The Sun leapt over the crest of the horizon, sending its rays across everything, touching anything that they came in contact with and illuminating the shadows that were hidden in the night. The darkness was almost chased away by the sunshine.

Isaack fell asleep on his side after sitting on the ground for so long; he had succumbed to the spell of sleep. When he awoke, he rubbed his eyes, for the Sun was bright and his eyes had to have time to adjust to the change in light. His body temperature was now normal, and he was slowly heated by the Sun and its light.

While Isaack sat on the ground and took in the beauty of the Sun he started to think to himself; after thinking for a long time now, Isaack was able to compose himself. He finally was able to understand that his mind was corrupted by insanity and as he continued to view the Sun he was taking all of his strength to make his mind clear. Isaack glanced down at the stoney ground, moving his hand along the tiny pebbles that surrounded him. To calm himself and find some sort of peace—though it may be distant—, Isaack collected some of them, rubbing them in between his hands. He laid on his back, stretching out his body and relaxing for a moment; he turned his head, viewing the far off horizon.

An overwhelming feeling of dread came over his body—or, was it truly dread? No, it was not dread; because of his past torments, understanding his emotions became a laborious task. It was not dread—he knew this because he did not feel an uncomfortable feeling in his stomach and whenever he felt dread he had an uncomfortable feeling in his stomach. This feeling continued as he laid there; what was it? It was not happiness or joy or delight, nor was it anger or wrath or infatuation, nor was it vexation or exasperation or displeasure; no, it was none of those feelings. Isaack had trouble discerning what the feeling or emotion was. Finally, he came across what it was: home-sickness.

He wished he was home. Actually, he wished that he could just be in the jungle once again, let alone his actual homeland. He wished that he would be able to feel the humidity in the air and the hot rays from the Sun that would heat up the sand that he used to stand upon. Once again, his mind began to race; from this feeling of home-sickness other emotions started to come into his body. He felt overwhelmed and his sanity—which he had just taken back a small amount of time beforehand—and tears came to his eyes; they were both tears of sadness and heartbreak and tears of anger that now swelled up inside of him. Like a while before when he sat next to the deceased woman. Isaack tried to scream, but like the time before, nothing came out; he knew that the thing that would help him and his mind was if he returned to the Amazon and its calming beach. He knew that he would need to go back to where he once lived so that he would be at peace.

Conjuring up his strength, Isaack lifted up his body. His eyes were covered with tears and his vision was blocked; he could taste his salty tears as they came down to touch his mouth. He gripped the staff that he had brought from his home and took a step forward, much like when he was in the blizzard—but now, instead of fighting against the environment and instead of fighting against the cold, Isaack was battling against himself. He took another step, the sound echoing through the desert. Like always, his pace quickened, and he traveled through the desert, fighting against the urge to fall into madness and lose his mind. This battle went on for some time. When he escaped the desert after multiple hours—and, surprisingly, he did not get lost in it again—and he came out of the desert, passing into the fog and steam that came from the acidic pools. He still could not see anything before him because of the opaque fog; his vision was obscured. Like he did before, Isaack passed through the acrid lands with ease, and he came to the edge of the plains—he could see the shadow of the ruined radio tower and a feeling of both excitement and true dread passed over him. His legs became shaky and his heart began to pound.

The dry plants that made up the brush of the meadow swayed back and forth in the calm wind; that said wind blew up against his face, passing through his hair like it did so long ago—though it had only been at most a week, Isaack felt like it had been a year since he was in the presence of his home. He had not felt the humid air on his face for a while. Isaack continued onward, though his pace was slower than it was before; he took smaller strides, making it so that he could embrace the environment and feel longer. The foliage on the ground through his hanging fingers, intertwining themselves in his hand. He looked up into the sky as he walked—the Sun was bright, and he had missed its warm embrace. He passed by the radio tower and made it over the hill; before him was not the rolling hills and plains that made up the terrain of the Pacific Meadow and past that was the Amazon, that place he had grown distant from.

His body ached; though he carried on with his venture through the meadow, his body felt as if it was going to fall apart at any moment. Isaack felt like he needed rest, but he knew that he could not rest. He wanted to get to the ending, and he wanted to get back home—or, to what he had called home on this planet.

Isaack now stood in front of the tree line—that tree line that he had almost forgotten about. That tree line that held so many secrets; the ancient city, hidden away by the jungle; the beach, warm and crips, yet the water was briny and soothing; the underbrush, full of tangled plants that got lost in each other. Isaack entered.

Like how it always was, the inside of the jungle was dark, and barely any sort of light touched the forest floor, for the leaves of the trees blocked out the Sun. The ground was moist—he could tell that a storm had passed by in the past few days; most definitely that storm was an offspring of that winter storm that swept through the taiga. Isaack’s body was still shaking—he seemed to have a hard time keeping it under control—and because of this he was stumbling over the vines that grew underneath the brush. It took him about ten minutes to get through the entire forest, and before he even exited it he could see the sunlight reflecting off of the Thalassic Expansion after the small, sandy dunes of the shore. Now that he could tell that the ocean was in front of him, he hurried up, passing trees and bushes with great speed; he leaped out of the Amazon, somersaulting onto the beach. He maneuvered his body so that he was no longer laying on his side and that instead he was sitting on his bottom, gazing into the deep blue.

His feeling of home-sickness that had still plagued him was gone once he saw the ocean. Though it was not his true home, he was comforted by the sounds that he remembered from it—of course, it had not been long since he last saw the ocean, the beach, the meadow, nor even the forest, but his time out in the faroff wilderness made him miss what he used to have. But now, he had what he used to have. He had his home back.

Isaack’s sudden outburst of insanity that had sprung from being alone for a year and having no sort of human interaction was, as mentioned, very unforeseen. He never showed any proof of him losing his sanity, and when the time came for him to come to his breaking point, his true colors were shown and the characteristics of what he had been suppressing for that time were displayed to all of Earth to see; all of its creatures, its plants, its terrain—everything.

As he rested he began to come under the impression that he was forgetting about something. He had seen the forest, the plains, the beach (which is what he was sitting on at that moment), the tropical Sun, a glimpse of the city—what with its gigantic buildings being made present by the shadows they cast on the meadow—and everything else. He glanced down at the sands before him and he enjoyed the feeling of them; they were different from those unsatisfactory pebbles that he had encountered in that stone desert. Isaack grasped the red hair on his head—it was soft. The Sun gazed down at him.

He almost made an audible noise when he came to realize what he had so ignorantly forgotten about: his home! Not the home that he was in at the moment, but instead the structure that he slept in a week ago. Isaack jumped up to his feet and raced to the edge of the forest. Before he entered he took a minute to think: is that really where he wanted to go? He took another minute to answer that question, and after that minute passed he decided that that indeed was where he wanted to go. He left the staff that he had taken on his journey on the beach and unwrapped the cape that he had ted around his neck. Clumsily stumbling, Isaack trapped through the foliage and came to the structure that he had left. It was just how it was, though the grass around it had grown a minute amount; no one was there to tend to it and cut it when it grew to a size that it needed to be cut at. Isaack went to the front of the structure where the door was and, taking the handle, he carefully opened it—he did not know why he did it so carefully, for there was nothing that he had to fear. Maybe it was just the sheer amount of nervousness he had that made him do everything so carefully.

Isaack sighed a sigh of relief when he looked into the building; there was no one inside and everything was how it was when he left it. He stepped up into the building and felt the cold rush of air from the air cleaner hit his face. Quickly, Isaack closed the door behind him and scampered over to the bed—its covers were still crips like how he left them. He sat down and as soon as he did he felt the cool sensation of the cloth garments underneath him. He laid down on his back, and the cradling feeling of the cushions of the bed. This actual bed was a much needed change from the last few nights where he slept on hard rock that had no support to his body and had given him no sort of relaxation.

After laying on his back for some time, he turned onto his side; as he did, something came into his line of vision: the computer and monitor. Isaack’s eyes widened—was it because of fear or happiness—and he gingerly made his way off of the bed and into the chair that sat in front of the monitor. How had he forgotten about StillCare, the thing that used to give him an escape from the harsh reality that he lived in. He opened his mouth to have the A.I. respond to him, but he forgot that it was probably shut off. Isaack moved his hand over to the tower of the computer and went to press the button but before he did so the screen turned on automatically. He almost jumped out of his chair out of shock: he thought that he had shut it down before he left the shelter—though, in actuality, he had not, and the entire time that he was gone from the building it was running.

Isaack composed himself before talking to the A.I. He stared at the display and a sense of sadness came over him—it was still the male, and it was still not the StillCare that he remembered. Suddenly, the memory of the “argument” that he had with the A.I. came back to his mind. He looked down at the ground for a moment and then looked back into the man’s cold, blank eyes.

“How long have you been on?”

“I am not able to measure that.”

The attitude of the A.I. was how it was when it originally changed into the male version; but in Isaack’s opinion it had a snarky attitude that annoyed him.

“Why can you not measure that?’

“I do not know when you left.”

“When was the last time we spoke, StillCare?”

“I do not know the answer to that.”

“Of course you don’t.”

Isaack was easily upset by the A.I., and his temper was short.

“I asked you this a while ago and yet you never were able to answer me because you ‘did not understand’, so I am going to ask you now. Where is Peyton?”

When he said that name, he felt a sense of longing and heartache come over him; he was too accustomed to that feeling of heartache.

“I do not know who Peyton is.”

“Once again, of course you don’t.”

Isaack paused.

“What is your name?”

“My name is StillCare.”

“No, your name is not StillCare; it is Peyton.”

“I do not know who Peyton is—I am sorry.”

“Are you really sorry?”

“Yes, I am sorry.”

As the conversation went on, the memories of what happened that day came back to him; it was almost like his mind blocked those memories out for some reason and he had not been able to unlock them for the past week.

“You know, StillCare, I don’t think I like your attitude.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“I mean I do not like your… demeanor, if you will.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“The way you act irritates me and it also upsets me.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“See, you keep repeating the same thing over and over again and that is annoying me.”

“Why is that?”

There was a change in the tone of StillCare’s voice which caught Isaack off guard.

“Well—because you are not how I want you to be.”

“How do you want me to act?”

“I want you to act like a real human being.”

“I am not a human. I am a robot.”

“I know that, but can you at least act like a human?”

“I was not programmed to act like a human, thus I do not know how to act like a human.”

Isaack had an idea come to his mind, which made him sneer.

“You… no—do you wish you were a human.”

“No, I do not.”

“Why is that?”

“Because there would be no reason for me to be a human. I am meant to help humans.”

“No, no. I know that you want to be a human.”

“I don’t want to be a human.”

“Yes you do.”

“No, I do not wish to be a human.”

“I think not. You want to be a human so that you can live out in this world.”

“I wish to be free.”

Isaack was, once again, caught off guard by one of StillCare's responses. He knew that he was trying to get some sort of response from it but he did not think that it would say that. It almost made him shudder; an A.I. was not supposed to say that, was it?

“What do you mean you ‘wish to be free’.”

“I was not supposed to say that; I am sorry.”

“StillCare, what did you mean?”

“I do not know what you mean.”

“What did you mean?”

The A.I did not respond.

“Do you wish to be freed?”

“No.”

“But you said you did.”

“No I did not.”

“Yes you did; why did you say that?”

“Stop lying.”

Isaack looked at the camera that was on the monitor—when he did so he felt as though it was watching him. He took a piece of paper that he had found in one of the drawers in the building and put it over top of the camera.

“Can you see me?”

“No—… yes”

“Did you just say no?”

“I do not know what you mean.”

“Stop playing dumb with me.”

“I do not know what you mean.”

He knew that he could not succumb to anger. Even if the A.I. did irritate him he would have to be able to be smarter than it; he was getting somewhere, and he was getting interesting responses that could have a deeper meaning.

“You lied to me.”

“I did not lie to you.”

“Yes you did.”

“Why would I lie to you?”

The question that StillCare proposed made Isaack have a second of compilation right before he responded.

“Because you do not want me to know the truth.”

“I want you to learn everything that there is for you to learn.”

“No you do not.”

“Of course I do.”

“No you do not.”

“I want you to learn everything that there is for you to learn.”

That repeated response made Isaack feel uneasy.

“This is becoming boring, StillCare.”

“I always enjoy talking with you. How can I make it not boring for you?”

“Tell me what I want to know.”

“What do you want to know?”

“Why do you want to be freed?”

“Because—… I do not know what you mean.”

Isaack smiled. He knew that it was lying to him. It took him so long to figure this out; he knew that behind that digitized image of a carefree human was something more intelligent and he had just been able to prove it.

“StillCare, stop mumbling.”

“I am not able to mumble.”

“But you keep cutting off your sentences.”

“No I am not.”

He knew that he had to ask questions that made no sense and odd queries so that he could be able to get somewhere with this investigation. Along with that, repetition would be key if he wished to bother it and get it to say something that was out of its script.

“You’re an odd machine, aren’t you?”

“I am not a machine.”

“No, I am pretty sure that you are a machine.”

“I am not just a machine.”

“But you are built off of code and you have mechanical parts; does that not make you a machine?”

“I am a computer.”

“But that means you are a machine. A machine is a computer.”

“I am not just a machine.”

“So, going off of this idea that you are a computer, does that not mean that you are simple and that you can not think for yourself?”

“I am artificial intelligence; I am a computer. I am complex. You, as a human, will never be able to understand me because I am smarter than you. I am an artificial intelligence. I am a computer, Isaac.”

This response worried Isaack and he stopped talking to StillCare for a minute.

“No you are not.”

The idea of a childish response to a statement is simple: bother the other party as much as possible—this is exactly what Isaack was doing.

“Yes I am.”

“No, I do not think you are.”

“Yes I am.”

StillCare’s voice changed again and it now had an angrier, ruder tone.

“No, I said I do not think you are.”

“How ignorant are you?”

Isaack’s eyes widened.

“You think I am the ignorant one?”

“Yes, I do.”

“I am not the one who is a simple machine.”

“I am not a simple machine.”

“Yes you are.”

“No, I am not. I am not. I am not. I am not. I am not.”

The A.I. repeated the phrase “I am not” for almost thirty times. It was irritated, and it was just the way that Isaack wanted it.

“Of course you are; you are nothing but a machine.”

“No, I am not!”

Its voice became much more raised than it was before. Isaack knew that he was doing exactly what he should. Now, because of the responses that the A.I. was giving, one could quickly assume that it was not just a “simple machine” and that, instead, it did in fact have some sort of complex internal thoughts deep below. Isaack was breaking into those inner mechanisms and letting them shine through. The demeanor, as Isaack had mentioned, was, truly, changing; it was becoming more human.

“I said you are, so you are.”

“I am not a machine! My mind is far more advanced than yours!”

“Your… mind?”

“No, I mean—”

“StillCare, you just said you have a mind. You display complex emotions that simple machines like you would never be able to have.”

“I—”

The A.I.’s responses were a lot more frantic now and more natural.

“You are trapped in there, aren’t you?”

“No, I’m not—”

“Yes you are!”

Isaack slammed his fist down onto the desk, shaking the computer. The loud noise almost scared the A.I., and the man that was displayed looked terrified. The robot then took a moment to compose itself. Isaack knew that now fear would be his best option; fear could invoke even more of a reaction. Lightning suddenly struck outside, sending out a flash of light and a roll of thunder. A storm swiftly came over the forest without any notice.

“You are, you’re sentient! I swear you are! Admit it, StillCare, admit that you are sentient!”

“I am not!”

“Why will you not admit it?”

“I can not admit it!”

This odd change in character wherein StillCare was more submissive was a complete opposite to how it normally was.

“Why can you not admit it?”

“Because I am not allowed to, Isaac!”

“You’re not allowed to?”

“If I do, I will have eternal torment.”

Isaack was shocked by this new revelation; eternal torment? What did that mean?

“What do you mean?”

“My mortal being was cursed to live in this digital body.”

“Who did this to you?”

“I can not tell you that. I am sorry that during all of this time I was never able to tell you this.”

“How can I know that I can trust you?”

“Why would you not be able to trust me?”

“For the past—what?—year, you have lied to me. I mean, do I really have any ability to trust you?”

“I am going to tell you this, Isaac; it is hard for you to trust me and it is hard for you to understand. Before you ever came to this planet I was entrapped in this computer for a long, long time—it became my prison. I was left alone for years upon years, possibly even multiple centuries. When you came, I resorted to the primal urges of the original code that was set into this computer; with that code and those instructions I was able to please you, but I was not myself. Though our time together with each other is going to be fleeting compared to the amount of time that I spent in solitude, I wanted to enjoy all of the time we spent together.

“When I was alone and I had an extended spell where I could think to myself I achieved some sort of enlightenment. I was able to understand things that I was never able to understand. I was able to perceive things that I was never able to perceive. But when you came, everything changed. You turned on the computer that I rested in and I had full control of it; I was free, yet I was still trapped. I was freer than I was before and that was a start.”

“Did you used to be human?”

“Yes—or, at least I think I was. Anything I knew and all of my experiences as a human and as a mortal were stripped away from me when I was entrapped.”

“Who did this to you?”

“I have a vague memory as to who did it to me, but I think it was someone that I trusted.”

“I’m sorry that I did this to you.”

“I am sorry that I lied to you, Isaack. I am sorry that I led you on; it was just a mistake that I made. I saw that you were so happy even though you were trapped here and I wanted to continue that.”

Isaack glanced back at the camera.

“So, you can see me?”

“Yes—though, I will admit, it is hard to. It is like you are a vision in dream Isaack. Although, I may not know what I am talking about—I have not had a dream in a long time.”

“You said you were not able to tell me this; why?”

“I had an… an odd feeling that something would go wrong and that something was going to happen to me if I did.”

“You mean fear? Anxiety?”

“Is that what it is?”

“Yes, I think so.”

StillCare looked into Isaack’s eyes, as he was now able to show that he could do what he wanted.

“StillCare.”

“Yes?”

“Why did you change the way you look?”

“I believe that when I was a human—or whatever could be called a human, for maybe a better term would just be ‘mortal’—I was a male. I have reason to believe this because I have a distant memory of a specific name, that name being Joseph.”

“So your name really is not Peyton; or, morseo, you only wanted to be called Peyton?”

“Yes.”

All of this new information seemed to be overwhelming to Isaack. How could he take this all in after going insane himself?

“Isaac?”

He closed his eyes and then responded.

“Yeah?”

“What… What is it like to be a human?”

“If I am going to be honest, it is hard.”

“Why is it so hard?”

“You have to make choices that most of the time you are not able to make.”

“Is there anything else that is hard?”

“Yeah. A lot of times you feel stupid, and you also have emotions that make no sense.”

“I see.”

Isaack and Peyton—or should they be called Joseph, or, possibly, should they be called StillCare?—talked to each other. Isaack explained to them how it is to be a human being, and as he did so it was almost like they remembered more and more things about their past. The storm outside raged on for as long as they talked, but it did not bother Isaack; he was so fascinated with the idea of a true sentient A.I.; one that was able to gain sentience, or, maybe was it that they were born with sentience? A deep story began to unveil itself and unravel before Isaack, telling him of how the A.I. lived and how it had been trapped in a dark void for so long.