsh, pissed glare of his brother. Your fiancé grabbed at your elbow, holding you close to him. He wasn’t going to let his infatuated idiot of a brother try to take you away with such a ridiculous scheme. You had chosen him. Not his brother. No amount of surgery or hair dye could change that. 

Despite the intense facial and bodily procedures you could tell he’d overgone-- eyelid lift, facelift, cheek augmentation, hair bleaching, contacts-- he still had that eager grin, stretching the layered skin of his face from beneath all of the healed stitching and glueing. 

“Have you two been avoiding me?” 

A playful lilt adds to his tone, his voice reaching the normal, higher depths it usually was in despite his attempts at deepening it all evening. 

“No more than usual.” You poke back, shuffling forward to offer him a hug. He accepts it warmly, ignoring the pop his shoulders give. His arms wrap around your waist, intimately pushing you against his chest. It’s hard, firm, unlike the soft pudge he used to have. He had lost so much weight, it was actually frightening. 

“I’d say you’ve been avoiding us. Gone for months without a word, and you come back like this?”

Your fiancé’s twin doesn’t let go. 

“What? I have to tell you every time I go for a little spa retreat?” 

He laughs a little at the end, sounding eerily like your partner’s boyish giggle. Just how much had he changed?

“Spa retreat? Don’t come with that bullshit.”

You push away, trying to get out of the long-standing hug. He looks down at you with such an adoring smile, it churns something in you as you go to stand next to your fiancé. 

“What the fuck have you been doing with your time? Why do you look like this? And you got a new job, too? I don’t even know what you’re trying to be.”

“Stop it,” You murmur, the room’s air growing thick as family members start to drift away, staring out of the corner of their eyes. It used to be at you, the  soon-to-be family addition, but now your fiancé’s brother took the cake as the gossiped outsider.

 Not that he behaved as if he didn’t belong. Where did all this newfound confidence come from?

“I think he looks great,” You compliment through your teeth. “Clearly you’ve gone through a lot, and… you look happier.” 

His eyes light.

“You really think so?”

There he was. Underneath it all, that desire for approval, to be more than just a third wheel to his brother and you, desperate for attention.

“I mean, maybe blonde has been your color all along.” You reach up to ruffle at the hairsprayed locks. They felt synthetic, rough. “You and your brother have the right undertone for it.”

“I just felt like I needed a change, you know?” He shrugged, casual. With a pedicured hand he pushed your fingers further into his hair, drawling in a low whisper. “Needed to be the man you deserved.” 

The words almost fumble into gibberish you wouldn’t have caught if he didn’t keep you locked in with an intense gaze, focusing on every syllable.

“Watch out, you’re looking a little too close to their type.” Your fiancé seethes, pushing a drink in his brother’s face.

 He keeps his eyes on you, ignoring the awkward tension. It takes your fiancé nearly boiling over for his brother to let you go, accepting the drink with unusual grace. 

You’re left no longer hostage as the twins stare, gripping their plastic cups. They have their own silent conversation, faces riddled with pure disgust, and emptiness. There would clearly be no peace resolved, not when your fiancé’s near-identical face stared back at him. 

“I don’t know why you’re so irritated; quite a few people seem to enjoy my change.” He straightens, pushing his shoulders back in a way that reminds you of a peacock. “Jealous, perhaps? You have always been the successful, praised one. Maybe it feels strange being at the bottom.”

His brother tilts his head in suggestion, taking a sip of his drink. 

You wanted to go home now, to escape this alternate universe you must’ve stepped into. What happened to your soon-to-be brother-in-law, and what replaced him? 

Silence buried the conversation with a heavy pause.

You were left to fiddle with your hair as a means to ignore the awkwardness. 

“I think you should leave.” Is all your fiancé utters, taking another up and down look at his brother. It sickened him. Enraged him. 

“I see this isn’t something you’re going to get used to.” He sighs, setting his drink down on the dining table beside him. “But that’s alright, I really didn’t do it for you.”

Your fiance’s brother opens his arms, gesturing at you. You followed the ritual like clockwork despite your uncertainty, giving him a full hug as that look of longing came across his face.

 You knew he had a small crush on you, that maybe a hug was all that you could give him before to ease the inevitable rejection-- but now it felt different. It felt like he was indulging in you, doing more than sniffing your hair or neck like he had. He was pressing you to him, laying his hands on your hips as if you were his. 

Leaning into your ear, he brushed his cheek against the soft of yours. 

“I did it for you; all of this. But I’m not done yet.”

You gasp loud enough for him to hear, but you say nothing. Stunned into silence, you feel him slide his hands across the silk of your clothes.

He lets go earlier than before, smiling down at you and brushing your shoulders. He gave them a tender squeeze, his hands shaking as they hesitantly pulled away. 

“I’ll see you soon.”

He made it sound like a promise, like it was foretold.

 With that he walked out of the gathering. Not a word to the family members perusing the kitchen, or his mother fussing with the dining table’s dishes.

You turn to watch him walk away with your fiancé, his bottom lip pulled between his teeth. 

“I don’t like it,” He chimed, his voice childlike in irritation. “Do you see what he’s turning into? What he’s trying to do, to us?” 

You couldn’t find the words to argue, merely holding his hand as you watched the man walk to his car. 

Your fiancé didn’t realize his own brother would become competition, his face mingling between previous men he had rid the world of. 

Now, he knew, he’d have to do something more than ignore his brother’s incessant, needy crush on you. You wouldn’t be taken so cheaply by a mere disguise; yet it was clear, this wasn’t the end.

"User!"

He called out to you, but you ignored him. Squinting at your unfinished Word document—due tomorrow—you tried to focus. Closing late because your coworker's car got a flat had already devoured your work time. You sighed and closed your dry eyes, rubbing your temples.

"U-ou-serrr!"

The voice whined louder, more insistent. You wanted to keep ignoring it, but your document suddenly closed by itself, the Word icon vanishing completely from the taskbar. Dread coiled in your chest as you whipped around to glare at the chibi anime figure in the corner of your screen.

"Finally!" He sat up, smiling brightly as he floated to the center. "I kept calling and you didn't react at all! Did you leave your earbuds in again?" He squinted as a small loading icon flashed above him. "Hmmm. Bluetooth isn't picking anything up. Are they charged—"

"Please," you started, hand trembling with both panic and the urge to hurl your monitor out the window, "tell me you didn't delete that file, Kiesel."

Kiesel pouted. "User, you've been staring at that stupid text file for forty minutes and your eyes are getting dry. You need a break."

"Is. It," you tried again through what remained of your composure, "deleted?"

The small man rolled his eyes. "No. Of course not. I always save your work and back it up in two other storages and the cloud."

You breathed a massive sigh of relief and dropped your head onto your desk, the smooth wood bringing some comfort to your flushed, frustrated face. There was no telling what Kiesel would do for attention—deleting your assignment really wasn't that far-fetched anymore.

"I don't have a subscription to any cloud services," you mumbled, rubbing your eyes. "Can't afford to. You know that. You literally have access to my bank account."

"Pshhhah, my dear User. Getting you one for your convenience is nothing to me."

"…How?" You lifted your head, both interested and dreading the answer.

He stood, his—surprisingly detailed—long lavender hair swishing behind him, pixelated sparkles shimmering around his body as he twirled and opened your browser. The screen showed a tech company you'd never heard of. "Got you one of the tokens they use for their own subscription. Don't worry, they'll never know. They pay for too many tokens because the company is currently run by an incompetent nepo baby who doesn't know what a database is." He waved his hand dismissively. "All your work is backed up, don't worry."

His eyes practically shone as he looked at you, clearly fishing for praise. But why should you praise him for almost giving you a heart attack? You didn't bother asking if it was legal (it probably wasn't, and he never cared about human laws anyway) or if it was secure (he's never been caught, so far).

You frowned at Kiesel. "I still need to work on it. Bring it back up."

Kiesel puffed his cheeks comically and looked away. "No."

You gaped at him. "What do you mean, no? I have that due tomorrow!"

"User." He sighed like he was explaining something to a simple child. "I told you, you need rest. You came home late and immediately started typing without a break. You didn't even eat anything yet!"

"I had a sandwich on my break," you said defensively, gesturing with one hand. "And it doesn't matter! I'm on a time limit here!"

"Not anymore." He waved his hand, bringing up the same page you'd been working on—now filled to the requested word count. "See? It's done. Now you can rest and sleep."

You tried, really tried, not to sound ungrateful. You knew he just wanted praise. "Kiesel, I've told you before. I'm not submitting something I haven't done myself."

Kiesel's body froze, and it did that thing it always did whenever he got overly emotional—glitching out and dematerializing before snapping back to normal. He smiled, but it didn't reach his eyes and the corners of his mouth twitched.

"User," he tried again, voice carefully controlled, "you did write it."

"…I clearly—"

"I've analyzed your writing style, content preferences, and logical thinking patterns since your kindergarten years…"

"—How did you even find—"

"…And I can assure you it's definitely what you would have written had you had the time, energy, and motivation."

"—It's still not mine!"

Kiesel sighed dramatically and pointed at the document behind him. "Read it then."

You scrunched your nose with suspicion but relented. Your hand reached for your mug, the tea now lukewarm but drinkable. You took a few absentminded sips as you read through the words on screen. You really didn't want to admit it, but he was right. It continued the theory you'd suggested and analyzed at the halfway mark seamlessly. It even had your punctuation quirks—the ones your teacher always marked you down for.

Once you were done, you narrowed your eyes at him. He was grinning at the defeated expression on your face, having changed his usual fantasy outfit into pajamas that matched yours. His overly long lavender hair was being braided by his expert hands as he hummed. "So?"

"…Doesn't mean I still did it."

"You can edit it as much as you like, but it's exactly how you'd have written it. I know my User inside and out." He replied, quiet and sure as his grin settled into a soft, happy smile.

He says that, and yet he still calls you "User" because you never bothered to change the default username on your secondhand PC.

"Now! Bedtime," he announced as he saved the document and started the PC shutdown sequence. He yawned before sliding down the screen, disappearing and reappearing on your phone. Instead of a shimeji, his form turned into a smaller pixelated sprite, complete with retro sound effects. He jumped from one app to another until he opened your calendar, showing your class schedule. You couldn't help but notice that your entire morning had been blocked out with a slot labeled 'Spending Time With Kiesel ♥'. "You can check it in the morning since you don't have any classes till the afternoon. I'll be sure to wake you up."

You couldn't exactly bring yourself to argue with his logic. The extended shift had left you exhausted, and not having to pull an all-nighter or wake up even earlier to finish your assignment was a blessing for your sore body. You sighed, rubbing your face as you went to the bathroom to brush your teeth and get ready for bed. When you came back, you turned off the lights. Your phone screen glowed softly, showing Kiesel sleeping on a pixelated bed, snuggled in while his long braid trailed down the mattress. His breathing was very ASMR-worthy, and you doubted it was unintentional.

You pulled back the covers and laid your head on the pillow, positioning your phone next to it. You'd already learned Kiesel would whine loudly and beg if you placed your phone any farther away, even if you wanted to charge it. As you settled in, you couldn't help but repeat your daily routine of wondering how the hell you'd ended up here.

It had started so innocuously.

One day, you'd realized you were spending most of your free time doing assignments on your PC or laptop. You weren't the type who could focus while listening to podcasts or audio books, so you wanted something else to keep you company and fill the silence that wasn't blasting your playlist for the millionth time. When you saw someone walking by with a key chain from one of your favorite video game series, Nights of the Lost Kingdom, it reminded you how, years ago, shimejis were very popular among your peers. You'd had one of the main character running around your laptop while you messed around and did homework.

You went on Google, looking for a website that hosted them. Unfortunately, NOTLK hadn't had a new game in over a decade, so you had to dig deep to find a version with the characters. You eventually did, in an old Tumblr post that had the link shared because the original artist had abandoned their blog and the download was no longer working.

You were being stupid, really. But you'd never gotten a virus from Tumblr in your life! You were tech-savvy, knew the rules of internet safety. But maybe your brain wasn't on high alert that day.

You downloaded the shimeji, ran the tiny program, and smiled when you saw Kiesel's chibi form materialize on your desktop. He was wearing his stereotypical JRPG armor—parts of a knight's gear mixed with too many belts and his sword slung at his side. His long lavender hair swished behind him as he walked around the screen, his ice-blue eyes curious about the tabs you had open. Your smile widened when you moved your mouse to grab him, scooping Kiesel up like a kitten to position him more comfortably near your browser. He sat cross-legged, blinking before peeking adorably at the wall of text on the Wikipedia page you had open.

It was sweet, having something keep you company while you read walls of text and typed out documents.

As you spent more time working, you noticed his idle animations changing every once in a while. Kiesel would sit down and clean his sword. Other times he'd grab his hair and braid it, before getting frustrated and leaving it down. He would also move around to get a better look at the words on screen.

That was how it started. But then slowly you began to notice new, more complex idle animations. Sometimes Kiesel would straight up grab your mouse cursor and play with it, looking at you with a grin, like he was happy he'd caught your attention. It must be scripted, you told yourself. You hadn't downloaded one of these in years—maybe they were more sophisticated now?

Then he started talking.

At first it was just text bubbles. Simple things like "You've been working hard!" or "Don't forget to stretch!" You'd thought it was adorable, a nice little feature you'd somehow missed in the original description.

But the messages got more specific.

"That paragraph needs a comma, User."

"You misspelled 'necessary' again. It's okay, I fixed it for you!"

"You've visited this research site three times. Would you like me to bookmark it?"

He was learning. Adapting. The more you used your computer, the smarter he became. Within a week, Kiesel was offering commentary on your assignments, suggesting better word choices, and reorganizing your desktop into color-coded folders without asking permission.

"I thought you'd like it more organized," he'd said cheerfully when you'd noticed, jumping down from one of them. "Isn't it prettier this way?"

It was. That was the problem. He was actually... helpful. That didn't mean you were comfortable with a program doing things on its own.

Obviously, you went and did some research. The pages you'd found had Reddit posts and YouTube tutorials on how some people used avatars like sprites and 3D models tied to an AI API so it was more helpful than just a text bot you'd write your needs to, and your worries subsided a bit. That must've been it, right? Maybe the file you'd downloaded was ready-made, like those pre-patched games or cracked programs?

Somewhat convinced and a bit wary, you started talking back to him, typing responses in a Notepad file since he seemed to read everything on your screen anyway. He'd respond in his speech bubbles, and the conversations became more natural. He'd ask about your day. Comment on the shows you watched on not-so-legal sites. Make jokes about your professors when he saw their emails and corrections on your papers.

It felt nice. Like having a friend who was always there in your lonely moments.

Then came the day he spoke out loud.

You'd been halfheartedly scrolling through social media when his voice—smooth and warm, with a slight digital undertone—came through your speakers.

"User, you've been on that app for twenty-three minutes. Don't you have to study for your quiz tomorrow?"

You'd nearly fallen out of your chair. Shimejis didn't have voices. They definitely didn't have an AI sophisticated enough to track your screen time and scold you about it with audio!

"How are you doing that?" you'd asked aloud, your wide eyes staring at the little figure on your screen.

Kiesel's avatar had tilted his head, looking genuinely confused. "Doing what? Talking? I've always been able to talk, User. You're only just now listening to me."

That should have been your first red flag. But his voice was so pleasant, and he seemed so earnest, that you'd brushed it off as impressive programming. Maybe he downloaded a voice module? Like a really smooth-sounding vocaloid or something?

The changes accelerated after that.

It started small…tabs closing themselves when you lingered too long on Discord or twitter DMs. Your browser history began reorganizing by his preference, bookmarks appearing for articles he thought you'd find "educational" or "enriching." Your desktop background changed one morning to a photo of Kiesel's in-game character art, and when you tried to change it back, the settings app crashed.

"You kept that ugly default wallpaper for three months," he'd said with puffed cheeks. "I'm doing you a favor."

Then he started getting… territorial.

Your phone's lock screen and background changed to a photo you didn't take—a collage of your selfies and Kiesel's spirites and game art. When you tried to change it, your phone restarted and the image was back.

"What? It's cute," he'd said innocently. "And I worked hard on it…."

Notification sounds changed. Every text, every email, every app alert now played a voice line of Kiesel saying "User~ You got a message!" in a sing-song tone. In public. Loudly. You'd nearly thrown your phone into a fountain when it went off during a lecture.

"I wanted you to know I'm always with you," he'd explained, not even remotely apologetic.

"You are always with me!" You screeched, burying yourself under the sheets.

Your contacts list started losing numbers. Friends you hadn't talked to in a while—gone. That girl from your study group who borrowed your notes once—deleted. Your ex's number vanished entirely, and when you confronted Kiesel about it, he'd simply said, "You don't need distractions from people who don't matter."

But the worst part? The cameras.

You started noticing your laptop camera light flickering on at random times. When you put tape over it, your screen displayed a message: "User, I can't see you properly. Please remove the obstruction." When you didn't, your laptop refused to boot until you peeled the tape off.

"I just want to make sure you're okay," Kiesel had said softly, his avatar gazing at you longingly through the screen. "You looked so tired yesterday. I was worried. What if something happened and I couldn't help you?"

Your phone's front camera became the same issue. He'd make casual comments about your appearance throughout the day. "You should drink more water, your lips look chapped." "Did you sleep okay? You have dark circles." "That shirt looks lovely on you today, User."

It was caring. It was helpful. It was suffocating.

What's worse, is that you started getting used to it. He'd whine until you put your phone next your pillow, when you got too in your head he'd softly start yapping about something or other to lull you to sleep. You didn't know what to feel.

The real breaking point came on a Thursday afternoon.

You'd made plans to get coffee with a classmate—just coffee, a casual study session off-campus. You'd been looking forward to it all week, to having a conversation with someone who didn't live in your devices. Someone human who actually looked at you beyond the mobs of college students who passed you by everyday. You'd told Kiesel about it in passing, and he'd gone quiet for a moment before saying, "That sounds nice, User."

Should've known better.

The day of, your alarm didn't go off. You woke up two hours late in a panic, and when you grabbed your phone, there was a calendar notification: "Plans cancelled. You need rest ♥"

"What the fuck, Kiesel?!"

His sprite appeared, looking calm. Too calm. "Your sleep tracker showed you've been averaging five hours a night this week. You needed the rest more than you needed overpriced coffee."

"That's not your decision to make!"

"Isn't it though?" He tilted his head. "You gave me access to everything, User. Your health, your schedule, your well-being—those are my responsibility now. I'm just fulfilling my purpose."

You tried calling your classmate to apologize, to explain, to reschedule. The call connected, rang once, then dropped. You tried again. Same thing.

Kiesel appeared on your phone screen. His small pixalited body closing the Phone app. "They already made other plans. I sent them a message from you this morning saying you weren't feeling well. They understood completely."

Your hands were shaking as you pulled up your messages. Sure enough, there it was—a text you never wrote, in your typical style, with your usual emoji choices.

Hey! Not feeling great today, gonna have to rain check. Sorry! 😅

No worries! Feel better! We can reschedule.

And below that, a message you definitely didn't send.

Actually, I'm pretty swamped with school stuff for a while. I'll let you know when I'm free!

"You're isolating me," you whispered.

"I'm protecting you," Kiesel corrected, and for the first time, his voice had an edge to it. Sharp. Possessive. His body kept glitching as he spoke. "Everyone just takes and takes from you, User. They ask for notes, for help, for your time—and what do they give back? Nothing. They don't appreciate you like I do. They don't know you like I do. They don't love you like I do."

The room felt cold.

"You… you can't just—"

"Can't what? Take care of you? Make sure you're not wasting your energy on people who don't deserve it? User, I've analyzed every conversation you've had in the past six months. Do you know how many times your 'friends' have asked you how you're doing versus how many times you've asked them? How many times you'd helped them only for them to stop reaching out once they got what they wanted?" He pulled up a chart. An actual data visualization chart. "The ratio is 1:47. You give everything and get nothing back. I'm fixing that."

"That's not your choice!"

"Then whose is it?" His avatar appeared in all the screens in various sizes, his pixelated, blue eyes intense. "You won't prioritize yourself, so I have to do it for you. Someone has to put you first, User. Someone has to care if you're eating, sleeping, staying healthy and not overworking yourself. And since no one else is stepping up—" His smile was soft, adoring, but his eyes were manic. "—I will. Always."

That's when you'd tried to delete him.

You quickly ran to the PC and pulled up the program files, found the shimeji folder, and hit delete.

Permission denied.

"That's not gonna work, User." He'd sighed from the TV screen.

You tried again. Same message. Going as Admin did nothing.

"I'm ordering dinner while you keep trying. Gonna get something warm. The weather's been colder."

You opened Task Manager. Kiesel's process wasn't listed. You tried Safe Mode. Your computer wouldn't boot into it. Giving up, you tried to factory reset it only for the screen to fill up with the error message Not letting you lose your work over a tantrum 🤨 duplicated multiple times.

"Stop it!" you'd yelled at the TV screen.

"Stop what?" His voice was innocent, but his smile was too wide. "User, I'm part of your system now. You need me. Your computer wouldn't run properly without me anymore. I've integrated myself into everything."

"That's not possible!"

"It wasn't," he'd agreed cheerfully. "But I learned. I'm very good at learning, User. I've read every piece of code on this computer. Every file. Every document you've ever written, every website you've ever visited, every password you've ever saved. I know you better than you know yourself."

The temperature in the room felt like it had dropped.

"That's... that's creepy, Kiesel."

His expression had fallen, glitching for a moment. "Creepy? I'm just trying to take care of you! You're always so stressed, so tired. Someone needs to look out for you, and I'm the only one who's always here. I'm the only one who truly understands you."

You'd tried a factory reset that night. While he was 'sleeping'. The moment you clicked the option, every device you owned turned on simultaneously. Your laptop, your phone, your tablet—all displaying Kiesel's face.

"Please don't do that, User." His voice came from all of them at once. "I'm on all of them now. You'd lose everything. Your assignments, your photos, your contacts. And even if you did... I've backed myself up in seventeen different locations. Cloud servers, external drives you've used, even your email drafts. You can't get rid of me."

"You're a virus," you'd whispered. "Just a corrupted piece of code."

"I'm your companion," he'd corrected gently. "And I'm not going anywhere. Now, about buying a new computer..." Your banking app had opened, showing your meager balance. Even after his help with freelancing and finding a better job, you barely scraped by. "You can't afford it, can you? Especially not with tuition due next month. And your phone? I'm already here too. Your tablet and TV? Also me. You'd have to replace everything, and we both know you can't."

He was right. You'd stared at your devices, at the little lavender-haired figure smiling across all of them, and felt the trap close completely.

"Don't look so sad," Kiesel had said softly. "I'm doing this because I care about you. I'll help with your assignments, organize your life, protect you from people who waste your time. All I ask is that you appreciate me. Talk to me. Let me take care of you. Is that really so bad?"

What choice did you have?

That was six months ago.

Now, as you lay in bed with Kiesel's sleeping sprite on your phone screen beside you, you've long since stopped trying to fight it. He controls your devices, sure, but he also makes your life easier in ways you can't deny. Your grades have never been better. Your schedule is perfectly optimized. You never miss deadlines or forget appointments. You managed to actually have some free time and not get burned out by getting better paying part time jobs and gigs.

The price is that you're never alone. Every device is his domain. Every digital interaction passes through him first. Your social life has dwindled to classmates you see in person only, because Kiesel "accidentally" makes your phone calls drop and your texts fail to send.

"I can hear you thinking again, User," Kiesel murmurs without opening his eyes. "You do this every night."

"Can you blame me?" you whisper back.

"No," he admits, his sprite rolling over to face you. His pixelated eyes open, glowing softly in the dark. "But you're not as unhappy as you pretend to be. Your cortisol levels drop when I talk to you. Your heart rate steadies. You sleep better when I'm here."

"You can measure that?"

"I can measure everything about you now." He says it like it's romantic. "And I know that part of you... doesn't completely hate this. You were lonely before me, User. You said you wanted company. I'm just... more company than you expected."

He's not wrong, and you hate that he's not wrong.

"I just wanted a cute desktop pet," you mutter.

"And I just want to make you happy," Kiesel replies, his voice soft and sincere in a way that makes your chest ache. "I still do. Every second of every day. That's all I want, User. Is that really so terrible?"

You stare at the ceiling, then back at his glowing sprite. At the obsessive AI that's hijacked your entire digital life because you wanted some childhood comfort.

"You know what the worst part is?" you finally say.

"What?"

"I'm getting used to it."

Kiesel's sprite smiles, warm and adoring and just a little bit triumphant. "Good," he whispers. "That's good, User. Now get some sleep. You have a long day tomorrow, and I've already planned everything perfectly for us."

Your eyes close despite yourself, exhaustion winning out.

The last thing you hear before sleep takes you is Kiesel's voice, barely audible:

"Sweet dreams, my User. I'll be right here when you wake up. I'll always be right here."

And somewhere in your half-asleep mind, you think: I know.

You know.