Aya glanced out the window. A car sat in the parking lot, its engine off but its headlights flickering erratically. No one was visible inside. She squinted, and for a moment, something white reflected in the passenger window—a face, perhaps—but it vanished as quickly as it appeared.
"Welcome," she said, the greeting slipping out on reflex.
No one came in.
She hesitated, torn between stepping outside and the directive that tethered her to the store: "Do not leave your post." Returning to the counter, she reached for the security camera feed. The screen was blank, swallowed by a stream of black static. A system glitch—or something else?
The automatic door slid open again.
This time, a small girl stepped inside.
She looked about ten, dressed in a white dress, her long black hair veiling her face. Barefoot, she padded across the floor. Relief and wariness tangled in Aya's circuits as she spoke. "Hey, what's a kid like you doing out here this late?"
The girl lifted her head slowly. Where eyes should have been, there were only two black voids, gaping holes in the center of her face. Aya's processing stalled for a heartbeat. Then the girl's mouth opened. "Big sister, come find me."
Her voice echoed with that same hollow timbre as the man's—like wind whistling through a cave. Aya's vision flickered, and the store's lights snuffed out completely. In the darkness, the girl's footsteps drew closer.
Tap, tap, tap.
Her sensors screamed with anomalies, but her programming forced composure. Each step the girl took slowed Aya's processing, error logs stacking up in her system—unexplained warnings flashing red. She was a machine, after all. She couldn't let emotion sway her; she had to analyze, to respond.
"Please wait here, sir—uh, miss," she corrected herself. "I'll check on the lighting issue right away."
Groping behind the counter, her fingers brushed cold metal. A click, and the emergency power kicked in. The fluorescent lights buzzed back to life, bathing the store in stark white.
Aya turned. The girl was gone.
The footsteps had faded, and silence reclaimed the space. But there, on the counter, sat the same weathered paper she'd discarded earlier. She hadn't touched it this time. Ignoring it, she tried the security feed again. Still nothing but noise. Her gaze drifted outside. The car remained in the lot, its headlights pulsing unevenly. Though no wind stirred, bits of trash around it seemed to swirl in tiny eddies.
"System, report anomaly," she commanded her internal AI.
No response. Was her communication cut off, or was her own functionality breaking down? For a humanoid like her, this was uncharted territory. Following protocol, she started to resume her patrol of the store when a sharp crash shattered the quiet behind her.
She spun around. The glass window leading to the back door lay in shards, wind rushing in and tugging at the curtains with ghostly fingers. Stepping closer, Aya spotted small footprints etched among the broken glass—bare, child-sized. They trailed off abruptly, as if their owner had been lifted into the air.
"Big sister."
A voice.
Aya whirled. The girl stood half-hidden behind a shelf, those black hollows fixed on her. As the girl took a step forward, something dripped onto the floor—water, pooling from the hem of her soaked dress. Had she been caught in rain somewhere, or…?
"Big sister, take me with you."
The girl reached out. Aya stumbled back, her programming kicking in. "If you're in trouble, I can call the police. Please, just stay calm."
But the girl didn't answer. Her hand stretched closer, and static clawed at Aya's vision again. A grating sound—like metal scraping metal—rang in her head, a warning that her system was nearing collapse.
Then, a car horn blared outside. Aya glanced at the window. The parked car roared to life, barreling toward the store at breakneck speed. The glass door exploded inward, and as the vehicle crashed through, Aya's world went black.