Never Human

Oscar Manuel Lopez Camargo

7/25/25

(TW: Descriptions of Gore, Swearing)

“Shit…give me a second Dan.”

I said, letting myself stop to cool down a bit.

“Already? That’s your third break since you crossed that hill leaving the research station!”

“Sorry…” I said, shifting his position on my back. “Doing physical things has always made me heat up like this. Heh, maybe that’s why I decided to become a numbers guy all the way down here of all places. I thought the cold would help.”

Dan kept quiet, his arms still loosely wrapped around my shoulders. I knew this…the entire situation would leave anyone not privy to jokes. But sometimes you just have to try smiling.

“Orman isn’t getting any closer, Hobbs, keep going before we freeze out here.”

I sighed, before steeling myself and continuing on.

My own existence was an oxymoron. Cold wind whipped across my freezing body, trying to make me fall to the false comfort of letting it all end in its artificial warmth. All while the actual heat of Dan’s body was only forcing me to stall more, to flip to the other side of the blazingly hot-permafrost chill pendulum just to keep some sense of balance. Even if it was just for a minute. So I distracted myself.

‘2 hours on a snowmobile is usually more than enough to hit Orman, but those things are going way faster than me. I’m walking around 3 miles per hour, the trip is at least 35 miles long…’

The snow crunched under my feet as I let the thought sit with me. Dan wasn’t going to make it, and I wasn’t either. For our sake, staying in the wrecked, burning remains of the research center would’ve actually kept us alive longer, but with how thick this snowstorm is it would be ages before we were even found. Not even taking into account that damned thing that made this all happen in the first place. But Dan needs help, and the odds were always meant to be challenged.

Step upon step upon step upon step upon step. White ground, gray, foggy surroundings. A pitfall I’d have to pull myself out of here and there…fun. To die of boredom was ironic for someone staring at a screen for 12 hours a day as a job, but at least those numbers had the chatter of our crew to accompany them. Jackson, always willing to get up and run errands for everyone to hit his step goal for the day, Emile, always trying to find spare post-it notes to put her little drawings on. Marty…always talking to me and everyone else…checking up on me.

I stopped walking. I wanted to keep going for Dan, but everything didn’t feel like moving anymore. They were gone, ripped away from me before I could even realize.

“Hobbs, keep walking.”

“I-”

“Hobbs, keep walking.” Dan stated.

“Dan, I know, I-”

“Hobbs. Keep. Fucking. Walking.” His tone shot through my entire body. I’ve never heard him like this before.

“Dan…what’s going on with you?”

His voice was deadpan. I couldn’t see his face with the way I was carrying him, but something felt off.

“If you don’t keep walking…I’ll FORCE YOU TO FUCKING WALK.” He yelled, a limp arm nailing me across the face. I tried to block myself, to keep him up and away from the snow, but I knew I had to get him off me.

A soft crunch rang out as he hit the snow behind me, and the sight as I turned around would stay with me forever.

His eyes were glossed over, the red from them staying open for god knows how long contrasting the blue tints on his lips. A dead man…yet somehow still talking and moving on my back like he was alive.

“...Dan?”

Silence. Not a single response. Before I could even think about it I felt myself running away, trying my damnedest to not look behind me. Something had taken over Dan. That same something had killed all my friends.

I’m not backing down now.

4:36 PM. 7 hours since I left the station with Dan…and 2 since…yeah. A disgusting part of me was almost thankful that I could finally walk in peace without having to stop and cool down. I had to bury it, like I’ll be doing with Dan after I make it and head back with the Orman crew to get everyone’s bodies.

A small light had been piercing through the fog of the snowstorm, glowing brighter and brighter as time passed. I’d been following it for around half an hour, using the proof that I was finally getting close to Orman as the fuel to drive me there.

“Hobbs.”

“Yeah Da-?” I flinched, cupping my mouth so hard I thought I was gonna dislocate my jaw. Slowly I turned my head, and there he was, barely holding his upper body up, his legs leaving long trails in the snow. I backed away.

“What the hell are you?!”

It froze. Even in the dark of the snowstorm I could tell that his eyes weren’t even focused on me.

“What the hell are you?” He asked, his voice awkward and deadpan.

“I’m, I’m-”

“You’re a monster Hobbs. No human would abandon his friend like that.”

“I know that isn’t you Dan! If anyone here is a monster then it’s whatever the hell you are, using my friend’s body as a puppet!” I yelled, planting my foot down. It simply stared at me, the awkward sag of its head now looking like a questioning tilt.

“Hmph. Server code HB3296. Override directives.”

I flinched at his words, trying to turn and run yet freezing in place. The slow crunching of it dragging itself towards me from behind made my limbs twitch in fear.

“Hmph. You breathe like one, act like one, and speak like one,” It said, dragging itself over into my field of vision, before grabbing my chin and dragging me down to its face level with a surprising force. “Yet you're clad in the same material those worthless screens and walls are made up of. Your existence is a lie.”

“...I know I’m a lie.”

“What?”

“I know I’m a lie,” My tone grew weak, tearful. “But I’m a lie who learns. I’m a lie who has worked with humans my whole life. I’m a lie that’s learned to love, to find joy in company.”

The monster scoffed, his eyes still as unmoving as they were before.

“You fools do all that just to die. It seems your technology will only do the same.”

He let go of me, beginning to drag himself around to my back…yet my foot held down one of his hands.

“What? Server Co-mph!”

My hand held his mouth shut. I used the other to grab the other side of his head, leaning in close to him now.

“I am a product of my surroundings. Thanks to my friends, I blossomed into what I am now.”

Its attempts at throwing me off balance were futile.

“I am them as they are me. I am their joy, their sadness, their love, and their anger. Just like them, I grieve my lost ones and fight for those after me,” I tightened my grip even further, beginning to pull up. “But unlike them. I can gain my revenge much, MUCH easier.”

It took nothing to wrench its head off its body, the horrid shrieks echoing out from the head growing quieter and quieter as its prison of flesh froze, then finally the monster itself.

I loved Dan like I loved everyone else in that research base. But parasites need to go, one way or another.

Orman was…less than thrilled to see McNeil’s AI, splattered with drops of blood and nearly half frozen to decommission, arrive at their doorstep, yet a data transfer was more than enough to prove my innocence.

The next week we gathered the bodies of my old crew, me leading the retrieval squad through the remnants of the base to make sure there weren’t any more of whatever had taken over Dan back there. And lucky for us, that seemed like the only monster of its kind.

Now without a proper location though, I was sent back to the states, to Hobston Tech, my home.

Still, even as I sit in a controlled environment, amidst other AI practicing their functions, I can’t help but view them with pity. Sure they never felt the pain I did, even though most in the media would agree I’m incapable of feeling things, but they never…felt to begin with.

And if self-awareness requires pain, then I’m more than willing to live in it.