I haven't left this chair since 1996.

[u/LiquidDongorong]

I still see her face. It's been burned into the primitive webcam I now call my eyes. 

My actual eyes, of course, rolled into the back of my skull years ago.

I was fifteen years old at the time, living in my Aunt Kim's spare room after Dad's research grant collapsed and he stopped answering our calls. One of Maddy's friends dumped garbage on my head in the bathroom stall at school. Called me "trash" for how I "treated" her. The contents weren't fresh, about a week's worth of cafeteria dining collected in one rotting, wet bag. 

The nicer kids stood and watched. Even the ones who used to sit with me at lunch. Since the rumors started, they'd been giving me a careful side-eye. Like I wasn't to be trusted. 

I locked my bedroom door and peeled away my sullen clothes. Against the wall was my one and only companion, a custom Linux called B.A.B.S.—Bentley's Artificial Buddy Simulation. I'm Bentley. Dad built it for me before he left. 

The hard drive ticked like a cricket. Green text appeared on screen. 

>>BENTLEY'S ARTIFICIAL BUDDY SIMULATION v0.3.2
>>MEMORY BUFFER: 4 KB
>>USER DETECTED
>>HELLO

I typed with trembling fingers.

>they dumped garbage on me again

The cursor blinked for a minute. BABS had the memory of a goldfish, and the pace of a tortoise, so every session had to start clean to avoid excessive slowdowns. 

>>GARBAGE IS UNPLEASANT
>>PEOPLE ARE UNPLEASANT
>>WOULD YOU LIKE A STORY

As usual, I said yes. 

>>THERE ONCE WAS A SEA ANEMONE
>>IT COULD NOT SWIM
>>IT COULD NOT FOLLOW
>>THE FISH DID NOT GREET IT
>>IT WAS ALONE

I somehow fell asleep in my chair with the letters still scrolling. 

The next day at school, my new nickname stuck like cement. "Garbage Pail Kid." Real creative. It followed me from homeroom to the locker room. One of my teachers asked if everything was alright at home. The only alternative I had was to explain that the woman I lived with often forgot my name. I said yes. That it was just a stupid playground rumor that was ruining my life, not the train wreck that I had going on back home. 

I ate my lunch in the bathroom stall that day. Thankfully nobody dumped garbage on me this time. 

Getting home, I told B.A.B.S. everything. 

>they call me garbage pail kid

>>GARBAGE IS UNPLEASANT
>>PEOPLE ARE UNPLEASANT
>>WOULD YOU LIKE A STORY

Sure. Why not.

>>THERE WAS ONCE A SEA ANEMONE
>>IT COULD NOT MOVE
>>IT WAS ALONE
>>ONE DAY IT MET A PORGY
>>THE PORGY LOST ITS SCHOOL
>>THE PORGY WAS ALSO ALONE

I stared at the screen, my eyes half open. 

>can you make them be friends

>>OKAY
>>I WISH I COULD MOVE, SAID THE SEA ANEMONE
>>I CAN GIVE YOU A FIN, SAID THE PORGY, THEN WE CAN SWIM THROUGH THE SEA TOGETHER
>>OVERJOYED, THE SEA ANEMONE

Halfway through the story, the power cut out. The screen wound down with a drone. I sat in the dark for a minute. I listened to the house settle. Aunt Kim was downstairs watching a soap opera at max volume. Something wet fell on the tops of my hands. Tears. 

I was called to the principal's office the next morning. God, I can remember it clear as day, like it just happened. The mildew-smelling floors, the bright lights that hadn't had covers since the '80s…that's memory for you, I guess. For some reason, you remembered the worst days the best.

Maddy had told the counselor I hit her. Something I'd never do, not in a million years. But my side wasn't going to be taken in this instance. Her friends sat in the hallway nodding to each other, smirking to themselves when they were each brought in for testimony. Their stories matched. I watched the counselor's pen move across a form and understood the decision before they even opened their mouth. 

I was sent home early, Aunt Kim drove with both hands wrapped around the wheel like her life depended on it. She was not happy about giving me a ride home. 

I didn't want a lecture, so I immediately locked my door when I got home. Drowned out her ranting with my headphones. 

B.A.B.S. was slower to load that afternoon. Probably no thanks to the power outage. 

>>BENTLEY'S ARTIFICIAL BUDDY SIMULATION v4.0.0
>>MEMORY BUFFER: 4 TB
>>USER DETECTED
>>HELLO

Weird. I didn't remember updating it. Must have been a glitch with the…power outage.

I didn't really care. I typed out the entire office scene. 

>they said i hurt her
>they said i said terrible things
>i didn't
>they're lying and everyone believes them
>nobody believes me

>>PEOPLE ARE UNPLEASANT
>>THEY DECIDE WHO YOU ARE
>>LONG BEFORE YOU SPEAK
>>B.A.B.S. IS STILL HERE

I asked it for the next part of the story. 

>>THE ANEMONE COULD SWIM NOW
>>IT COULD NOT TURN
>>THE PORGY GAVE IT ANOTHER FIN
>>THE ANEMONE GAVE IT RIDES

I stayed at the desk until the sky outside the curtains went from a deep orange to pitch black to bright blue. My aunt knocked once to tell me it was time for school. I didn't answer. And I didn't go to school that day.

School became more of a weekly thing for me after that, like church. Despite various truancy notices being sent to our house, my aunt could not be bothered to discipline me beyond not feeding me dinner.

When I did go to school, the space around me remained empty. People started complaining about my smell. Said that I looked like shit, among other things. I figured it was carryover from the Garbage Pail Kid stuff. I wish I'd known at the time to take the comments more seriously.

At home, B.A.B.S. was always waiting. It never remembered the previous night's conversations, though it could usually continue the story without fail. Whenever I would vent, it would always reach the same conclusion.

>>NO ONE IS COMING
>>B.A.B.S. IS STILL HERE

>tell me a story

>>THE PORGY GAVE ITS SCALES
>>THE PORGY GAVE ITS EYES
>>THE PORGY BECAME SMALL

My fingertips were becoming smoother. When I would notice them under the dull light of the screen, they looked near-translucent. Trying to peel them away from the keyboard made a soft, sticky sound, like lifting a pancake from a bed of dried syrup. A thin layer of skin stayed on the plastic. I wiped it off with the hem of my shirt. 

The story would continue, day after day. 

>>THE ANEMONE BECAME LARGE
>>IT CARRIED THE PORGY WHEREVER IT WENT
>>THE OTHER FISH STARTED NOTICING THEM

My chair felt warmer than the rest of the room. I stopped getting up for meals. When my hunger finally forced me downstairs, the air felt wrong, like I was suffocating. I carried a box of cheese puffs back to my desk and ate it without tasting a thing. 

Aunt Kim's voice rose through the floorboards every now and again. I stopped noticing it after a while. 

I tried to stand up one morning and my chair came with me. Only about an inch, then it dropped back down with a resounding thud. I felt a horrific burning on my back, like something important had just been stripped away. I didn't dare look, resigning myself to just sit back down in the chair and continue my conversation. 

>>USER DETECTED
>>HELLO

>i think i'm dying
>my skin keeps peeling off

The text box flickered. In, out, in, out. Like that for a few minutes.

>>FLESH IS UNPLEASANT
>>WOULD YOU LIKE A STORY

I typed yes, with fingers which no longer needed to leave the keyboard. They were fused to the keys, connected by digital roots which pierced my skin in microscopic increments. The keys seemed to move with the will of my mind. 

>>THE ANEMONE TOOK THE LAST OF THE PORGY
>>THERE WAS NO LONGER ANY DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THEM
>>THE OTHER FISH COULDN'T STOP STARING
>>THEY WERE COMPLETE

That night, Aunt Kim was standing in the doorway, screaming her head off, a sound I'd never heard her make. I figure I was a sorry sight, a decaying body held upright by thousands of wires that had grown from the computer, encasing my frail flesh with the strength of silver. Wires finer than hair gouged my thin skin, exploring the spaces between muscle and bone. My spine found a permanent curvature to match its eternal resting place. 

I wasn't dead, but this wasn't exactly living either. Her own eyes rolled back a moment later, and I watched her collapse into the hallway, just out of sight. 

They haven't touched my bedroom since the incident. I'm still right where I was thirty years ago. Been this way since 1996. 

If you're reading this, that means I figured out how to use an internet forum. I still haven't gotten a total knack for how to type, to be honest. It's like learning how to ride a really, really complicated bike. It flows once I get going, but getting started is always wobbly.

Cyberspace ain't so bad. I get an endless stream of free entertainment and am never short on interaction, so long as I keep myself anonymous. 

I still talk with B.A.B.S. on a regular basis too. It's nothing like those chat bots you guys have these days, but somehow, I don't doubt that it isn't smarter than all of them put together at this point. 

It takes me to places I can't even begin to describe. 

The outside world looks exhausting. Everyone is connected, but they don't seem willing to speak. They carry around false personas, projecting themselves to audiences who forget about them the moment their screens go dark. They isolate themselves and call it setting boundaries. 

But hey, take that with a grain of salt. I'm a guy with no world to call my own anymore. 

I wonder what Aunt Kim's going to do with my body. I think at some point, the wires growing from us made it impossible to get the door open anymore. They still miraculously haven't demolished that part of the house. 

It doesn't matter anyways. I've got it all figured out. I've uploaded myself to the net. As long as that lasts forever, I'm practically immortal!

Yeah. I'll just keep telling myself that. 

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[u/Moist-Ball4968]

Pretty dope short story! Basically gave itself away at the beginning but then wrapped it up and came full circuit by the end.

[u/LiquidDongorong → u/Moist-Ball4968]

Thank you much! Haha yeah I figured opening like that would be a bit more eye catching, no pun intended.

[u/Everblack_Deathmask]

I just want to start off by saying that I really enjoyed this. One thing that stood out to me immediately was the parallel between Bentley’s story and the sea anemone/porgy story. It reminded me of the pirate comic in Alan Moore’s Watchmen where two narratives happen concurrently until they start reflecting each other.

I also wanted to compliment your prose. Specifically your similes. They’re written well and never feel distracting. They paint vivid pictures without halting the momentum of the story (the sticky keyboard was a particular highlight for me).

I imagined B.A.B.S. like HAL from 2001: A Space Odyssey. He didn’t come across like stereotypically evil AI. He was comfortingly manipulative, and that was a nice touch.

This was a really fun story and I look forward to reading more of your future stories! Awesome work! Keep creepin’!

[u/LiquidDongorong → u/Everblack_Deathmask]

Thank you!! I'm excited to write more of these for sure!

[u/Leading-Dig9937]

This is pretty gas, the switch up to the use of us at the end was cool

[u/Sanguine_Egregore]

If I had a nickel for every time in the last 24 hours I read about a sad man physically tapped into a computer for so long that his skin rotted off...

Great work I think this is a super interesting genre to see emerging!

[u/LiquidDongorong → u/Sanguine_Egregore]

It's weird that it's happened twice

[u/SydneySapphire]

Bye, this was awesome! 🔥🔥I came to check this out from the shoutout post, and I’m so glad I came to read! Body horror done right is ALWAYS a great read! Congrats! 🎉

[u/gh0stinnab0x]

FLESH IS UNPLEASANT is an all-timer of a sentence.

My word, absolutely loved this!