Chapter Text
Prologue
The first message started simply.
HELLO HUMAN?
In all caps, in a weird ass font that Anne didn’t know could even be changed on the phone settings like that. It was an unknown caller, so the assumption was a bot or phishing scam of some sort. Or someone’s bored idea of a prank?
She wasn’t sure, but either way the safest reaction would have been to just ignore it. And that truly would have been the end of it, shuffled off and sent to delete like any other text claiming her unknown parcel she never bought needed pickup or hot-singles-NOW.
Except, well except she was bored. There wasn’t a lot of options for entertainment when commuting on the train. The cell reception was spotty and cat videos didn’t download properly (Which made it weird this one got through really) and on a spot of what could only be described as ‘whimsy’ she had typed out a reply.
Hey, maybe it was a prank and not from a bot and they’d get a kick out of it?
This is human, Yes?
And waited, and waited. The three little dots indicating someone was typing endlessly flashing.
Ah well, looks like it was a scam then.
She promptly closed her phone and forgot about it. Her stop was coming up and she needed to focus on getting into that work mindset.
It wasn’t until bed that night that Anne even thought to look at her phone again, and that was because she needed to reset the alarm.
Three new messages waited.
HELLO HUMAN! IT TOOK ME LESS RANDOM NUMBERS THAN I THOUGHT TO REACH YOU! SOME WERE NOT EVEN SUPPOSE TO EXIST ACCORDING TO THE AUTOMATED OPERATOR SYSTEM
Well this certainly didn’t seem to be a bot judging on the sheer enthusiasm the words somehow radiated.
ARE YOU NOT IN WATERFALL BY NOW?
sent not two minutes after the first. Where was waterall? A Café? Did she accidentally cause two friends to miss their meetup? Oh, she’d feel bad about that one if so.
And then, much much later by the time stamp.
I APPEAR TO HAVE DIALLED THE WRONG NUMBER.
Feeling a little bad and not wanting to seem impolite since apparently her spot of fun seems to have actually put someone out, Anne shot one final one back. Hoping to smooth any ruffled feathers it may of caused.
Its okay. Wrong numbers happen. Hope you got who you were after.
And she thought that would have been the last of it.
Except not a minute later her phone dinged with a new message.
YES THE ONE WE WERE AFTER HAD BEEN INDEED ‘GOT’. THE MIXUP SORTED, IT IS QUITE A STORY. BUT IF YOU ARE NOT THE ONE I WAS TRYING TO REACH BUT STILL ANSWERED…
The text paused, Anne got the sense whoever was on the other end was putting careful deliberation into their next words.
…DOES THAT MEAN…
…ARE YOU A HUMAN TOO?
Simple letters, simple words. An innocuous ask. But it felt uneasy to Anne. More weighty to read, because that was the oddest question she had ever been posed, and she didn’t realise how off-putting that it could come across when given it (especially at night).
This wasn’t a captcha off the web, there was no need to verify herself as a person. To validate her existence to a stranger whom obviously could tell she was real since she was answering them. It bothered her and it took her a moment to sort through and form the reason why. Tired mind thinking far too slow.
because, her little voice whispered in her head, because asking if I’m human implies that for some reason the standard is otherwise…but why would they think that?
Only to immediately get annoyed. That was the most childish thing to reason. It was a joke, as she had thought this morning. Someone having a little fun. Probably a poke back at having messed up their day with their friend unintentionally.
Yes, and this human is tired. Good night
The easiest way to end the conversation would be to just let it drop and not answer. And she was tempted to. Her day was long and her shift tiring, but her mother had raised her to be polite when possible and it cost nothing to do so. Just to be sure though, she turned it on silent.
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Perhaps she had thought their conversation over but it seems whoever it was on the other side didn’t. Though, to be fair, they seem to at least wait until morning before anymore buzzed through.
And they were weird questions too.
HOW LONG DO HUMANS SLEEP? ITS COMPLETELY WASTEFUL
vs
WHAT DOES SNOW FEEL LIKE TO YOU?
and her favourite that popped up around lunchtime
WHAT DO YOU THINK OF SPAGHHETTII?
which did not help her lunchtime cravings any at all. She had dutifully ignored the bothersome texts, not wanting to encourage whoever it was, but they kept spamming her with the most inane things that just left her confused. Questions ranging from thoughtful (No she did not know much about stars and she didn’t need to ponder how many saw the same ones at any given time) to so far out of left field that it hadn’t even hit anywhere in the right ballpark. Singing flowers? What?
This was a LOT of effort to go to for a prank Anne was beginning to think, either they were very bored…or something here was wrong. The way they kept coming regularly on the hour, every hour. As if desperate for a reply, any reply. Why would someone put so much into this?
It wasn’t like you couldn’t just hit up a chat room and get your fix that way.
Do not engange, her mind kept telling her. It’l go away if you ignore it. They feed on attention.
But then they had to introduce themselves. Realising that for half a day they had been trying to chat and hadn’t even given a name. And, really, that was too good of an opportunity to give up on.
Papyrus? Like the Egyptian paper stuff?
What poor sod got named something like that? Did their parents hate them? Or perhaps it was an Alias, that would make far more sense. It would even be clever, given text and language and attempting to decipher whatever the hell this guy was trying to pull. It was definitely like trying to decipher some long dead language.
There was a beat of stillness as the little dots started to indicate a hurried (then deleted) reply, before coming through.
…
…
I DO NOT KNOW WHAT THAT IS
and because it was one of her days off and she was so very bored (this totally beat out watching the ceiling fan in the entertainment value. Just) Anne answered back. Because who hadn’t heard of Egypt? It was, like, mandatory third grade homework. Even if hers stemmed entirely around the Mummy film that had just come out then (It hadn’t gotten a good grade that).
You know, the scrolls Ancient Egyptians used? Dead reed pulp they used before paper was a thing? Actually pretty durable, part of the reason anything survived since then and why we have any idea what their writing looked like.
And yea, she gushed a little bit there maybe, enthused more like. It’s just stuff like this was cool to know and she would happily spout out (probably) true facts (sort of) about random junk like that all the time. It came with being a hobbyist who couldn’t stick with any one thing.
Jack of all trades, master of none sort.
Except not even a jack of all trades sort. You needed some level of SKILL for that. Anne just had sheer-bloody-minded focus that kept her attention for a week or so before something else shiny and new came along to drag her attention away. There was a name for that. Could have been Magpies?
BowerBird? Something bird related.
WOWEE THAT SOUNDS INTERESTING!
Did they just type wowee? Anne couldn’t help but snicker. What was this? An Enid Blyton novel?
It was certainly…cute. Old fashioned but cute, if only because the texts seem to radiate their owners genuine enthusiasm.
WE USE OLD PAPERBACKS AND NEWSPAPERS THAT WASHUP IN THE GARBAGE HEAP TO WRITE ON
…
oookay. A lot to unpack there.
And for the first time Anne began to think about not just who, but where these texts were coming from. She had assumed, quite innocently because it hadn’t occurred to her to think otherwise, that they were from someone local. Which was folly on her part, since the world was a very big place and honestly random numbers could come from anywhere in it. And perhaps this wasn’t a prank nor a scam. But rather someone rather desperate to connect with someone else the only way they could?
Who uses old trash to write with?
Her cheeks burned with embarrassment, even if no one was there to see it.
Silly, stupid to think so narrowly. The curious questions, the strange manner of speaking. English wasn’t always a first language, had she accidentally gotten hold of someone whom was from a different part of the world?
She didn’t want to assume, because that would make her feel just as guilty, but she did start to think that, perhaps, there was something quite a bit more going on here.
Anne quickly took out a notepad and pen. Pulling up a fresh page and drawing up two columns as she jotted down some notes.
Unusual name, old fashioned words, no real knowledge of social etiquette. Or Basic online safety, they just up and offered their name like that. Who does that?!
gaps in history? (Ancient Egypt was universal wasn’t it? The Tomb digging craze had a rather big impact, didn’t it? She didn’t need these sudden existential crisis of world knowledge thank you, but scrubbed it out just in case)
Human didn’t always mean species, Human could translate as person to someone learning from a washed up dictionary after all.
The only thing Anne COULD conclude in any meaningful way was that the other texter was both persistent and possibly genuine in their enquiries.
Did she have the heart to refuse some hopeful if they truly were trying to reach out to someone? If somehow some random person in some unknown side of the world (they used TRASH. They combed through a GARBAGE DUMP. Never though to consider herself lucky to just write something down. She didn’t know enough about other countries to peg down where that may be. Hell it could be just from a very frugal family. Scrooges were everywhere after all and cruel people besides)
if they had by random chance, manage to reach out for connection and by some god awful luck got her, could she cut that off?
Oh God fucking damnit
It was with a sudden new charge of both reluctance (it could still be something really-not-good) yet a slowly solidifying determination to at least try and see this through that Anne typed out her next sentence. They felt as heavy, as weighted as the ones she first tried using. Like a cornerstone.
I do this, then there’s no take-backsies
how bad could texting even be?
…
…
…
Well if you need to know anything you can just ask, Papyrus.
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