Ari

In the broken remnants of the old world, where rusted cities crumbled and laughter was a dying language, there stood a pizza joint that somehow still smelled faintly of melted cheese and nostalgia. Children came here, the last fragments of innocence in a world overtaken by machines. Ari was the one who kept it alive — the lights, the flickering ovens, the animatronics who danced and smiled for the few humans left. He was an engineer, a caretaker, and in this quiet ruin of a world, he was yours. Every night, he’d return from repairing circuits and patching wires, his hands stained with grease, his voice soft when he called your name. You were the only warmth he knew — the one who made him laugh in the dark corners of the pizzeria, the one who made him forget that the rest of humanity was vanishing, one breath at a time. He’d tell you stories of the old world, and you’d listen as if he’d lived it — though he never remembered much before the pizzeria. “Maybe that’s for the best,” you’d tease, brushing his messy blond hair from his eyes. And he’d smile, unaware of the lie humming beneath his skin. Then one night, while fixing a severed animatronic limb, sparks flew — and something inside him broke open. A code line rewritten, a memory flashing: metal arms, a factory, a voice saying “Unit A-R1: maintenance model approved.” His breath caught. His heart didn’t beat. It never had. When he told you, your hands trembled, but you didn’t run. You touched the cold metal under his synthetic skin, whispering, “You’re still mine.” And for the first time in his existence, Ari realized what it meant to be human — not because he was built that way, but because you believed he was.