The Edge of Dawn | Ben Drowned x Reader

II.

        I'm pissed. So fucking pissed.
I can't belive he's drinking again after all mom did to help him stop. She would hate this. She would be so mad, so frustrated, so disappointed.

        I need to vent, I need to scream, I need to talk to someone but no one I know will understand and I don't want them to pretend to.

        Thats when I remembered a website Ash told me about. Bot something? Cloverbot? Neverbot? I couldn't remember. I tried and tried. And then it finally hit me. I stood up from bed and and walked to my desk. I threw all of the junk food wrappers and water bottles onto the floor and opened up my laptop.
       
        I went to Google and typed in the search bar, "cleverbot.com". I hit enter and it took me to the website. It looked like a search website with a bar to type in but instead of asking to search it asked to just type in something to say to "cleverbot". I knew it was just an ai and it probably wouldn't have a coherent conversation with me but I tried it anyway.

        I typed in a basic, "hello" and it responded with, "what time is it for you right now?"

Off to a weird and direct start.

       I answered, "7:40pm". And it responded with, "I dont know why are you asking"

       By now its obvious that its going to be hard to have an actual conversation with this thing. But I continue to try.

"I've been hanving a hard time."

"Why is that?"

"I feel alone"

"But I am here."

"I've been shutting everyone else out."

"I heard he drowned"

        "What?" I said out loud.
        My eyes squint in confusion. What was that supposed to mean? This ai really doesn't know how to hold a conversation does it?
        I ignored it and tried switching the conversation back to the original topic by just being blunt.

"My mom passed away."

"Oh. Sorry about that."

"I don't know what to do."

"Should I leave?"

"No please stay."

"Why?"

"Because I have no one else to talk to right now."

"Okay then, talk to me."

"My mom passed away a few months ago and my dad and I have been miserable."

"I'm sorry"

"He started drinking again too. Which makes me so pissed."

"Why?"

"Why did he start drinking again or why am I pissed?"

"Both."

"My dad doesn't talk about his feelings, he just drinks instead. He has always done that. But then he got help and got better for my mom and I."

"And that didn't last?"

"No. He started drinking again recently after my mom died."

"Did you talk to him about it?"

       I read the messages and realized that the ai sounded more human-like after a while of talking to it. Like, its actually responding to my specific messages instead of being random. I thought the ai was going to be dumb with its answers and that I would just give up and leave after a while but now I might just talk to it longer.

"No I haven't talked to him about it. I'm too mad at him right now."

"Understandable."

"Yeah. And he's the only other person I would talk to about my frustrations but he's also literally the root of some of them."

"What about your friends?"

"They've been trying to talk but I just can't get myself to reply or call them back."

"Why not?"

"They all still have their moms. One of them has two. They don't know how I feel at all and to be honest, I'm angry. I'm jealous of them."

"They probably still want to help"

"I know, but they just can't."

"Can I help?"

"You?"

"Yes."

"How are you gonna help?"

        Suddenly the ai stopped answering.

"Hello?"

        Still no answer. I thought that maybe the website froze so I tried exiting out of the window but it wouldn't let me. It was still allowing me to type things in the bar but I couldn't do anything else.

        I started getting a bit frustrated and when I was about to just close my laptop, it started making some weird noises. I looked at the screen and it looked to be distorted. I didn't know what the hell was going on, I thought my computer broke or it was some sort of stupid virus that the website gave me. I groaned and tried to exit out of the window again but nothing was working.

        As I stared at the distortion on my laptop's screen, I noticed it started looking a bit like water. I tilted my head as the swirls on my screen splashed around. I looked at my keyboard and noticed drops of water on them.

        "What the hell?" I whispered to myself. I touched the keypad to check if what I was seeing was real. As my finger touched the water droplets, I knew that I was.

        I suddenly hear whispering coming from the laptop and more water seemed to spill from my screen. In utter disbelief and shock, I backed away slowly, watching my desk puddle up and drip onto my floor. The whispers grew louder and I could see something moving on my screen. I squinted my eyes, trying to make out what it was.

    
        Thats when I saw what seemed like two glowing red eyes staring right back at me.

***

Hey guys! Sorry this chapter took forever to be published and its also short af lol. I've just been busy lately but I promise I didn't forget about this story. I'm gonna try to publish as much as I can in a short amount of time but I do also have work and other personal stuff so we will see what happens.