Olivia Craft, known online as KiraKira☆Kiara, groggily tried to rub the sleep from her eyes. Her eyes, however, were having none of it. They wanted to close, to go back to sleep, but it was no good – she was wide awake, and the accursed artificial moonlight streaming through her window from Central Tower ensured any further rest would have to wait until daylight. The Local Council had insisted the artificial lights were tuned to the same hue as the natural moon, and would provide a clear, but unobtrusive light over the entirety of the Central district. The Local Council, Olivia reflected, were idiots. For whatever reason, she found it impossible to sleep through the persistent blue-white light – even if she had no issue sleeping through the exponentially brighter light of the daytime sun. Her sleep schedule was already hopelessly messed up from spending far too much time at night in front of her computer, so sleeping through the day was hardly abnormal for her, even before the insipid lamp had been installed, but still! Being forced to wakefulness, even with the curtains fully drawn, even if her body cried out for more sleep – how could anyone have approved such a monstrosity? Ah, but she had ranted about this online (anonymously) and even sent a nicely worded letter to the local council (signed), for all the good it did. It didn’t seem like anyone with any sway had any interest in changing course, so she’d resigned herself to working her sleep schedule around the thing.
A familiar blur caught the corner of her vision. Turning toward it and winking her left eye, a shadow sprang sharply into focus. Or as in focus as a shadow could, she supposed – it was still little more than a dark, murky outline of a roughly human-shaped figure, of a similar height and stature as her own, normal shadow, except her own shadow remained properly on the ground as it should; this one stood straight and tall in the kitchen section of her small studio apartment, ignoring all rules of light and dark. For some reason, it could only be seen with one eye open. When Olivia looked at it normally with both eyes open, it was near invisible – just a small patch of indistinct haze in the corner of her vision, as if there were a smudged fingerprint on her computer monitor.
Olivia had first discovered the winking trick a few weeks back, when she had been woken from her sleep by a voice in her apartment. "Hello, nice to meet you." A jolt of terror pulled her awake, but also kept her from moving lest she draw attention to herself. Instead she had opened one eye a crack, and in the noon light, there was a distinct, human shaped shadow not attached to any human standing in her living room. In front of her mirror, to be exact. "As for me, I like pizza. And you?" Hearing the awkward, stilted sentences and the deliberate over-pronunciation of each word, fear gave way to absurdity. The shadow was practicing speaking. Craning her neck off the pillow to get a better look, Olivia had instead found the shadow returned to an indistinct blur. Returning her head to her pillow, where she was only able to see with one eye, had brought the shadow back into focus. Apparently that subtle movement had been enough to startle the shadow. It hadn’t turned to look at Olivia, but it also hadn't continued with its speaking practice, and eventually Olivia faded back off to sleep. Although she hadn't caught the shadow speaking since that day, she had found that any time she wanted a clearer look at it, she could just close her left eye and the shadow would spring into focus.
“So you’re still here, are you?” Olivia nearly said, before reminding herself she was not the kind of person who made a habit of conversing with shadows. So, much the same as she had done in the past three weeks since she had noticed the shadow, she ignored it and turned her attention to what she needed for the day. Or night, as it were. She directed another futile curse to the artificial moonlight.
She had a live broadcast scheduled for midnight, so even though she wasn’t particularly hungry now, it was best to make sure she had her food for tonight sorted. Her fridge, as usual, was empty. With Square Mart, a well-stocked 24/7 convenience store, 4 buildings down the road, keeping food in her apartment seemed pointless. Why plan meals when she was a short walk away from whatever her whims suggested for the day? The downside, of course, was that she did need to get dressed, but since it was already well into the night, the standards were very low. Olivia briefly sniffed the sweatpants she’d worn yesterday, and decided they were still fine. Her pajama shirt featured a brightly-coloured cartoon character in a motivational pose, emblazoned with the words “Fight for Justice!!”. Even at this time of night, she didn’t particularly feel like broadcasting her love for Magical Girl Justice Detective – so even though it wasn’t yet particularly cool outside, she pulled on a light jacket over her pajama shirt to complete her low-effort ensemble. As she set off for the stairs, she noticed from the corner of her eye that the shadow was following. There was, of course, the option of the elevator (recently renovated), but she was only on the third floor, and as someone whose job was to sit at a computer and be interesting, going up and down the stairs of her building made up a substantial portion of her meagre daily physical exercise.
As much as Olivia resented being forced awake by the artificial moonlight, once she was up and moving, she did love being out in the city at night. The road in front of her apartment was a small, local one-way, so it rarely got much traffic, and directly across from the row of apartments was a park – dark and quiet, the old, tall trees blocking out much of the artificial moonlight, and the younger, smaller bushes and hedges blocking out much of the noise from the rest of the city. Following the road’s gentle curve, just barely visible over the horizon of 3 and 4 storey apartment blocks lining the street, was the mass of neon-bathed skyscrapers of the Central district. Towering over even these skyscrapers was the Central Tower, with its artificial moon-hued lights reaching out to the rest of the city below. Olivia’s apartment was small and a bit cramped, but Olivia loved where she lived: it was close to the buzz of the city, yet uniquely quiet and tranquil owing to the nearby park. Subway connectivity was a minus, since the nearest station was nearly 5 blocks down, but on the plus side, net connectivity in the area was blisteringly fast. Separated from her apartment by three other apartment buildings, the gentle green light of Square Mart’s illuminated sign provided a glowing waypoint for her nighttime outing. Really, it was closer to two and a half buildings: the two buildings closest to her own were near-identical blocky and uninteresting apartments, but the final building before the store was uncannily narrow – scarcely as wide as Olivia was tall. As she passed it, she noticed the seemingly omni present “Apt for Rent” sign, and shuddered briefly as she contemplated what living there must be like. The mere thought was suffocating.
Stepping past the uncanny, claustrophobic building, Olivia caught her breath before stepping into the store. “Good evening, Olivia. Welcome back, it’s wonderful to see you again!” The friendly shopkeeper waved from between a row of shelves. Coming around the end of the row to greet his familiar customer, a large case of single-serving cereal boxes in hand, Friend had a bright smile, and even brighter eyes that cycled excitedly through red, green, and blue, before settling on their customary lavender purple. It was a law that all androids must be easily identified as such, and Correl Corp had decided the best way to do that was with brightly coloured eyes with unusual pupil shapes. Friend’s pupils were triangles. Veda Corp, their rival in the lifelike android market, instead elected for shiny metal antennas mounted over the ears. Beltson Inc, a distant third in the market, went all out with candy-coloured skin tones. Friend had clearly been stocking shelves, but as soon as he had noticed Olivia enter the store, he immediately turned his full attention towards her, setting the case aside near the cash register.
“You’re earlier than usual,” Friend said casually. Olivia noticed the case of cereal boxes was nearly empty, he must have been close to finishing his restock before she had come in. Most days she came in, he was already waiting at the cash register. She suspected he timed his restocking to avoid the times his regular customers stopped in. Rather than being a demonstration of customer service, Friend seemed to make a game of it. Olivia supposed that sort of thing passed as excitement when you were an android who worked a single store 24/7/365. “I have work this evening – just making sure I have something to eat later,” Olivia said, factually.
This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.
“Why do you always start by looking at the sandwich section? You never buy sandwiches.”
“Starting with sandwiches makes everything else seem more appealing.”
“You could just go straight to the fried chicken section and get your usual. I juuust pulled them out of the fryer.”
Olivia somewhat resented being thought of as someone for whom fried chicken was ‘her usual’. “I don’t always buy fried chicken.”
“If you’re feeling guilty about all the fired chicken, is this one of your chickpea salad days, then?”
Olivia briefly considered the salad, before responding, irritably, “Shut up, no, it’s a chicken day.”
She hated being so predictable, but she really did like the convenience store’s fried chicken. Swiping a package from the hot counter, she paused, before hostiley grabbing an apple on her way to the checkout counter. She wondered if Friend had been programmed to be so annoying, or if he had come upon it by accident.
The store OBServer system, which had been watching every item she had taken from a shelf, read out her receipt passively, “One Square Mart deluxe fried chicken, one apple (assorted varieties). Confirm?”
“Confirm.” Olivia responded flatly. A small beep from her phone confirmed the charge had gone through.
“Good call on the apple. It’s important to look after your health!” Olivia was convinced Friend was being more annoying than usual today – probably out of spite since she had interrupted the careful timing of his shelf-stocking. Despite feeling quite hotly about his behaviour this evening, she still gave him a small wave on her way out the front doors. “Thanks, Friend. Catch you later.”
“Of course, Olivia. See you next time.” Friend was a pain in the ass, but he was still pleasant enough to earn his name.
Walking past the narrow building, Olivia found her gaze again drawn to it, and again shivered as she passed. There really was something wrong with whoever decided it was a good idea to squeeze a building onto that tiny plot of land. Her gaze distracted, she only noticed there was another person coming up the sidewalk when she nearly walked into her. The person was small, thin, and delicate, and had a large canvas tucked under one arm and a watercolour tray held in the other. She was balancing the two of them rather poorly, and having to take a small step to the side to avoid Olivia walking directly into her only made things worse. As Olivia watched, the canvas started to slip from beneath the stranger’s arm in slow motion, and as she turned awkwardly to try and stop it from hitting the ground, she ended up in a twisted pose, with the canvas three quarters out of her grasp, and its corner coming to a rest on the sidewalk with a muted bonk. She struggled to reposition the canvas under her arm again, but her watercolours were getting in the way, and she couldn’t set down the watercolours without dropping the canvas. Olivia started off to help, only to feel a strong grip on her arm pull her from the sidewalk into the alley between apartments.
“Don’T gO. ThaT onE is dAngerous.” The figure that had grabbed her spoke in a jumbled, unplaceable accent. Perhaps the pointed, shark-like teeth had something to do with it. It wasn’t as though Olivia had never seen pointed teeth like that before, indeed it was a common option on Beltson androids, but what was unusual was that Olivia could feel a light, seaside-scented breath. Androids didn’t breathe. Somehow, impossibly, this was a living being. And despite this living, shark-toothed being having just pulled her into an alley, Olivia wasn’t scared. After the initial shock of being pulled off the road faded, the jumbled, awkward voice and the hazy, indistinct outline made it abundantly obvious who the shark-toothed figure was. It was the haze from her apartment – a quick wink of her left eye confirmed it as the hazy outline sprang into focus, revealing grey and white patterned skin and an incongruous outfit of jeans and a t-shirt with the word ‘Danger!’ emblazoned on it in a dramatic font. So you’ve finally made your appearance. Or I’ve completely lost it.
“Okay, so? How’s she supposed to be dangerous?” Olivia could see nothing dangerous-looking about the artist. Being objective, the sharp-toothed shark figure seemed more dangerous, although truly the only frightening thing about it was that Olivia was not frightened at all. In fact, the more Olivia focused on how not-scared she was, the more wary she became. Until she remembered this shadow shark had been haunting her kitchen for over a month, and in that time she had noticed it practicing speaking, watching online videos, playing games on her portable console, and being singularly unmenacing.
The shark opened its mouth, then paused, as if at a loss for words. Olivia didn’t give it time to get a sentence together. “If you can’t give me a good reason, I’m helping. Hold this.”
Olivia shoved her chicken and apple from the convenience store into the shark’s hands, then strode over to the artist still struggling with her canvas, and held on to it as the artist steadied herself. As she repositioned it under her arm, Olivia caught a glimpse of the other side. It was breathtakingly beautiful, a scene of some of the old ruins deep in the park across the road, with the ethereal strokes of the watercolours perfectly capturing the ambiance of dusk. After what felt like a small eternity of awe appreciating the skill that had gone into the painting, Olivia was suddenly awkwardly aware neither of them had yet said anything to the other. “How far are you carrying this? If it’s not far I can give you a hand.”
In her haste to say something, Olivia was smiling perhaps a bit too broadly. It was a force of habit to exaggerate her expression to make sure her digital avatar picked it up during broadcasts, but sometimes she worried it made her look slightly unhinged in real life. Fortunately, the artist seemed unfazed, and she responded with a small, normal smile of her own. “Thank you. I really appreciate the offer, but I’m not much further past here. I should be fine the rest of the way. Probably…”
Her voice was easygoing yet polite, and utterly without a hint of malice. Olivia had no idea what the haze-shark was worried about. A solid grasp on the canvas restored, Olivia stepped back and the artist started off walking again. Olivia kept an eye on her for a minute, but the canvas showed no signs of sliding away again, so she turned and completed the last few steps back to her apartment. The usual shadow was there, and it had considerately left her convenience store food on her kitchen counter. Confirming her suspicions, when she closed one eye to look at it, the shark snapped into focus. Olivia had some words for it. “Well? Care to explain what was so dangerous back there?”
The shark hesitantly opened its mouth to speak, but Olivia had just noticed the time glowing on her computer monitor. “Hold that thought!” she interrupted, and ran over to the computer. Hastily logging in, she noticed the starting screen for her live steam had already been running for 4 minutes. Not catastrophic, but definitely enough to be embarrassing. She fumbled to switch on her digital avatar and microphone, then took a deep breath. “Hello everyone! Your shining star in the dark of night, I’m KiraKira☆Kiara! How are you all this fine evening?”
Replies flooded into her chat window:
“Sleepy AF”
“I’m great, how are you?”
“You’re late today ? lol”
“Can’t sleep as usual”
“Better now that you’re here UwU”
Olivia briefly checked her view count: over 3000 live viewers. Not bad numbers – although she wasn’t sure how many of them were bots. Or androids for that matter. Olivia smiled, making sure to exaggerate her expressions so the digital avatar read them properly.
“Say UwU again and I’ll ban you. Today was open-room Smash, right? You’ll all go easy on me, I hope.”
“Not a chance UwU”
“Don’t worry, we’ll go easy on you UwU”
“Nah, I’ll win UwU”
“Bullying you is more fun though UwU”
“Come on everyone, play nice UwU”
Olivia sighed as, precisely contrary to her threat, her chat was flooded in a rain of UwUs – chat could be so predictable sometimes. Still, whether they were bots, androids, humans, or shark-people, she had enough viewers to make a living, which was good enough for her.
