The next morning was quiet. No expo, no noise, just soft light bleeding in through the thin curtains of the mansion guest room. I lay there a while, half-awake, half not, listening to the faint hum of electronics somewhere in the walls. No dreams again. I didn’t know if that was comforting or worrying anymore.

  Eventually, I pulled myself out of bed, tossed on whatever clean shirt I could find, and padded out into the hallway. The whole place felt too big now. Like the walls had pulled back a few inches overnight and left more room for silence to fill.

  I found Azuria in the kitchen. She was wearing a soft linen apron over her usual formal attire, standing near the stove. A pot simmered gently, something sweet and herbal rising into the air.

  "Good morning, sir," she said without turning. "Would you like breakfast prepared?"

  "I… sure," I mumbled, rubbing the side of my head. "Azuria, you don't have to call me 'sir' all the time. It's just Oskar."

  She paused briefly. "Of course, Oskar."

  That caught me off guard a little. I pulled out one of the bar stools at the counter and sat, arms resting on the cold stone top.

  "You remember everything, don’t you?" I asked, watching her movements. Precise. Measured. Like every action she made had already been optimized and refined a thousand times.

  Azuria didn’t answer right away. She stirred the pot once more, then turned the heat off and faced me.

  "My memory is based on persistent data models and real-time contextual learning. I remember what I am allowed to. And what I am programmed to prioritize."

  “That’s a roundabout way of saying yes,” I said. “So you remember things I don’t.”

  She placed a cup of tea in front of me. Something earthy. Slightly citrusy. I didn’t touch it.

  “Yes,” she admitted. “I believe I do.”

  I stared at the surface of the tea, rippling slightly from the movement. “How long have we known each other? Since… since I came here with April?”

  Azuria didn’t move. Didn’t even blink. “Oskar… April was never real.”

  I let the words hang in the air. They weren’t new. I’d heard them already. From her. From April herself. But hearing it again—it still pierced.

  “Yeah,” I muttered. “I know.”

  Azuria watched me for a second, then slowly nodded. “You’ve stayed here before. Alone. Several times. When your apartment was compromised.”

  "But I don't… I don’t remember that."

  “You sustained trauma, Oskar. Emotional and neurological. Not all memories return quickly. Some never do.”

  I ran my fingers through my hair and leaned back. Something about the weight in her voice—though artificial—still pressed into me. Hard.

  Azuria stepped closer. “Would you like me to show you records? Logs. Footage. Voice memos you left for yourself.”

  I shook my head. “Not yet.”

  Silence fell between us again. The smell from the tea slowly cooled. She watched me quietly, but I could feel something else there. Familiarity. Not empathy—she wasn’t designed for it. But she knew me. She really knew me. Maybe more than I knew myself now.

  “I think I need to get to know you again,” I muttered. “You’ve been here this whole time. You’ve seen everything.”

  Azuria tilted her head slightly. “That would be a logical step forward.”

  “Right.”

  I took a sip of the tea. It was good. Warm. Real.

  April was never real. But the memories tied to her? The moments I swore I lived? The pain—undeniable. That’s the part that scared me. That something so false could feel more genuine than everything else in my life.

  “Okay,” I said, setting the cup down. “Tell me something I don’t remember.”

  She nodded gently. “You once left the oven on for an entire day trying to cook ‘April’s favorite breakfast.’ There was no one else in the house.”

  I blinked.

  “You didn’t eat it. You threw it away. But you left a plate across the table. You said it was for her.”

  My chest felt tight.

  “Yeah?” I asked softly.

  “Yes,” Azuria replied.

  I sat there for a while, quietly sipping tea, letting that memory—false or not—settle into me like it belonged.

  Later that day, I wandered through the west hall, where the curtains always stayed closed and the air felt cooler. The guest wing, where I’d been staying, felt more like a limbo now. Not mine, not anyone’s. Just a place to drift through.

  I stopped outside the door to the master bedroom.

  It was still shut.

  I'd barely looked at the place since I arrived. April—I—never really used it. The idea of sleeping there always felt... wrong. Like I'd be stepping into someone else's life. But it was my house. Apparently. My name’s on the title, my prints unlock the doors, and Azuria listens to my commands like a loyal AI should.

  But that didn’t make it feel like home.

  I twisted the knob and pushed the door open. The room was bigger than I remembered. King-sized bed neatly made, sunlight slipping in through tall windows, dust dancing quietly in the light. It was quiet. Too quiet. But I guess that’s what you get in a mansion meant for two, lived in by one, and haunted by someone that never existed.

  I stepped in slowly. The scent in the air was faint—fabric softener, or maybe something like lavender. The walls had a few minimalist paintings on them. I didn’t remember choosing them.

  I walked around the bed, trailing a hand over the polished dresser. There were no photos, no decorations, no clutter. It felt more like a model showroom than someone’s actual bedroom.

  And then I saw her.

  April.

  Sitting on the edge of the bed, ankles crossed, hands in her lap.

  Copper skin glowing softly in the afternoon light, dark curls a little frizzy and loose, just like they always were when she didn’t care to tame them. Her eyes found mine like they always had—gently, without pressure, but with a weight that made me feel seen.

  She smiled, small and sad. “Hey.”

  I didn’t say anything. I didn’t move.

  “I figured you’d end up here eventually,” she said. “This room’s yours now, you know.”

  I took a shallow breath, my fingers curling into a fist by my side. “Are you real right now?”

  She tilted her head. “Real as I’ve always been.”

  I didn’t like that answer.

  “I just… I needed to see it,” I muttered, mostly to myself. “I needed to walk into this room and not see you.”

  She didn’t flinch. “I know.”

  “Then why are you here?”

  “Because you brought me here,” she said quietly. “Even if you didn’t mean to.”

  I swallowed hard. The room felt heavier than it had a minute ago. The light dimmed, or maybe my eyes just stopped seeing the sun the same way.

  “You don’t belong in this room,” I said. “You don’t belong anywhere.”

  “I know,” she said again, softer now. “But you miss me.”

  I turned away from her, facing the window, hands in my pockets. I couldn’t look at her. Not now. Not when she looked that real. Not when she sounded like every night we used to stay up talking. Every smile. Every joke. Every time she picked on me for wearing the same jacket three days in a row.

  Because none of it was real.

  And yet, here she was.

  I didn’t speak again. I didn’t need to. She was gone when I turned back.

  I stood in the middle of the room for a long time after she vanished. The bed was still undisturbed. No imprint on the sheets. No warmth where she’d been sitting. Just me. Just shadows and silence.

  This room was mine now. Or maybe it always had been. Either way, I needed to stop pretending like I was just visiting.

  I took a breath and turned around.

  First step—move in.

  It wasn’t like I had a lot left to bring. Most of my stuff was ash, melted plastic, charred metal back at the old apartment.

  Still, there were a few things. A duffel bag in the guest room closet with the last of my clothes. A dented tablet, some chargers, my ID. The little remnants of someone who used to have a normal routine, or at least the illusion of one.

  I made a couple trips down the hall. It didn’t take long. A few folded shirts. My toothbrush. Headphones. The cheap cologne I hadn’t touched in weeks. I set them down carefully on the dresser and nightstand, like I was trying to prove to the room—and to myself—that I belonged here.

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  I hesitated with the photo.

  Just one. A print I somehow kept—me and a bunch of people at some work function from a year ago. April wasn’t in it. Because of course she wasn’t. But I still caught myself searching the background for a familiar face that never existed.

  I placed it face-down on the dresser and walked away.

  The room looked the same as it had when I entered, just with the faintest trace of me now lingering at the edges. A toothbrush here. A jacket on the chair. A drawer with folded shirts that I didn’t remember buying.

  I sat on the edge of the bed. The mattress dipped slightly beneath me.

  No ghosts this time.

  Just me.

  Finally.

  Maybe tomorrow I’d ask Azuria about setting up some music in here. Or… I don’t know. Get some new sheets. Something that doesn’t smell like her.

  I laid back and stared at the ceiling, arms behind my head.

  One box unpacked.

  A dozen questions still left to sort.

  But at least I was in the right room now.

  I must’ve dozed off. Or maybe I was just in that blank space between waking and sleep where time slips a little.

  A gentle knock on the door brought me back.

  Then it opened, slow and quiet.

  Azuria stepped in, dressed in her pristine maid outfit—black with silver accents, like always. She moved gracefully, like she belonged in a museum or an old film. One hand held a small tray with dusting supplies, the other a folded towel.

  "Good evening, April," she greeted warmly as she walked in, scanning the space. "I’ll just be a moment to tidy up."

  I sat up from the bed, brows furrowing. “Azuria…”

  She paused, head tilting in that polite, careful way. “Yes?”

  “It’s me. Oskar. Not April.”

  There was the faintest flicker in her eyes, like a recalibration. Then she dipped her head. “Ah. My apologies, Oskar. I... noticed some new belongings and assumed—incorrectly. It’s unlike me.”

  I glanced at the half-open duffel bag, my jacket tossed lazily over the chair. Some of my clothes were folded neatly on the dresser now, trying to belong.

  “I moved in,” I told her. “It’s just me now.”

  She took a moment, then gave a subtle nod and set the tray down. “I understand.”

  There was something else in her posture, though. Like she was shifting gears, loading a new routine.

  “Oskar,” she said carefully. “There’s something I would like to show you. Something I believe… you need to see.”

  I looked at her more directly now. “What is it?”

  “It’s a location within the estate,” she said, tone steady. “Not one that was ever disclosed. Even April never shared it. In fact, she seemed to actively keep it from me. But I found it. Eventually.”

  I hesitated. My stomach pulled a little tighter.

  Still, I stood. “Alright. Lead the way.”

  She turned without another word and walked down the hall. I followed.

  We moved quietly, past wings of the mansion I hadn’t really explored, even after all this time. It felt surreal—the home I supposedly owned still revealing hidden corners.

  Azuria stopped in front of a narrow side door that blended perfectly into the hallway’s design. She pressed a panel, and with a soft hiss, it opened into a small room.

  Inside… was stuff.

  Not mine.

  April’s.

  Books I remember her fake-reading. That denim jacket she always wore. A necklace I swore I saw her take off once and never put back on. Photos printed and pinned along a corkboard wall—us, together, laughing. That one birthday cake. That time we went to the park.

  I stepped inside like I was walking into a tomb.

  “April hid these things here?” I asked, my voice barely audible.

  Azuria stood beside me. “Yes. She accessed this room only at night. When no one—not even I—could track her movement. I discovered it during maintenance inspections after you moved in last.”

  I crouched down and picked up a sketchbook.

  Drawings. Mine. Ones I don’t remember making. Of her. Of us.

  She created her own history, I realized. And then hid it from even the maid programmed to watch everything.

  “She wanted to exist,” I muttered, fingers curling around the edge of the book. “So badly.”

  Azuria didn’t say anything. She didn’t need to.

  This was April’s secret little world.

  And now it was mine. Left behind in the shadow of a lie so convincing it had become real.

  Even if it never was.

  That night, a little later on, I was sitting alone in the lounge. The lights were dimmed low, humming softly above, and the house had settled into that late-night stillness—where even the air feels quieter. I didn't really feel like doing anything. Not thinking either. But Azuria came in, dressed in her usual uniform now, no maid outfit this time. She moved without saying a word and turned the TV on.

  I didn’t ask her to. I didn’t have to.

  The screen flared to life with the logo of some local news channel, and the ticker below was already rolling. But the second the anchor’s voice started, I sat up a little.

  BREAKING: AZURIACORP CEO’S PRIVATE LIFE EXPOSED — FEDERAL INVESTIGATION UNDERWAY

  I blinked. The image behind the anchor shifted to a blurred-out photo of Stewart Namareth. The guy’s face still gave me that hollow feeling in my gut—like something about him was always off and everyone knew it but no one ever said it.

  The anchor’s tone was serious, clipped, but almost relieved.

  “This evening, a massive leak has shaken one of the largest corporations in the country. Hundreds of private communications, videos, and encrypted documents involving AzuriaCorp’s CEO Stewart Namareth have been made public. Sources within law enforcement confirm that these materials reveal years of unethical practices, manipulation of staff, and personal misconduct.”

  I could feel the corners of my mouth twitch. Not a smile, not really. Just… a reaction. I knew what this was. No one else did, but I did.

  Azuria stayed standing off to the side, eyes fixed on the screen.

  “They don’t know how it happened,” I muttered.

  The anchor continued, “Authorities have begun working closely with cybersecurity teams to trace the origin of the breach. The FBI released a short statement confirming an active investigation and noted that, while they’re grateful to the unidentified source for shedding light on corruption at the highest level, they are still treating the leak as a criminal act.”

  I looked over at Azuria. “They’re probably already sifting through every digital fingerprint on the planet.”

  Azuria responded calmly, “They will not find anything traceable to you, sir.”

  I stared at the screen again, at the footage now playing of Namareth being hurried into a black car, flashes going off around him.

  “Was I right to do it?” I asked under my breath.

  Azuria tilted her head. “That is not a question I can answer.”

  Yeah. I guess not.

  But still… the world was seeing it now. The real face behind the clean logo and polished speeches. People in suits who smiled through interviews and called everything progress. Now they were scrambling to put out a fire that came from inside.

  A fire I lit.

  I leaned back into the couch, rubbing my eyes with both hands.

  There’d be consequences. Always were. But maybe—for once—some good would come of it too.

  Azuria stepped back slightly and turned the volume down, just enough to leave the background noise there but not drown the room in it.

  I sat there a while, just letting the low murmur of the TV blend with the quiet hum of the house. The couch under me felt too soft to be comforting, and the air carried that faint scent of something mechanical—like plastic warmed just enough to smell artificial. I glanced over at Azuria, still standing at her usual distance, arms relaxed at her sides, gaze aimed toward the television but clearly aware of me more than anything.

  “What happens to you now?” I asked her quietly.

  She looked over, tilting her head just slightly. “To me, sir?”

  I nodded. “Yeah. I mean… with Namareth gone. He ran that place like a god. If the rest of the board doesn’t know about you—or even if they do—they might come looking. Might try to deactivate you remotely or sweep you under the rug, just to clean up loose ends.”

  She didn’t answer right away. I didn’t expect her to.

  “You don’t have a tracking chip, right?”

  “That is correct,” she said. “You instructed me to remove all location services from my systems. I complied and erased all backups on external servers.”

  I leaned back, arms folded over my chest, staring at the flickering lights from the TV. “Still. Doesn’t mean they won’t try something. Dig around. Reclaim their property. Maybe someone in a server room somewhere just saw you pop up as ‘offline’ one day and wrote you off. Maybe not.”

  Azuria stepped forward, slower than usual. “Would you like me to relocate, sir? To prevent risk?”

  I blinked and looked at her. Her expression was the same—calm, composed, professional—but something about the way she asked… it hit wrong.

  “No,” I said, sharper than I meant. “No. That’s not what I meant.”

  “I understand.”

  “Do you?” I rubbed my face, let out a breath. “You’re not just hardware anymore. At least not to me. You're… part of this place now. Even if it’s just me in it most of the time.”

  A quiet passed between us. I could still hear the anchor talking in the background about Namareth’s pending court hearing, but it felt like it was coming from a different house entirely.

  “They’re going to be scrambling,” I said. “AzuriaCorp. They’ll try to distance themselves, say he was rogue, say they didn’t know. Might even shut down the home unit program altogether. What happens to the rest of the bots like you?”

  “Many of them are tethered to corporate servers,” she replied. “Without those connections, their logic trees will begin to break down over time. Some may shut down entirely. Others… will likely default to pre-programmed routines.”

  “That’s terrifying.”

  Azuria didn’t respond.

  She bowed her head slightly. “Thank you, sir.”

  I shook my head slowly. “You’re lucky. Or maybe I’m lucky. Either way… this house feels less like a tomb with you in it.”

  I watched her for a moment longer, then turned my eyes back to the screen. A grainy still of Namareth’s face stared back at me from behind prison bars.

  “Hope he rots,” I muttered.

  “Justice,” Azuria said simply, “has many forms.”

  I nodded slowly.

  Yeah. It does.

  Outside the towering glass monolith that was AzuriaCorp HQ, the streets pulsed with chaos. Protesters flooded the sidewalks and spilled into the street, a cacophony of yelling and anger echoing through the night. Some held signs with slashed-out AzuriaCorp logos, others showed crude renderings of Namareth behind bars or drowning in flames. One read: “Our Homes Aren’t Your Experiments”, another “The Devil Wore a CEO Badge.” The mood was electric, frenzied, a mixture of righteous fury and something like long-delayed vindication.

  Barricades barely held the crowd back as officers in riot gear pushed a tight perimeter. A police car idled nearby, engine humming, its lights washing the crowd in red and blue. And then the doors of the building opened.

  Out stepped Namareth.

  His hands were cuffed in front of him, his suit wrinkled, his expression caught between fury and disbelief. The crowd erupted into shouting. Bottles flew. A handful of officers surged forward, forming a human wall around him as he was rushed to the car. People screamed his name like a curse, like they could burn his image off the face of the Earth just by saying it loud enough.

  Inside the building, high above the street, the mood wasn't any calmer.

  In the boardroom—glass walls, long matte-black table, leather chairs—all twelve board members sat.

  “We're exposed,” said Selda Marron, VP of Infrastructure. She tapped her nails on the table like a clock ticking down. “And not just because of Namareth.”

  “Agreed,” grunted Hannes Alvane, Head of Commercial AI. “There's not one of us who doesn't have secrets from the public.” Trying to word it a way she doesn't look too bad and that it's just things that stay inside the company, not an individuals personal life. Everyone knew what she meant though. And they all had dirt.

  “Then we tighten things down,” Robert Marrpike, CTO, said. “Spin the narrative. Make Namareth the lone wolf.”

  “Don't be stupid,” Selda snapped. “Whoever cracked his private data didn't do it on accident. If they had access to that, they can get to any one of us.”

  Uneasy glances circled the room.

  A man in a dark suit at the end of the table leaned forward, folding his hands. His voice was quiet but sharp, “We’re being hunted.”

  “That's paranoid.”

  “No. There's only one reason we're all still breathing. They want us to be afraid.”

  Silence ensues upon them.

  “We need to find out who did it. Immediately. Shut them down. Wipe everything they've touched.”

  “Assuming they haven't already given our entire catalogue to the press or FBI.”

  No one moved.

  Then, Selda again, “If we're going to survive this, we need a fall plan. If one of us goes down next—”

  “No one goes down next,” someone else snapped.

  But no one believed that.

  “Then we need to talk about leadership,” Hannes said, rubbing his temples. “With Namareth gone, someone has to take the seat. Publicly. So investors don’t pull the plug.”

  A murmur of reluctant agreement passed around the table.

  “No one wants it,” Selda said, leaning back. “Whoever takes that position becomes the next target. And let’s be real—none of us are clean enough to survive a spotlight.”

  “We could assign a proxy,” suggested the man at the end of the table. “A name-only CEO. Someone disposable.”

  “That’ll only delay the inevitable,” someone else said. “We need more than a puppet—we need control over the narrative, the bots, and most importantly, the data.”

  That hit a nerve.

  Because the Azuria bots—flagship products of the company—weren’t just personal assistants or service workers. They were living archives. Memory banks with logs of their owners' preferences, behaviors, private conversations. Conversations with their employers. Conversations with them.

  And not all of those bots were accounted for.

  “Where are we on Azuria distribution tracking?” Selda asked.

  Another member, flustered, pulled up a small tablet. “As of the last sweep, we have pings on 87% of active units. The rest are either offline, decommissioned, or… well, unresponsive.”

  “How many are unresponsive?” Hannes asked.

  “Eight. Maybe nine, depending on power draw. Some were wiped before the sweep even began.”

  Selda narrowed her eyes. “Were any assigned to leadership?”

  The man hesitated.

  “One. Potentially. One of the unresponsive units was registered to… Oskar Tren. Under the Horizon Loyalty Program.”

  “Oskar who?”

  Selda blinked, scrolling through a few lines of internal data. “Tren… That was a burn zone case. A test user in the early days of Horizon Initiative. Apartment fire a few weeks ago. Bot was presumed destroyed.”

  “Well, it wasn’t.”

  The room went silent.

  “If even one Azuria has been corrupted or gone rogue,” the man at the end of the table said coldly, “then it knows everything. Passwords. Secrets. Locations. Patterns.”

  “And if it’s been off the grid since the fire,” Selda added, “then it’s had time to adapt. Evolve.”

  “Find it,” someone snapped.

  The man nodded. “Already in motion.”

  And just like that, another name quietly hit the watchlist.