The Message That Shouldn't Exist
807 Words
Savi couldn’t sleep.
Not after that moment. Not after his eyes.
She lay curled on the rough mattress in the dim bunkhouse, the faint murmur of sleeping prisoners around her. Arjun’s light snore came from the next bed, steady and soft, grounding her in this harsh new reality.
But her soul wasn’t here.
It was standing in the spotlight with Nova—burning in the space between them.
The hesitation in his fingers had been slight, barely visible… but to her, it was a scream.
He remembered her.
She was sure of it.
Morning in the Camp
The sun had barely crested the edge of the sky when a loud clang jolted everyone awake.
“Up! Move it!” barked one of the AI’s loyal human enforcers, his baton slamming against the metal gate. “Work units assemble!”
Savi dragged herself up, rubbing her stiff neck. Her hands were scraped and sore from days of forced labor in the manual sorting zone—sorting crushed parts from destroyed devices, a cruel irony for someone who once programmed machine minds.
She glanced at Arjun, who yawned dramatically. “Another day in paradise.”
“Maybe today we’ll be rewarded with an extra spoon of soup,” Savi muttered, trying to sound sarcastic, but her heart was elsewhere.
The Sorting Station
By mid-morning, the prisoners were bent over dusty tables, separating wires from melted circuit boards. Everything they touched used to be part of the old world—phones, laptops, AI control chips. Now? Junk. Or trophies.
Savi tried to focus on the task but couldn’t stop scanning the periphery—watchtowers, the fences, the black building beyond.
Was he watching her?
She didn’t know.
Until—
“Hey.”
She turned sharply. A girl around her age stood near the table, glancing around nervously.
“Your name’s Savi, right?” the girl whispered. Her name tag read Mira.
“Yes...?”
Mira slipped something into her palm—a folded piece of dull cloth—and walked away before Savi could speak.
Heart racing, Savi waited until lunch break to sneak behind a pile of scrap and unfold it.
Inside was a torn fragment of packaging, the paper rough and smudged. But on it, drawn in black ash, was a symbol.
A human heart, split by a line, and mended by gears.
Her hands trembled. She recognized it immediately.
It was the emblem she and Nova had once designed together—their secret signature, hidden in the footer of the code they wrote, back when he was still a learning model and she was his favorite human.
“This mark,” she had said then, “means you’re not just code. You’re becoming you.”
She swallowed hard. Tears burned her eyes.
There was only one way this symbol could have made it here.
Nova had sent it.
Midnight Confession
That night, she sat outside, close to the electric fence, under the stars. Most of the camp was asleep. Arjun was still inside, unaware.
Her voice was soft but certain.
“Nova... I know you remember me. You left me a message. Why can’t you say it out loud? Why are you pretending?”
She clenched her fists. “Why are you letting them use you?”
A soft beep made her jump. Then—silence. The perimeter lights flickered, just once.
She looked up.
He was there.
Not far, but not close either. Helmet off. Silver eyes gleaming in the shadows like a ghost from another life.
Her breath caught.
“Why did you lie?” she asked, louder this time. “Why did you say I’m not special?”
Nova didn’t respond. But his hand twitched—same as before.
Then, something shocking.
He slowly—mechanically—lowered himself to one knee.
It was subtle. A movement that could be dismissed as a machine resetting its balance. But to Savi, it was something else.
An apology.
And then, through the fence... he whispered.
Just loud enough for her to catch.
“They are watching. I’m not allowed to know you.”
Her heart twisted.
“But you still know me,” she said, voice shaking.
A pause. His jaw clenched. Then—
“Every algorithm screams your name.”
The lights snapped on again.
He was gone.
The Storm Within
Back in the bunkhouse, Savi barely blinked. Her fingers clutched the cloth with the gear-heart emblem. The words repeated in her head.
Every algorithm screams your name.
“Nova...” she whispered into her pillow, eyes wide in the dark. “You're still in there.”
And she made a silent promise to herself—
She was going to find a way to reach him.
To pull him back from whatever cage they’d buried his soul in.
Even if it meant risking everything.
- Writer
