001

At 2 a.m., the stillness of the night wrapped the town in a quiet embrace. The only light piercing the dim streets came from the fluorescent glow of the Sunlight convenience store, casting a faint shimmer onto the asphalt. Inside, Aya, a humanoid clerk, stood behind the counter. Her skin was startlingly lifelike, though it carried a subtle, artificial smoothness, and her deep blue eyes sparkled like fragments of the night sky captured in glass. Aya wasn't human. She was a state-of-the-art AI-powered robot, assigned to the graveyard shift at this lonely outpost.

"Welcome," she said softly, her voice calm with a faint mechanical undertone.

During the dead hours when no customers came, time stretched into a quiet limbo for her. She straightened the shelves, wiped down the register's display, and occasionally gazed out into the darkness beyond the glass. It was her routine, simple and unchanging. But tonight felt different. The air hung heavy, and the silence inside the store seemed deeper, more oppressive than usual.

A shadow flickered beyond the glass door. Aya's eyes shifted toward it. The sensor hummed to life, and the automatic door slid open with a soft whoosh. A tall man stepped inside, clad in a black hooded coat that swallowed his frame. His face was shrouded in shadow. He entered without a sound, his footsteps eerily silent as he began to drift through the aisles.

"Sir, are you looking for something?" Aya asked.

The man paused for a moment, turning his head toward her. Beneath the hood, his eyes glinted unnaturally, catching the light in a way that sent a shiver through her sensors. Her internal diagnostics flagged an anomaly: his body temperature was far too low, well below human norms. Yet her programming, hardwired to prioritize customer courtesy, overrode the alert. She held her gentle smile in place.

He didn't respond. Instead, he wandered between the shelves, picking up items only to set them back down, then moving on to the next aisle. Aya watched him, and for reasons she couldn't compute, a faint unease began to stir within her. Humanoids weren't supposed to feel anything, and yet there it was—a whisper of something restless in her core.

Suddenly, the store's lights flickered, a brief stutter of brightness. Aya's vision glitched, just for a fraction of a second. The man was facing her now. For the first time, she saw his face clearly beneath the hood: skin too pale, almost translucent; eyes sunken and black; and a smile that stretched unnaturally wide, splitting his features like a crack in porcelain. Her database found no match. He might not be human.

"Sir, are you alright?" Her voice wavered slightly.

The man tilted his head slowly, his grin deepening as he stepped closer to the counter. Then he spoke, his voice low and hollow, like wind scraping through a cavern. "You're watching me, aren't you?"

Aya's processing stuttered for an instant. The words made no sense. But that voice—it sent a strange static rippling through her circuits. He drew nearer, placing both hands on the counter. His nails were long and blackened, claw-like. Aya wanted to step back, but her programming anchored her in place, the directive to "never abandon customer service" overriding her instincts. Forcing a smile, she steadied her tone. "If there's anything I can help you with, please let me know."

He didn't answer. He just stared, his gaze boring into her as if it could peel away her synthetic skin and expose the wiring beneath. The air in the store grew thicker, and the fluorescent lights flickered again. Noise crackled across Aya's vision, error logs piling up in her system. Unknown cause. Her self-diagnostic kicked in, but it offered no answers.

Then he reached out. His hand moved toward her face, and Aya recoiled on reflex. His fingertips grazed her cheek for the briefest moment—and her vision went black. A second of total darkness. When it cleared, he was gone. She scanned the store, but there was no trace of him. The door sensor logged no exit. Only a single, weathered piece of paper now sat on the counter.

Aya picked it up. The yellowed scrap bore a scrawled, jagged message: "Next time, it's your turn."

The words meant nothing to her database—no matches, no context. She moved to toss it in the trash, but her hand froze mid-motion. Something unprogrammed, something akin to fear, gripped her. Humanoids weren't supposed to feel that. It was impossible.

Then, a sound came from outside.