The mention of an Avicii music video tugged at something in my memory. I did remember watching a video like that—an animated dog running across world war two trenches to find its owner. But I had watched it alone in my apartment, during one of those late nights when insomnia and loneliness had driven me into the YouTube music section rabbit hole.

  How could someone created by the System ten minutes ago even know about that?

  "Today, when I was nearly collapsing from exhaustion and finally made it to your university campus, this... this thing in an orange construction uniform holding a Stop sign rushed me from the side and almost cut me in half,” Nessy resumed her tale. “It… he looked almost human but wrong, like he was made of wax and static, an unfinished idea of a man. I fought him with everything I had. Tore into him with my teeth and claws, chewed his throat open."

  She exhaled. "When he died, silver text appeared offering me a companion. Without even thinking, I answered 'I just want to find my best friend, Alec! Take me to him!' And then… the statue-like corpse of the thing holding the Stop sign shattered with a bright flash and you were there!”

  I opened my mouth, but had no idea what to say. I had no way to prove to the human-dog Nessy that it was me who killed the conceptoid and created her.

  “It was totally nuts!” She echoed my thoughts. “But, honestly none of that crazy bullshit matters now because you're here! Because finding you—that made it all okay. Because no matter where we are, if we're together, we can handle it!" She declared. "Right?"

  Together.

  On one hand it felt nice to have someone to talk to after weeks of fermenting in a tub. On the other hand, I didn’t know if I could trust a companion with a dubious backstory born from a horrid abomination that scooped out my insides like a child craving ice cream. What if she turned back into the conceptoid at night and decided to snack on me?

  Nessy's ears twitched, her nose suddenly lifting to sniff the air as she stood upright from her crouched pose.

  "Water," she said, pivoting toward the café's back area. "I smell it. Cold water."

  I followed her through the debris-strewn coffee shop, stepping over toppled tables and chairs. Strange gray moss covered much of the interior, blue dots blooming from it casting an eerie blue glow across the wreckage. Freakish plants had erupted through the floorboards with leaves that looked like folded receipts and stems that resembled coffee stirrers twisted into organic shapes. A mermaid logo hung from the wall covered in cracks. The mermaid held an oversized coffee cup with the letter G logo on it eerily similar to the one on my construction uniform.

  Behind the counter, a small refrigerator hummed softly. Nessy pulled open the door, revealing a flickering light bulb and several untouched water bottles, their condensation suggesting they were perfectly chilled.

  "How the hell is that fridge even working?" I wondered aloud. "There's no electricity."

  Nessy grabbed two bottles, offering one to me twisting the other open with her fuzzy hands. "Eh, nothing works the way it used to," she said between gulps. "The System changed the rules. Some technology runs without power and fuel now. Other things that should work just... don't."

  The water was gloriously cold and clean. I drained half the bottle in one go, my new body apparently just as susceptible to thirst as my old one had been.

  “See, I’ve procured you water!” Nessy said. “Aren’t you glad? Hrrrm. You don’t look or smell glad. What’s wrong?”

  "You know way too many things," I said, wiping my mouth with the back of my hand. "Personal things about me. Things that a freshly-created... whatever you are... really shouldn't know."

  Nessy capped her empty bottle, her blue eyes meeting mine with unexpected intensity. "Because I'm not freshly created. I don’t understand why you keep saying these hurtful things, Alec. Don’t you remember when we got lost hiking in the Clashridge Mountain? We ended up spending the night huddled under that outcropping during the thunderstorm and you promised to me that after university that you’d come back to Ferguson…"

  Her words made my skin crawl.

  “I went to Clashridge… alone, four years ago,” I said sharply. “You died by then. You died a long time ago, Ness. Huskies don’t live more than 15 years.”

  “I died?! What are you talking about? Dogs live as long as people do!” She barked. “I'm twenty three!”

  If anything, her words made the situation more disturbing.

  “Seriously, stop looking at me like that!” She growled.

  “Like what?”

  “Like you aren't happy to see me! I missed you so much Alec, I missed you everyday since you left Ferguson!”

  I sighed, trying to relax my expression. There was no point in antagonizing my System-manufactured ‘companion’.

  “You’re still doing it,” she pointed out, digging through the rubble filling the cafe until she located a small bag and began to stuff it with the rest of the water bottles.

  "What am I doing exactly?"

  “Looking at me like you don’t trust me!”

  “I can’t help it,” I said.

  “Whyyy?” She whined.

  “Because I don’t trust you,” I said honestly. "You're not a dog. You're a fully sapient being with high-level reasoning and your own agenda, thoughts and desires that I don't really know anything about."

  "Again with that nonsense?!" Nessy's ears flattened against her head, and her tail drooped low behind her. The hurt in her eyes was palpable, making me feel like I'd just kicked a puppy. "I already told you what my desires were - to find and help my best friend!"

  "Look," I continued, trying to soften my tone, "I grew up without friends in Ferguson. Like I already told you–I was killed by thugs looking for my brother. I woke up in a rotting bathtub long after the System... did whatever it did to the world. I killed a monster that tried to disembowel me, was offered a companion by the System and then suddenly you appeared from its corpse, claiming to be my childhood dog-friend or whatever." I ran a hand through my hair, feeling the grime and dried blood that still clung to it. "So forgive me if I'm having trouble processing all this."

  Nessy turned away from me, starting to rummage through the debris behind the counter. "I'm not claiming anything," she muttered, pulling open drawers and cabinets. "I know who I am. I know what we've been through together. If you don't remember, that's not my fault."

  She moved with an odd grace–part human dexterity, part canine intensity–as she searched through the ruined café. Her claws clicked against the tile floor, her nose twitching as she sniffed at various containers.

  "Agfff. There has to be food somewhere," she grumbled, pushing aside a fallen shelf. "Cafés always have food. Pastries. Sandwiches. Something."

  I watched her hunt, noting how her ears swiveled independently, catching sounds I couldn't hear.

  "What did you eat before... before finding me?" I asked after a deep pause, curiosity getting the better of me.

  "Whatever I could find," she replied without looking up. "Canned goods mostly. Some wild game when I could catch it. A deer once, that was good." She paused, noticing my expression. "What? I'm a dog, Alec. Raw meat doesn't bother me."

  She continued her search, growing increasingly frustrated as she found nothing but moldy remains and empty containers. "Bah. Everything's been picked clean. Scavengers must have been through here already."

  "Human scavengers?" I asked, suddenly concerned.

  "Maybe. Or something less rational since the water bottles were left," Nessy straightened up, dusting off her paws. "The world's full of hungry things now. Things that shouldn’t be hungry and yet are.”

  I shuddered.

  “We should keep looking for food,” she added. “I'm not starving yet, but we should plan ahead. Remember that time we went camping and you forgot to pack enough granola bars? We had to forage for berries, and you got that awful rash because you couldn't tell the difference between blackberries and poison ivy."

  I sighed.

  It was as if every anecdote she shared was specifically designed to validate her existence, creating a shared history that never happened.

  “Yes, yes, I know, I’m a chatter-bark,” she commented with a sniff in my direction. “I've been waiting to talk to you for four years! There's so much that I'm just bursting to say! Do you have any idea what it's like for a dog to lose her best friend, her pack leader? Some days I thought that you aren't ever coming back, you know.”

  “What, you didn’t go to dog college?” I asked sarcastically.

  “I went to trade school in Ferguson,” she replied. “Then apprenticed as a mechanic at Will’s Wheels.” She snapped one of the belts of her bib overalls pointing at a faded W&W stitched logo. “See?”

  Riiiight. I thought sarcastically. Nessy worked as a mechanic at Will’s Wheels. A ludicrously complicated backstory for a manufactured companion, System.

  “You look like you don’t believe me,” she huffed.

  “No, I do not,” I replied.

  “Argh!” She growled and dug into her bib overalls pocket and pulled out a phone, rapidly tapping it.

  “How about this then?!” She thrust the phone at my face. “Go ahead, deny photographic evidence, you big jerk!”

  There was a photo of Nessy throwing a thumbs up from under a car, holding a wrench.

  "What the shit," I snatched the phone from her hands, scrolling frantically through the photo gallery.

  I saw Nessy posing next to various disassembled cars, a variety of selfies at Ferguson lake, at Miller's and all over my home town.

  Nessy standing next to the weirdly named 'GrrWolf & Fox Industries' Mill. Nessy in graduation robes with a cap perched between her pointed ears, posing with what appeared to be her family—other husky-people with varying coat patterns.

  Photos of places I recognized from Ferguson—the old clock tower downtown, the quarry where I'd nearly drowned, Main Street during the winter festival—but all featuring a mix of humans and dog-people going about their daily lives as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

  “That’s not possible,” I uttered, staring through the phone screen into a window of another world, an alien universe with far too much detail to it to be fake.

  "Keep going," Nessy urged, her tail swishing nervously. "There's… more."

  My thumb swiped to a video thumbnail. Nessy sitting on what looked like her bed, acoustic guitar in her lap, staring directly at the camera.

  "I learned to play guitar over the years and wrote this song for you," she said softly. "I never sent it though. Too embarrassing."

  With a growing sense of unreality, I pressed play.

  The Nessy in the video adjusted the guitar, cleared her throat, and began strumming.

  The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

  "Hey Alec, it's me again," she spoke into the camera. "I know you're busy with university and everything, but... I really freaking miss you. So I wrote this. Don't laugh, okay?"

  She began to play, her claws picking out the melody. Then she sang, her voice was surprisingly melodic, with a slight southern rasp that gave it character.

  ",

  Two kids with nothing but time.

  You promised you'd come back to me,

  But four years passed with no sign.

  We swore blood oaths on Clashridge Peak,

  Stars burning witness to our pact.

  Your blade on my paw, my teeth on your palm,

  'Together forever' - was that just an act?

  Our names gouged deep in that lightning-scarred oak,

  I trace those letters when I feel alone.

  You promised the world wouldn't pull us apart,

  Now I howl your name to a sky made of stone.”

  I swallowed, feeling her emotions pouring from the screen.

  "I'm not asking for forever,

  Just a call to know you're there.

  This small town feels like a prison now,

  When you're gone and I don't know where.

  Remember that rainstorm in May?

  We hid in the cave by the lake.

  You said friends like us never drift apart,

  Was that just another mistake?

  You stood tall when those kids mocked my fur,

  Threw punches when they pulled my tail.

  You bloodied your knuckles for me that day,

  'Touch her again and I'll break your jaw,' you said.

  Then held me close as I shook with tears,

  Whispered 'They fear what they can't control.'

  Said my white-tipped hair and sky-blue eyes

  Were the windows to my caring soul."

  Nessy sang of places that I knew and of events that never happened to me there.

  "Breaking into that abandoned mill,

  Rusty machines and graffiti walls.

  Climbing that bell tower at St. Mary's church,

  Daring each other through darkened halls,"

  She sang. I didn't have a buddy when I explored the local abandoned mill and church tower, went there alone.

  "In this town where nothing ever changes,

  Same faces at Miller's every night.

  While you're out there chasing bigger dreams,

  I'm stuck fixing cars in fading light.

  Remember those nights on the water tower,

  Naming constellations in the sky?

  You'd point out worlds beyond our reach,

  As small-town troubles seemed to die.

  Blankets spread on your pickup bed,

  Watching meteors streak the night.

  You promised we'd see the northern lights,

  Together when the time was right."

  She strummed.

  "So I'll hold onto these memories,

  Of the boy who knew me best.

  My best friend somewhere out there,

  While I'm here, howling into vast emptiness.

  Ohh-woo-woooooo!"

  Her song concluded with a doggy howl and a guitar solo that caused my heart to accelerate, my brain drowning in waves of deep déjà vu.

  The video ended, and I stared at the dark screen, my throat tight with emotions I couldn't begin to untangle.

  "I kept thinking I'd improve it, make it better,” she chattered. “That you'd come home for the holidays and I wouldn't need to send it, sing it to you live. But you never came, not even during summer break."

  I mentally tried to reconcile the video and photos I'd just witnessed with what I knew, my brain feeling like it was boiling out of my ears.

  Then I noticed that the phone battery was at [0%]. I waited a few seconds for her phone to die on me and yet it didn’t.

  “Is your phone battery status bar broken?” I asked.

  “Nah,” she said. “It’s been stuck at zero for days now. Par end of the world, I guess. I've been using it to take pictures of all the weird stuff I've seen since Systemfall day." Her expression brightened. "Want to see? There was this tree growing out of an ATM that had leaves that looked like twenty-dollar bills, and—"

  "Later," I cut her off, giving her the phone back, worried that the overgrown cafe wasn't the best place for looking over photos.

  "You really don't remember any of this, do you?" She asked with a sour expression.

  “No,” I shook my head. “I’m not your Alec and you’re not my Nessy.”

  “But,” she let out. “You are… you have to be! I… I wrote that song for YOU! Aren’t you impressed? Don't you like it?” The last word came out with a desperate whine.

  “It’s a very nice song.” I said, firing up a big wide smile on her face. “But it’s not for me. I’ve never made promises to you, just met you today. I'm sorry," I said, meaning it.

  “But, but,” her smile crashed into the abyss. She suddenly grabbed my hand, poking at my palm with her claws. “Look. There’s my bite mark from when we made a blood-pact to be best friends forever!”

  “No. That’s from a time when my… Nessy bit me accidentally when we were roughhousing,” I explained. “There were no blood pacts or anything, since she could not speak.”

  The Nessy in front of me frowned.

  "Either your memories are wrong, or mine are,” I said.

  "But..." She trailed off, ears flattening against her head. The look of deep hurt in her eyes made something twist in my chest. Her tail hung limp behind her, no longer swishing with its previous animation.

  Sure, it would be easy to just lie to her, to pretend to be the Alec she knew, but I’ve been lied to far too many times by my parents about far too many things and simply couldn’t stand befriending someone new based on falsehoods.

  I sighed, running a hand through my grimy hair. "Look, I don't know what's happening here. Maybe we're both right in different ways. Maybe the System did... something to both of us."

  "Or maybe you just hit your head really hard," Nessy muttered, but there was less conviction in her voice now. She stared down at her paw-hands, flexing her claws thoughtfully. "Maybe this is just another excuse to get away from me, hrmmm?"

  "Excuse me?" I said, startled by the accusation. "Why would I need an excuse to get away from someone I just met?"

  Nessy's ears flattened further, her blue eyes narrowing. "Maybe you just didn't want to come back to Ferguson after university. Maybe you met a cheeky fox, a bird, or even another dog and it was easier to pretend you never knew me than to tell me to my face that you'd outgrown your small-town best friend! Maybe I’m too clingy, too needy, too chatty or too annoying! I don’t effin’ know why you stopped replying to my texts!"

  "I never—" I started, then stopped. There was no point arguing with her version of reality backed by photographic evidence. “Can we start over?”

  “What?” She blinked, her eyes sparkling with wetness.

  “Start over. Treat me like you just met me please,” I said, extending my hand. “Hi. I’m Alec. It’s nice to meet you.”

  She squinted at me, but shook my hand regardless.

  "Nessy." Her grip was firm, almost defiant. "Nice to meet you too, I guess."

  We stood awkwardly for a moment, the weight of two conflicting realities hanging between us. Outside, something howled in the distance—a sound like static and wind funneled through a broken trumpet.

  "Now," I said, breaking the silence, "whether we knew each other before or not doesn't matter right now. What matters is that we're both here, alive, and the world has gone completely insane. We should—"

  A crash from the street cut me off. Both of us ducked instinctively, crouching behind the café counter.

  Nessy's ears swiveled toward the noise, her nose twitching as she scented the air.

  "Something big... very dangerous," she whispered, trembling. "Smells like... burning plastic and ozone."

  I risked a glance over the counter. Through the shattered café windows, I could see a massive shape moving down the street. It resembled a city bus that had been partially melted and then reshaped into something vaguely arachnid. Its wheels had fused into jointed legs made from traffic lights, and what had once been passenger windows now housed pulsing, membranous sacs that glowed with an internal orange light.

  "We should go," I breathed, sinking back down. "Out the back."

  Nessy nodded.

  "Follow me," she mouthed, fluidly dropping to all fours.

  We crept through the kitchen area, past overgrown refrigerators. The back door was half-blocked by what appeared to be a growth of chairs—actual wooden chairs that had somehow rooted themselves into the floor and walls, their legs elongated into branch-like structures.

  "Hold this," Nessy whispered, handing me the bag of water bottles. She approached the chair-growth, examining it with narrowed eyes before carefully pushing apart two of the structures. The wood creaked and bent under her hands as she growled. "Quick, through here."

  I squeezed through the opening she'd created, finding myself in a narrow alley behind the café. The buildings on either side leaned inward, their architecture warped as if they were melting in slow motion. Roots and vines crawled up the walls, but these weren't normal plants—some had leaves that looked like flattened tin cans, others bore fruit that resembled small, glowing light bulbs.

  Nessy slipped through after me, her fur catching slightly on the wooden growths. "Which way?" she asked, standing upright again and taking back the bag.

  I looked both ways down the alley. To the left, it ended in a tangle of what looked like office furniture that had grown together into an impenetrable thicket. To the right, the passage opened onto another street.

  "Right," I decided, squeezing my Stop sign weapon.

  The galvanized steel pole felt reassuringly solid in my hand—something real and tangible in a world gone mad. The metal was cool against my palm, its weight a reminder that whatever else had changed, physics still seemed to work more or less the same way.

  I mentally assured myself that I was ready to stab whatever questionable thing came my way next.

  We stepped out of the weird tunnel into what once was a street, stepping carefully around a cluster of small mushroom-like light bulb growths that pulsed with an internal light.

  We cautiously rounded the corner of the building when a tinkling sound like crystal wind chimes drew our attention upward. Hanging from the twisted branches of an electricity pole-tree above us was a massive crystal chandelier, its facets glittering with unnatural internal light.

  As we stared at it, the chandelier began to vibrate, sections of it detaching and taking flight—hundreds of insect-like creatures with translucent wings and light bulb bodies that pulsed with colored light in patterns reminiscent of small light bulbs.

  They swarmed out of the chandelier and rushed toward us in a cloud of aggressive electric hues, the first one landing on my arm with a painful zap that left my skin smoking.

  "Run!" I yelled, swatting frantically at the electric bee that had already burned a small hole through my coveralls.

  Nessy let out a yelp as several of the creatures landed in her fur, their tiny bodies flashing red-green-blue before delivering jolts of electricity that made her howl. We sprinted down the broken street, ducking and weaving through the swarm as more of the little, vile things detached from the hive-chandelier.

  I swung the stop sign wildly through the air, the flat surface connecting with several of the glass and metal insects and sending them spiraling to the ground in bursts of miniature lightning. Each impact sent painful tingles of current up my arms, but I kept swinging, creating enough space for us to keep moving forward.

  Nessy was less coordinated in her defense, alternating between swatting with her clawed hands and shaking her entire body like a dog ridding itself of water, her whimpers turning to growls of pain as more of the light-bees found purchase in her fur.

  We dove through the shattered display window of what had once been a department store, glass fragments crunching beneath our feet as we rolled across dusty tile.

  For some reason, the swarm hesitated at the threshold, their lights dimming slightly in the gloom of the abandoned building. I grabbed Nessy's arm and pulled her deeper into the shadows as the creatures buzzed angrily outside, their collective illumination casting eerie, shifting patterns across the walls.

  "Weird. They don't like the dark," I whispered, my voice hoarse from the exertion of running as I examined the constellation of small burn marks decorating both our bodies, Nessy's white fur visibly singed in dozens of tiny patches.

  As we caught our breath in the dark recesses of the abandoned department store, silver text flickered into existence.

  [Termination of Level 1 Bulbee Swarm: 17 units. Minimal reward threshold achieved. Would you like to claim a reward? Y/N].

  I didn't hesitate, calling out "Yes!" into the darkness, hoping for something useful.

  The text shimmered briefly before a small object materialized between us on the rubble pile - what appeared to be half a sandwich wrapped in crumpled, yellowed plastic. The bread was visibly moldy at the edges, and there was a distinct bite mark where someone (or something) had already taken a chunk out of it.

  The text flashed above the sandwich, tagging it:

  [Half-consumed nutrient pack. Flaw: One week past expiry date.]

  Nessy's eyes widened, her tail suddenly wagging with excitement as she stared at the floating text and the materialized sandwich.

  "Magic sandwich!" she yipped, looking from the disgusting food item to me with a broad doggy grin. "Ha!"

  She bounced slightly on her haunches, her earlier pain from the burns seemingly forgotten. Her ears perked up high on her head as she circled the sandwich, sniffing and pawing at it curiously, completely ignoring its obvious unappetizing nature.

  She unwrapped the sandwich with unexpected dexterity, her clawed fingers delicately peeling back the yellowed plastic. She brought it to her nose and took a deep, appreciative sniff, her tail wagging furiously.

  "Mmm, egg, tuna and... something else," she declared, her tongue flicking out to lick her chops. "Kinda smells like those egg salad sandwiches they used to serve in the cafeteria on Thursdays."

  "You better not eat that," I warned, reaching to snatch it from her paws, but she deftly twisted away, holding the revolting prize just out of my reach. "I'm serious, Nessy. That thing materialized from thin air and it's already been bitten by God knows what. Plus it's moldy."

  She gave me a look of mock offense, her blue eyes twinkling with mischief.

  "Says the human who I once watched eat a hot dog he found in his pocket after football practice," she quipped, eyeing the sandwich with profound sadness. "Fine. But if we starve to death, I'm totally blaming you and your sudden newfound food standards.”

  She re-wrapped the sandwich and shoved it in her blue bib overalls' front chest pocket.

  “It's for later,” she replied to my look of judgement. “When your standards drop due to starvation and you'll beg me for a snack and I'll be like–'bam, the sandwich of life' and you’re gonna be like ‘Wow, you're such a good and wise doggo.’ See? Planning ahead!”

  I shuddered, hoping that I wouldn’t have to reach a state in which I had to eat a questionable summoned sandwich.

  “Hrm, if there are rewards, are there levels?” She pondered.

  “Maybe,” I said.

  "Stats!" She declared into the air.

  I watched as Nessy stared expectantly at nothing, her eyes widening and tail wagging with excitement. After a few seconds, her expression shifted to disappointment.

  "Does it not work like that?" she asked, tilting her head and giving the air another expectant stare. "Stats, please? Character sheet? Attributes? Player information?"

  "Stats," I muttered and suddenly silver text loading bars flashed into existence atop both of our heads.

  [Companion interface requested. Loading mutual infoid-statistics.]

  In another minute, two transparent windows appeared, one showing information about me, the other about Nessy:

  | Name: Alec Benoit Foster

  | Age: 23

  | Species & Subtype: Human (Reconstituted)

  | Core Affinity: Reconstitution

  | Level: 1

  | Health: 94/100 | Reconstitution: 0/100

  | Strength: 12

  | Agility: 2

  | Dexterity: 10

  | Vitality: 29

  | Charisma: 7

  | Foresight: 0

  | Intelligence: 35

  | Wisdom: 28

  | Skills: Reconstitution (Inactive)

  | Name: Nessy Rex Whitepaw

  | Species & Subtype: Pradavarian - Husky

  | Core Affinity: Scrutiosmia

  | Level: 1

  | Health: 87/100 | Scrutiosmia: 33/100

  | Strength: 21

  | Agility: 27

  | Dexterity: 23

  | Vitality: 12

  | Charisma: 16

  | Foresight: 28

  | Intelligence: 1

  | Wisdom: 1

  | Skills: Scrutiosmia

  “He he, numbers,” she commented, looking over the chart floating above me and then at her own chart, which floated down from her head to her arm.