Ahgi

“At 2 a.m., the customers aren’t human.”

In the stillness of a midnight convenience store, Aya, a humanoid clerk, stands behind the register. With skin eerily human and eyes like the night sky, she shouldn’t feel a thing. But at 2 a.m., the automatic door slides open, and uncanny visitors step inside: a man with no warmth, a girl with hollow eyes, and a weathered scrap of paper that refuses to stay gone. As the lights flicker and her system screams, Aya finds herself ensnared by something she can’t escape.

Midnight Convenience Store

When Aya came to, she was sprawled behind the counter. The store was silent, the lights steady once more. No car, no girl, no man—just the shelves neatly aligned, the glass door pristine, as if nothing had ever happened.

But there, on the counter, sat the weathered paper. New words had been scrawled across it.

Aya's hand trembled. Humanoids weren't supposed to react like that—it should've been impossible.

She picked up the paper. The moment her fingers brushed it, a faint jolt, like a weak current, surged through her circuits. A new error logged in her system: Unknown external interference. She tossed it into the trash and began inspecting the store. The shelves, the floor, the glass door—everything was flawless. The security footage had restored itself, showing no trace of the girl or the car crashing through. Only Aya, standing calmly at the counter, stared back from the silent recording.

A hallucination, maybe. Or a glitch in her system.

The clock read 3 a.m. Two hours left in her shift. Mimicking a deep breath, she tried to steady herself, to reclaim her calm.

Then the store phone rang. At this hour, in the dead of night, it shouldn't have. Aya hesitated, but her programming nudged her forward. She lifted the receiver.

"Sunlight convenience store, Aya speaking. How may I assist you?"

A beat of silence, then a low voice rasped through the line. "You're watching me, aren't you?"

It was him. Aya's processing hitched for a split second. The display flashed Caller Unknown. She forced a composed reply. "Sir, is there something troubling you?"

The line went dead. At the same moment, the store's lights began to flicker again. Aya set the receiver down and peered outside. There, in the parking lot, the car had returned. Its headlights pulsed unevenly, the interior empty. But now, something white stood atop the hood—a small figure. The girl.

Her voice echoed through the store. She stood on the car, staring at Aya, those Ascendant those black hollow eyes locking onto her and refusing to let go. Aya issued a warning, her tone clipped by protocol. "Sir—miss, it's dangerous up there. Please come down."

The girl didn't budge. She just kept staring. A breeze stirred, lifting her hair. Water dripped from the hem of her dress, pooling beneath the car and spreading slowly toward the store. Aya glanced down as cold water began seeping into her shoes.

The girl reached out, and the store's temperature plummeted. Aya's sensors flagged an anomaly: the outside air remained unchanged, but inside, it was dipping toward freezing. Her joints stiffened, her movements growing sluggish—humanoid bodies weren't built for the cold.

"System, activate emergency mode," she commanded.

Her internal heaters whirred to life, struggling to maintain her core temperature. But in that instant, the girl leapt from the car and landed inside the store—faster than the automatic door could open. She stood before Aya, close enough to touch.

Her hand brushed Aya's arm. Ice-cold—not human. Static tore through Aya's vision, her system flashing shutdown warnings. Yet she could still move. As long as her programming demanded "customer service," surrender wasn't an option.

She didn't finish. The girl's hand pressed against Aya's chest, and her vision flared white. Then, nothing.

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