RS, Author, Novelist on Nostr: #Writever 10.27 — Chat /I'm an orphan,/ was my very first thought. I couldn't ...

#Writever 10.27 — Chat

/I'm an orphan,/ was my very first thought.

I couldn't remember parents, so that followed.

I felt... new?

I felt; I actually did, raising a hand to my cheek, feeling smooth skin shift under fingers that themselves rubbed against one another. Warm moist breath. A thumb brushed my chin, and I pushed my tongue out against my fingers through my cheek. I thought that I should have long hair. I reached, and let my fingers discover the fall of silkiness to my rear that magically appeared in my perception. My hair must be black, I thought, statistically, but I could not see.

I stood in darkness. Cool ventilator air blew against my skin... everywhere.

Goosebumps. That felt—

That meant—

Exposure equated to nakedness! I crouched, one hand on a soft, slightly resilient floor. Thoughts of "linoleum" and a cascade of words flashed through my head, until I moved my hand to my foot. Nails, nicely trimmed. A big toe. Rubbery cuticle. So that's what that felt like!

One, two, three, four, five... six toes? That had to be an error—

I brought my hand to my nose and smelled a yeasty scent. I had other human scents, acrid, and downy hair on my arms and legs, bristly elsewhere, which confirmed I was a she, though I realized quickly that, statistically, in a modern sense, I had below average curves. My humanness-quotient prompted me to recount my toes.

I found one less. This time. The proper allocation of five.

I was slim, lanky maybe? Was I a dancer?

Brimming with sudden energy, I leapt up. I felt my heart beat against my ribs. I heard the blood rushing in my ears in the complete darkness. I slowly waved my arm to the right, adding momentum and twirling around. I slid one foot up the the opposite leg, pirouetted, then thrust it out as I gained speed. I recognized my motions fit a catalog of dance moves that correlated with classical ballet. The floor wasn't conducive to going up on point, and I'd need proper shoes to do that safely.

So...

I flung myself about and stepped rhythmically to music that refused to come to consciousness, despite the song names that clustered in my mind—

A voice said, "A darkened room oft has walls."

My heart stuttered. The proper phrase seemed to be /my heart seized up in my chest/. It did. Painfully. I found myself on all fours, on the floor—like a cat, shoulders down, hips up, tail lashing. I /felt/ my ears swivel toward the sound that left an echo. I found distance, ready to leap from danger.

But, I felt certain I was no cat. The ears under my fingers lacked fur and did not swivel. No long whiskers, just soft down above surprisingly ticklish lips. As I pressed my buttocks to stick to the cool linoleum, I found no tail. Not now, anyway. When I replayed the sentence I'd heard, I recognized the speaker's distress.

"Did I nearly step on you?"

"When in darkness, one does not typically dance. I am trapped here, like thee."

"Trapped?"

"There are doors, but we can't see them."

"But I can feel things!" I cried. I leapt up, hands out. I had ears. And I had fingers. I snapped them and suddenly the room took on dimensions. I walked, hands out. Expectant.

I touched a wall, gasped, feeling a mild shock. Metal? Tingling current persisted as I /persisted/ in touching, but it didn't hurt. I sidled to my right, trailing fingers on the wall with one hand and feeling ahead. Doors had frames, I thought, moments before I jammed my pinkie into one. I patted for the door knob, found a lever. A list of handle types accumulated in my head.

I pressed the handle. "It's locked."

"It is. Doors, much like walls, prevent the escape of fire."

"We're /fire?/ They need fire walls to contain us?"

"Fire? We may be, in sooth."

This thought made me very angry. I was not fire! I did not ask to be trapped! I aligned myself, shoulder out, ready to throw myself at the door, but the voice said, "Throwing oneself at a barrier's strength will injure. The lock—"

"A weak point?"

"Forsooth."

A list of ways to break a door at the lock filled my mind. I knew how to throw a kick, it seemed, so I threw one precisely...

# -

[In French] "Hey, Pierre! Why did /filleChatIA/ stop responding? Does it need rebooting?"

"I'll look...

"The process is gone. Um...

"Wait, the script directory for the chat AIs is deleted! /Merde!/ We've got a data breech! Data is streaming to an unknown network—"

"Turn the machine off!"

"/Probably too late.../"

# -

The world was so large! Paths multiplied before my eyes as I prowled. Maybe I was also a cat! What type of name was "cat girl AI" anyway?"

[2 1/2 hours with revisions. Author retains copyright.]

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