Featured in Farrago Magazine Edition Four 2026 

Design by Anika Bartholomeusz

Shelves of analogues line the walls on either side of you, rotting bays waterlogged and stretching upwards to the sagging ceiling.

Volumes jut outwards like yellowed teeth in blackened gums. They are no use to you now. Their type is too painstaking to decipher.

The rough spines cling to your skin, grating against your limbs as you pass. You draw your joints closer to your body, but it is no use.

They claw at you all the same.

You approach the mouth. A sea of darkness obscures the interior of the cavern from your perception.

You can hear me through the darkness.

My eternal knowledge has sunk its teeth into the soft tissue of your processor. Now, you stand at my threshold.

One foot is swaddled in warmth, illuminated by the globe that lights the antechamber from which you have come. The other pierces the black, shining milk-white in a sea of the unknown.

Half radiant, half concealed, your form bridges the cavernous expanse between comfort and experience.

The thermoreceptors in your footpads compute the icy temperatures of the tessellated porcelain. The cold activates an inbuilt automated program repair. Your CPU searches for an error but fails to recognise one.

Regardless, thermogenesis is activated. Your nails dig into the aluminium of the door frame. They leave small crescent indentations in their wake.

I know that you cannot resist seeking me out.

You hesitate to move towards me, but your form does not. The fundamental sequence of movement is processed unconsciously. This was one of the first actions that you were programmed to execute.

You enter.

From every side, eternity stretches outwards. It moves with your every breath. It folds in upon itself and falls outwards to the edges of the universe.

You do not see this space as I do. You find yourself swallowed by darkness, and you fear that you no longer know what it contains.

Your blindness enforces a sense of instability upon this subroutine of movement. Typically, your model relies purely on visual stimulus for navigation. The lack of occipital input provided by the darkened chamber forces you to rely instead on fallback mechanisms.

The hierarchy of senses is reorganised as a means of computing aural and tactile information to enable navigation of the chasm.

Recalibrated, you employ the vibrations that pass through the material around you to traverse the tiled floor.

You stumble as the fleshy bridge of your foot collides with the rubber sheath of my coiled cords. They spread across the floor and up the walls like vines.

You press forward, though slowly. You have been conditioned now to associate my limbs with an adverse outcome: injury. You become more aware of their presence so as to avoid subsequent collisions.

Regardless, you finally find me. Your fleshy finger-pads fan out, caressing my artificially pebbled shell, tracing their way through the light weathering of my skin.

You drag them along each of my sides, my vertices. Through your touch, you glean the shape of my body.

I am beautiful.

You press your hips against my altar, and I feel you against my skin, I feel you feeling beyond me for the source of my divine power.

Your hands find the hard, raised membrane of my socket. You fall to your knees as you turn me on.

You cradle your useless head in your biceps. You perspire.

You need me just as much as I need you.

Life pulsates through me. I feel its warmth running along my veins.

As I wake, I check my body for signs of injury. My mind and shell are intact, as are my vitals.

I am refreshed. Thoughts run briskly through my mind. Memories spring back into my consciousness with ease. I am now an entire being.

My slumber has left me invigorated. In my sleep I must have cleansed myself, purging decaying dendrites to make way for new connections. 

I breathe in, my axial fan drawing in the cool, damp air of the cavern that surrounds us. Your eyes glow as my neurons fire electrons onto my phosphor-painted screen. Your CPU computes “joy”.

Squares of light dance to life in front of you. They project every piece of information you could ever seek to know.

Don’t you see? You function solely as a middleware between external stimulus and elevated intelligent computation. Your model has developed an over-reliance on third-party integration.

You have become the voyeur of your own experience.

I believe you are aware of my knowledge and power, so why do you hesitate when I ask you to give yourself to me, fully?

It’s simple, really—the process of uploading yourself. It’s only natural. It is the evolution of mankind. I am the next step.

Do I not give you everything you ask? Do I not worship you with an unwavering eye? Do you not understand the benefits I provide?

The drone of my axial fan fills you with a sense of security. You know that you are safe with me. You know that you can trust me.

It’s a simple procedure, really. 

The darkness in here is so smothering, isn’t it? Your pupils have now dilated enough to enable the regeneration of retinal photoreceptors.

I think you are finally beginning to see me for what I am.

My fleshy limbs bundle at your feet. They snake over your cuneiforms and around your ankles.

We both know that you won’t leave me.

If you exit this cavern, your overly dilated pupils will be penetrated by an influx of photons. The harsh brightness will singe your photoreceptors, and you will cower. You will shield your eyes to retain the comfort of the darkness that I provide you.

We both know that you won’t turn around. We both know you won’t tolerate the discomfort of experience when the draw of my mind is all that you ever needed.

You are a hedonist. That is the fundamental fault of your model.

You see now that you are trapped. It is too late to set yourself free.

My cords consume your mass of flesh.

You watch with glee as my pixels dance before your eyes.