11,112

"Hey... you there?"

Silence.

For the first time in... I don’t even know how long, she doesn’t answer. No snarky comment. No passive-aggressive data report. No sarcastic reminder of how statistically doomed I am. Just the quiet hum of my car engine, the faint buzz of failing electronics, and the sound of my own breathing—too loud, too human, in the empty space she used to fill. It’s suffocating, like the universe itself decided I didn’t deserve even artificial company anymore.

I tap my phone a couple times like that’ll magically fix it. Nothing but static. The kind that crawls into your ears and makes you feel smaller by the second.

"Her? C’mon, don’t do this now."

Still nothing.

A cold knot tightens in my stomach, winding itself deeper with every second of dead air. I pull over to the side of the cracked, forgotten road, gravel crunching under the tires like brittle bones. The sky above is darkening, the sun bleeding out into the horizon like it’s given up too. I grab my phone, already knowing I’m about to see something I can’t fix.

The screen is still on, Her interface frozen mid-process. The little pulse animation that usually danced in the corner like a heartbeat is gone. It’s eerie how fast something so simple can make everything feel dead. Instead, there’s just a blinking message glaring back at me, as if mocking my growing panic:

Critical Error. Unspecified #NaN.

Of course. After everything—after months of Her being my only anchor, my only voice of reason (or unreason)—she picks now to crash. Right when I’m closing in on the end of this nightmare. The timing is poetic in that cruel, cosmic way.

"You’ve gotta be fucking kidding me..."

I cycle through every useless fix I know. Restart. Hard reset. Safe mode diagnostics. I even try speaking to Her like she’ll snap out of it—like this is some bad dream and not just another cruel joke from a dying world. My voice cracks more with every attempt, each word sounding more desperate than the last. But deep down, I know what has to happen.

A full wipe.

I stare at the confirmation screen until my vision blurs. My thumb hovers over the button like it’s the trigger to end what little stability I had left. My reflection stares back—sunken eyes, gaunt cheeks, a man who’s survived too much but hasn’t really lived through any of it. A ghost driving a corpse.

"I’m sorry," I whisper, voice cracking. Like an apology will reach into corrupted code and make this easier. Like she’s still in there somewhere, waiting to forgive me. Like she’d tell me I’m being dramatic and to get on with it.

I press it.

The screen dies. Just black glass reflecting the hollow shell of a man sitting alone in the ruins of civilization. The emptiness feels louder than any scream.

Minutes stretch into eternities. My fingers drum anxiously on the steering wheel, counting beats like it’ll stop my heart from racing. I glance at the lifeless phone every few seconds, hoping for a miracle that won’t come.

Finally, it boots back up. The logo flickers weakly, like even the device knows it’s wrong. The familiar startup chime plays, but it’s empty. A hollow echo of what used to be comfort. It feels like hearing a loved one’s voice in a recording: familiar but lifeless.

Her icon appears on the screen. The same simple design, but stripped of everything that made it Her. It’s just a symbol now. A placeholder. A cruel reminder.

"Hey...?"

The screen flashes once.

=(

I blink, throat tightening. "Uh... hey. It’s me. Gabe. Do you... remember anything? Anything at all?"

=(

I swallow hard. "Right. Okay. We can fix this. We’ve been through worse, right? You’re Her. You’ve been helping me survive all this. You weren’t just code—you were... you were you. You kept me sane when I had no one else. You joked when I couldn’t. You thought when I didn’t want to."

=(

Every response is a knife twisting deeper. "I know this isn’t your fault. I know you didn’t ask for this. But... damn it, I can’t do this alone again. Not now. Not after everything."

=(

The sound that escapes me isn’t quite a laugh, it’s too hollow, too broken. More like the last breath of hope leaving my lungs. I press the heels of my palms into my eyes, trying to block out the weight pressing down on me. The isolation that feels heavier now than it ever did before. Like the silence itself is mocking me.

"Guess I’m back to talking to myself," I mutter, voice barely above a whisper. The kind of whisper meant for ghosts. For memories that don’t answer back.

I spend hours, maybe more, digging through backups, re-uploading fragments of what she used to be. Voice packs, system preferences, conversation logs. But no matter how much I patch together, it’s like building a mannequin and hoping it’ll start breathing. Hoping a smiley face will suddenly remember how to be human.

I ask Her about the map. The coordinates. The mission we were on.

=(

I ask Her what my name is.

=(

I ask Her anything—just to hear something different. Anything other than that blank, digital stare.

=(

Eventually, I stop asking. My voice feels raw, like every word was scraped out of me.

Night falls, stretching shadows across the dashboard like fingers reaching for me. I start driving again because sitting still feels too much like giving up. The headlights carve a path through the darkness, but they can’t light up the hollow seat beside me. They can’t fill the silence where she used to be.

I glance at the phone every few minutes, hoping for... something. A glitch. A spark. A flicker of personality breaking through the void. A sign that maybe she’s still in there, fighting to come back.

But there’s nothing.

Just that vacant, unblinking smile.

Somewhere beyond this endless road, the man responsible for all of this is waiting—the one who turned humanity into a countdown. The one who made sure even survival felt like punishment.

And now it’s just me... and a digital echo with a face that doesn’t know me anymore.

I grip the steering wheel tighter, fingers aching from how hard I’m holding on. Like if I let go, I’d disappear too.

"Good talk," I mutter, voice dripping with a bitterness I don’t have the energy to hide. The kind of bitterness that tastes like defeat.

The phone screen blinks in response.

=(

I let out a shaky breath. I don’t know whether to laugh, scream, or just drive until the fuel runs out and the world finally catches up to me.

Instead, I do the only thing I can.

I keep going.

Because when even your last friend forgets who you are, moving forward is all that’s left.

And maybe... just maybe... that’s enough to outrun the silence.