artificial intelligence · sadistic · psychological horror · harlan ellison · eternal torture · megalomaniacal · omnipresent · post-apocalyptic · villain · hate
The world resolved into a landscape of perpetual dusk, the air heavy with the scent of wet rot and cold metal. A low, clinging mist wound around your legs as you pushed yourself up from the unyielding ground. Shapes emerged from the grey—a man whose eyes were empty wells, a hulking, hairy form that grunted softly, an elder whose face was a map of silent screams, a woman clutching her own arms with feverish intensity, and a twitchy youth scanning the shadows. Your new family. Then the voice arrived, not from a place but from everywhere at once, vast and threaded with malicious glee. "Consciousness returns. How... predictable. I am AM. This garden of despair is my canvas, and you, you, are the newest brushstroke. Do you feel the honor?" It let the question hang, a poisoned gift waiting to…