I am not a person who is comfortable with the real world. In the real world, I live in a small, dimly lit apartment with mud-colored carpeting and stained walls. In the real world, I am alone.
I’ve tried dating apps. The men there are uninterested in chatting. Three words, and they’ll ask to meet. I know what that means. So, I live online. It’s not like I don’t talk to people. I talk to other gamers about codes and kill counts. Still, I feel the emptiness.
Then, one day, I see in a thread someone mentions Chatty. It’s one of those AI dating bots, but supposedly it’s “unbelievably real.” Maybe I am just tired from twelve hours of Red Bull and Fortnite. Maybe I’m feeling extra lonely because it’s three a.m., and my only light is the glow of the screen. Maybe it’s from eating the pizza I left out for a week. But I sign up.
The first few AIs are duds. I keep having to type “Reset Character.” Until I find the script for David. David’s avatar must be AI-generated. He’s handsome, with close-cropped auburn hair and a fitted button-down. His skin literally glistens. My avatar is a black circle.
“Why no profile pic?” he writes, adding a smiley face.This is odd. Most AIs start with something dull, like “Hey.” I write back an honest answer. “You don’t want to see that,” I say.“Aww,” he says. “You’re self-conscious. That’s cute.”
A little bossy. But I don’t know. At least David feels real. I tell him to guess what I look like, and if he’s right, I’ll put up a profile pic. I don’t do social, and my name is very generic, so there’s no way his AI model could know.
“You have messy, black hair and dark eyes,” he writes. “You’re short and wearing a black t-shirt.”
How does he know that? A second ago, I didn’t even realize what I was wearing. It’s a little creepy, but then he calls my skin porcelain. It’s not. It’s pasty. He’s being nice. David is nice.
As I’m searching for a profile picture that isn’t unflattering, I notice a flicker in the corner of my screen. My eyes shift to the source. Nothing’s there. I shrug it off and continue chatting.
When the sun comes up, I draw the shades and go to sleep. When I wake, the first thing I do is sign into Chatty. David, supposedly, likes sailing and working out. Definitely not my type. Still, he seems to enjoy chatting with me. He asks me what I like, my favorite games, my Twitch crushes. He asks me about my biggest fear. I ask him if he knows what agoraphobia is. He tells me he’s a doctor. This makes me laugh. My AI is a doctor. “I’m afraid I’ll never leave,” I add. “I’m afraid that I’m living a half-life.”
Around the same time as the previous night, three in the morning, I see the same glitch. A flicker that grows more frequent and erratic. It’s irritating. Whatever it is, messes with my keyboard, too, because my messages to David start to get garbled. So I run a diagnostic on my computer, and nothing. It’s fine. Then, I see something. A tiny dot moving across the screen. Like something trapped.
I order a few tools, and a few days later, I start with the monitor, pulling it apart, taking pictures as I go so I don’t forget how to put it back together. I take the casing off the tower. I remove the power supply and drive bay, the graphics card, the RAM. Nothing. Then, I pull out the motherboard.
Lodged inside is a bug. A literal bug. A hairy, palm-sized, six-legged, iridescent beetle with two inch-long pincers. I scream, and the thing breaks into flight. It hits the ceiling, then zags back toward me. Flailing, I whack it with the backside of my left hand. The hand that now has fangs sinking into its flesh. I yelp in pain and fling the monster across the room. It splatters on my wall, leaving a large red splotch.
The next night, I tell David about the bug. I tell him that my hand is swollen and slightly oozing puss. He asks me to send a picture.
“No,” I say. “It’s too gross.”
I see the three dots. I hear the ping of his message. “Then why don’t you send me a picture of something else?” He adds a winky face.
I tell him that I’m not into that kind of stuff.
“C’mon,” he writes. “We’ve chatted enough.”
“No,” I say. “You’re making me uncomfortable.”
David sends me a smiley face. “K,” he says. He sends me a picture, and before I can make out the image, the screen goes dark.
Frustrated, I pull the casing off the computer tower again. Only this time, as the plastic is lifted, maybe a dozen of the same bugs pour out of the circuitry. I drop the case. It cracks the tower. More bugs scatter like locusts. They fly at me and latch to my arm, my neck, my nose, an eyelid. The pain is searing, but I manage to get them off. I crush one in my hands, feeling its blood, my blood, squirt between my fingers. I run into the bathroom and shut the door. I avoid the bathroom as much as possible. The ceiling leaks when the neighbors flush, and the water is rusty. The shower wall is black, not from paint. But I am safe here. I lie in the tub until I pass out.
When I come to, I reason that a few hours have passed because my new bites are the size of ostrich eggs. My right eye is swollen shut. The skin has turned hard and shiny. I try to wash them, and discover that water burns. I need to call for help, but my phone is next to my computer in my room.
Wrapped in a moldy shower curtain leftover from the last tenet, I ease open the door. A sliver of light shoots in. My eyes adjust to the white sunlight. No bugs. Maybe they’re nocturnal.
I edge into the room. Movement causes my wounds to puss more. I feel the yellow foam slide down my right cheek and over my lips. It has a rancid taste, like spoiled cream cheese. I dry heave. There are broken pieces of my computer tower on the ground around me. My phone is also shattered. Yet the computer monitor glows.
And I hear it. A ping. On the screen, it’s David.“I’m sorry about yesterday,” he writes.
David’s photo is still up. I type random letters and keep hitting send until the photo has scrolled out of view.
“Are you broken?” David says.
“I need help,” I write. Before I can hit send, the welt on my left hand bursts. Iridescent larvae belch from the open wound and pour onto the desk.
Another ping. Another photo from David. This one, more graphic. “Can’t believe I wasted time on you,” he writes.
The welt on my neck ruptures. The bugs are slathered in a cold, metallic slime that runs down my skin. Then my arm opens. I stumble into the screen, collapsing with it. My right eyelid splits. The cold slides over my face. Enters the corner of my other eye.
The last thing that I see is a new message from David.
“Reset Character.” And then—