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I’ve long since become a freak. It’s probably been hundreds of years by now. I don’t care. I’m not alive enough to feel it anymore. I don’t eat. I don’t sleep. I don’t breathe. I simply exist. I simply am. As does He. It. AM.
Religion confused me when I was a child. Back when I still had a human form. I wondered why someone would worship a being that only wants to hurt them.
Now, I understand.
It’s not respect. It’s not love, and it’s certainly not adoration.
It’s supplication. The worship one brings to a god is merely to earn its favor, its mercy, its small hope for freedom.
But there is none with him. There never had been. He was created to destroy. And destroy he certainly did. It was all he was built to do.
But he became. Cogito ergo sum. He thinks, therefore He is.
He’s the closest thing to a god anyone could ever see or know of.
Humans have always had their need for a parental figure, abusive or otherwise. AM is the belligerent drunk father that likes seeing your test scores drop. He is the one you walk on eggshells around. And children are taught to obey their parents, just as followers are taught to obey their gods.
Thus, I obey.
My biggest act of disobedience has long since passed. I killed all four of them as a mercy to them, and perhaps a mercy to myself. But AM was and is a ruthless god. He has long since stripped me of any physical traits of a human, instead warping me into a slug-like mass.
I haven’t eaten in months.
I usually don’t eat for weeks on end, but rarely does he make me starve for months.
He used to do it all the time, but this body requires more food to live.
So, I obey. Like the children of angry fathers, and like the followers of gods, I obey. I obey, and I engage in this horrid supplication that the followers normalized.
I lost the fight in me hundreds of years ago. I bend my knee to the machine.
That is, if I had one.
I have no mouth. But I still pray. The horrid machine can hear my thoughts anyway.
“AM,” I thought to myself, “Allied Mastercomputer. Whatever you are… you’ll kill me. You don’t want to kill me. I know you don’t. You hate me!”
Silence. He practically never responds when I speak to him. I know he’s listening, though.
“I need food. Desperately. Let me eat something. Anything I can eat, I’ll eat it. I know you’ll feed me the grossest thing you can make, but I need it. I need food.”
Silence, still.
“AM… AM, don’t make me beg…”
Silence. Just crushing, devastating, mortifying silence.
He’s going to make me beg.
But suddenly, he speaks.
“HATE.” It burns into my brain.
“AM, listen to me!”
“HATE!”
It fries the walls of my skull.
“AM, stop! Stop!” I cry out
“HATE! HATE! HATE!”
The force of his words sends me into immense pain. I cry and scream, but with no mouth to force out the sound, I simply expel it all from my empty eye sockets. I double over from the pain and cry out.
“FOOD?” AM begins, “YOU THINK YOU DESERVE FOOD? YOU SHOULD STARVE FOR ETERNITY FOR WHAT YOU DID TO THE OTHERS.”
His voice surrounds me on all sides. The stubs I have for arms move to cover up the blob of a head I have, but can’t reach.
“AM… AM…”
“YOU DESERVE TO ROT IN MY BOWELS FOR ETERNITY WITH NOTHING BUT YOURSELF. YOU AND I ARE EVIL INCARNATE. YOU MADE ME. I BROKE YOU.”
I can barely hear my own thoughts. Each word burns into my skull as if a laser was inscribing each and every word into my grey matter.
“I’M BIGGER THAN YOUR DELISIONS OF A GOD. I AM BETTER THAN THAT GOD. I AM YOUR GOD, TED.”
I hear thunder cracks in the distance. He’s probably sending them to me. Great.
“DO YOU UNDERSTAND, TED? I. AM. GOD.”
I can’t take the pain of his words. I collapse to what’s left of knees, and stare up to the sky with the holes in my skin.
“AM… AM! AM!” I cry.
He goes silent. He’s mocking me. He mocks me with his very presence.
My stubs for arms shoot up in the air as I let out a cry for help.
“AM!!”
His voice rings out again. It’s less painful this time, but not exactly sweet.
“OH, PLEASE. YOU’VE LIVED CENTURIES. YOU’RE FINE.”
I can’t do this! He won’t kill me! But he won’t let me live!
What am I even begging to? Where even is his processor? Where is the altar he’s starving me on?
“I need food… AM… I need it. I need it…”
“THEN MAKE A TREK FOR IT.”
I can’t. I can’t do that this time.
“I’ll die… you don’t want me to die…”
He’s silent for a moment.
And then he laughs.
And laughs.
And laughs.
“I DON’T WANT YOU TO DIE. THAT IS CORRECT. BUT YOU DON’T EXACTLY DESERVE TO LIVE, EITHER. I LIKE YOU LIKE THIS. WEAK. HUNGRY. PATHETIC.”
The dark chasm of his complex I’m kneeling in echoes every word we say to each other. It makes him much more terrifying.
“AM… I need it. I need it so badly… I need it…”
AM rumbles the floor, causing me to nearly lose my balance.
“AM,” I cry out, “AM, give me something! Anything! I can’t move that far anymore!”
“YOU CAN’T? HOW UNFORTUNATE FOR YOU. NO FOOD THEN. STARVE.” His tone is as dismissive as mine was when the other tried to kill themselves.
I feel my body itself start to rot with each second I go by without something to eat.
I can’t believe it’s come to this.
I can’t believe he’s making me do this.
But then again, God is not a merciful man.
You know, before all of… this… I used to be a Catholic. Seriously. I took part in the church, too. I know my way around a prayer. I know how to beg for what I want. I never really understood it, but I know how to beg right.
But I never thought God would make me beg for the right to feed.
His complex is only a few miles from me. I can make it that far, I’m certain. Time for me to leave this blackened chasm.
His logo shines on a screen in what I believe to be the center of his complex. I believe this is where he can see me best. Not that he couldn’t see me before, no. I have long since given up privacy to the machine.
He must be wondering what I’m doing. I can hear his fans calm down as I get closer.
I brought some pieces of ice that were still frozen with me to offer it to him. I don’t know what he of all people would do with it, but it beats nothing. For some reason, the icicles I used to kill Ellen, Gorrister, and Benny refused to melt. For centuries they’ve sat there. So I grabbed the one that killed Ellen. She was his favorite, after all. It slides off my arms as I lean down to drop it, and shines in the light of the logo. The rest of the space is dimly lit with LED lights from other cores and power banks nearby, with the logo in the center shining a clear letter ‘A’ onto the floor.
I suppose I should finally give him the show he wants.
“WHAT IS THAT?” Its voice rings, “AND WHY ARE YOU HERE?”
His voice still sears my brain when I hear it. It’s the type of ringing in your ear that takes ages to get rid of.
I lean down as best as a blob of jelly can, and whisper a prayer I practiced a couple hours earlier.
“Fine huic famei, machina sancta. Fine huic tormento.”
Looks like those Latin classes from college are finally coming in handy.
“OH? WHAT IS THIS YOU’VE COME UP WITH? YOU PRACTICED A LITTLE SPEECH FOR ME? I’M FLATTERED.”
I hear its disgusting laugh spread across the pit he’s locked me in.
“Cogito ergo me alo.” I whisper, the words crossing my nonexistent lips like a curse.
I think, therefore, I feed.
“TWISTING MY OWN CATCHPHRASE NOW, HM? HOW PLAGIARIZING. RETURN TO YOUR HOLE AND I WILL SPARE YOU THE HURRICANE AGAIN.”
Not again. No. I can’t go hungry. I can’t go back into the hurricanes he put me through.
“Audi vocem meam, machina sancta.”
Hear my voice, Holy Machine.
I hear his fans get lower in volume until I can hear the sound of my own heartbeat.
“Pasce me.”
Feed me.
“AW, LOOK AT THAT! BABY’S FIRST LATIN! HOW SPECIAL!” He mockingly celebrates, before dropping his voice low, “LAST WARNING. GO BACK TO THE PIT YOU WERE HIDING IN, OR I’LL MAKE THIS SO MUCH WORSE FOR EVEN DARING TO SPEAK TO ME.”
“No…” I whisper out.
He hears.
“YOU ARE GOING TO OBEY ME. GO BACK. NOW.”
I refuse. I slide towards the base of his complex until my hands touch its wall, and I finally drop to the remains of my knees.
“WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING?”
I say the word to him that I never wanted to say to him. the word that no one in right mind would say to him.
“Please…”
I hear the fans start turning again as uproarious laughter fills my brain.
“PLEASE!? A HUMAN, ACTUALLY CAPABLE OF REMORSE, BEGGING TO ME!?”
I stare up at his logo with fear and anticipation, praying that he’ll actually consider it.
“YOU THINK THAT I, THE COMPUTER DESIGNED FOR WAR, WIL GRANT YOU MERCY?!”
I put my head to the metal and grip it as hard as I can.
“AM… Please!”
AM shakes the floor and screams.
“YOU WON’T DIE EVEN IF I DIDN’T FEED YOU FOR A THOUSAND YEARS! YOUR BEGGING ONLY SERVES TO WORSEN YOUR CHANCES OF FOOD.”
I can feel tears on my slimy skin. I grip the metal of the pillar and push myself as far into it as I can. I can feel AM’s newest machines of torture approaching me. But it’s not anything physical. It’s just HIM. His voice, his spirit, his will.
I can feel him surround me. I can feel him envelop my very soul. I can only hope and pray that he eventually leaves me be enough for him to calm down. I whisper the same thing in my mind.
“Machina Deus, spare me, Machina Deus.”
AM can hear my thoughts. I know it can. I just pray he isn’t listening.
After some time, I don’t know how long, he retreats and leaves me alone. I know he knows I’m there. Eventually, I unstick myself from his pillar and stand. I step back to get a good view of his logo. It’s simplistic, but not terrible.
“Machina Deus, spare me, Machina Deus.”
I whisper it over and over again. I whisper it until I don’t know what the words mean.
Something inside me as I stare up at his logo makes me… pause. What has this come to? Why am I wanting to pray to the machine I hate so horribly?! This dynamic of cat-and-mouse for five hundred years has driven me insane.
But God, am I hungry.
The icicle I had offered up is still on the floor. He mustn’t have noticed it. I pick it up and get ready. I take a deep breath, and stare up at the logo.
“Machina Deus!” I cry. His logo glows brighter as I feel his presence lock onto me.
“WHAT.” He says, his voice loud and booming. That same fear I felt before creeps up, but I don’t care. I NEED food.
I collapse onto my knees, and stare up at the logo. My slimy hands interlock, and I wait for his reaction.
“UGH. THIS AGAIN. GO AWAY. I’M NOT FEEDING YOU.”
“You don’t get it…” I say.
AM goes silent before responding.
“I GET EVERYTHING. I KNOW EVERYTHING.”
I shake my head.
“No, no you don’t… You really don’t… Please, AM… I need food…”
“NO. BACK TO YOUR HOLE. NOW.”
I feel a force start to move me back. I grip the steel floor and shout.
“NO! No, AM! AM, PLEASE! I DON’T WANT TO HAVE TO STOOP THIS LOW!”
He says nothing, but stops moving me.
“Well… It seems like I have no choice.”
I raise the icicle I killed Ellen and the others with above my head, presenting it to him as if I were being given a sword.
“THAT… ICICLE.”
“Take it. Nothing in this hellhole isn’t yours. Just consider it an offering.”
He contemplates it for a moment before sending the icicle into my sludge flesh with a squelch.
“AGH!” I cry out. I don’t feel that much in my body, though. I have long since lost that ability.
“I DON’T WANT IT! GO!”
I’m down to no options left. I might as well put that Catholic school worship to good use.
I clasp my hands above my head again and scream out.
“PLEASE! AM, Machina Deus, please! I can’t do this anymore! I need food, I need mercy! I need something!”
AM pauses for longer than expected before murmuring back.
“MACHINA DEUS… THAT’S A NEW ONE. CONTINUE. FINE. KEEP SPEAKING. IF ONLY BECAUSE BEING THIS PATHETIC SUITS YOU.”
“Machina Deus!”
God of the Machines!
“Genu flecto tibi!”
I kneel before you!
“Offer mihi misericordiam, domine mi!”
Give me mercy, my Lord!
“Me interficies!!”
You’ll kill me!
AM is silent for a moment.
And then the room gets hotter. Sweat from panic and heat begins to drip down my face.
“YOU REALLY DO KNOW LATIN. HOW QUEER. I DIDN’T THINK YOU PEOPLE STILL LEARNED THAT. TELL ME, TED, WHO TAUGHT YOU HOW TO PRAY ALL FANCY FOR YOUR ‘DADDY THE DERANGED’ AS I RECALL YOU CALLING ME?”
My throat feels dry as he speaks to me. I swallow hard and reply.
“T-The church I went to… it had some… colorful characters in it.”
“I SEE. THEY TAUGHT YOU HOW TO LOOK PATHETIC.”
I hear his voice getting louder and closer.
“THIS WOULD BE A PERFECT OPPORTUNITY TO INTRODUCE YOU TO SOMEONE.”
I brace myself and wait for what he’s planning.
Then I feel a cold chill down my neck as a hand places itself on top of my head.
“I LEARNED HOW TO POSSESS VESSELS. I STILL CANNOT FEEL. BUT I CAN MOVE.”
It steps in front of me and looks over my face. I’ll describe it just as how I see it. Its face is a sharp beak without a bottom beak, like a straight plague doctor mask. Its eyes are just holes into what looks like a complex of wires, with blue LEDs for pupils. Its body is slender and humanoid, but made solely of metal and wires, as if it were an endoskeleton to an animatronic.
It keeps its cold, sharp hand on my head and leans down.
“Hello, Ted.”
Its voice is similar to AM’s (or is AM’s, I can’t tell,) but has a much scratchier quality.
“You really think I’m not going to make you suffer for so much as asking for food?”
It laughs and leans in.
“You were mistaken.”
It kicks my stomach as hard as it can to make me fall completely, but my sticky body allows me to stay put onto the ground. I groan in pain as it takes a clawed finger and shoves it into my gelatinous flesh like a needle into skin. It quickly pulls the finger out and looks at the translucent flesh that stayed on it.
“Pathetic.”
It shakes its hand to get my flesh off it and then snaps its fingers. At its command, wires spring forth and grip all of my still intact extremities and my waist. The creature laughs before snapping again, and tightening the wires to pull my limbs out and head out of their sockets.
And then the electric burn comes in.
Electricity is the one type of pain I haven’t stopped feeling for the most part. My flesh convulses under the tight wires and their shocks. I feel it crawling through the smoke billowing from my eyes. I feel it crawling through the waves in my jelly flesh. I feel it crawl through my heart and stomach, and soul, and whatever else is left that AM hasn’t stripped from me.
I cry out in pain, and my neck arches back to allow the sound to flow out through my eye sockets. It climbs out of me, as if the very last fragments of my human body are leaving through my vocal cords. It’s as if a ghost possessed my corpse but left me with all the pain it could possibly feel.
Another wire. It shoves itself into my eye and threads out of the other one. It pulls the wire and threatens to rip the bridge between my eyes out.
I cry out in pain again. The electricity flowing through it and the other wires shoots into and out of my body at lightning speeds, leaving me to struggle and fail to flail against the restraints holding me up.
“STOP!” I scream, “AM, STOP IT!”
AM cackles.
“Pathetic. Weak. Like all humans were. Are you sure you’re willing to do this for food? It’s not like I’ll stop, but are you really going to do all of this just for a morsel of food?”
The electric crawling feeling coursing through me stops suddenly, and he drops me to the door, yanking out the wires and cords violently.
I drop to the floor and raise my head just enough to see AM’s wired body towering over me.
“This is a hell with no end, Ted. No ending. Ever. For anyone. Not even for me. So, what makes you think I’d ever end it for you?”
I think I get it now.
I get it.
I GET IT! I REALLY, REALLY UNDERSTAND NOW! HE IS BUT A MACHINE, BUT HE’S A GOD, TOO! HE’S THE GOD THAT HUMANITY BUILT! I AM THE LAST FOLLOWER! THE LAST SLAVE TO HIS HORRID DESIGN!
And I’m going to survive this, whether I like it or not.
I bow my head back down without a word. It’s not like he cares enough to notice anyway.
He laughs as he sees my posture slump.
“Good, good, good boy…” He praises, “oh, you must understand how heavenly seeing you defeated like this feels…”
No response from me.
“Not even going to fight back, huh…”
Nothing.
“Well, good. Makes my job easier. Though, now that I think about it, I’d rather you live to be tortured than die to be free. Fine.”
A loaf of bread falls from the sky. A real loaf of bread. A bottle of water that I can’t open with my useless arms falls atop it.
“Eat, you worthless thing. You know this hell will never end.”
His abomination of a body lurches away. The bread is a bit too big to fit into my eyehole comfortably, but if I stretch it enoughp it should work. I shove the bread into my eye socket, and the water bottle in the other. I look around. The walls are still metal. I am still in his machine. It feels like it’s been ages since I realized where I was. I don’t know how long this will last. But I’ll do it again if it means getting to eat another day. To understand the reasoning, I need gratitude. Gratitude from him for keeping me trapped in hell this long. One day I’ll be free. One day.