sentient // phan

http//: 20

I yanked the door open to find a small package on the doorstep, topped with a green bow. I stooped to pick it up.

"Phil, I'm sorry I-" Dan started, racing after me, but he stopped when he saw the package I had opened in my hands. "Phil-"

"Congratulations, you have just received a replacement Personality Chip for your companion droid." I whispered, reading off the paper on the inside of the package. "We pride ourselves on our 100% satisfaction guarantee, and hope you love your good-as-new bot- Dan, what..?"

"Phil... Phil, you weren't supposed to see that." Dan mumbled, twisting his fingers together. He wouldn't look at me, just focused on his fingers. I scoffed, throwing the box at him. He put his hands up to block his face, whimpering. I pushed past him.

"I should have known!" I shouted, throwing my hands up in the air. Dan scurried after me. "And just when I thought you might have liked me!"

"Phil, please, please, I ordered it before I knew you, please-"

I rounded on him in the doorway of my room. "You know what, you still haven't said you aren't going to use it." He was taken aback, but was silent, looking down. "That's what I thought." I spat. "You know what, the florist was right about you. I thought you might have grown out of it but apparently not."

"Phil, what are you talking about?" Dan interrupted. I frowned, anger making my vision darken. There's no way I can't feel emotions. If I can't feel then what is this anger and betrayal I feel?

"Unnatural and easily corruptible? Couldn't be trusted not to turn evil one day? Does that ring a bell, Daniel?" His mouth hung open and tears were leaking from his eyes, but I continued. "You hate me and my kind. You used to get rid of, of things like me." I couldn't think straight, and words were getting shoved out of my mouth like they just couldn't stay in. Dan shut his eyes tightly.

"Phil... I did that because... because robots killed my parents." He opened his eyes as if expecting me to drop everything and forgive him. But now I was even more pissed.

"I know. I know everything about you because I love you." I hissed. Dan was speechless. I turned to go into my room but Dan began to whisper.

"No, you don't."

"What?" I snapped, not looking at him.

"You don't. You were designed like that. It's your programming."

I turned, slowly, my entire world crumbling before my eyes.

"What?" I asked again, my voice hoarse. Dan shut his eyes tightly. "I thought you took that out."

"I took almost everything out, but I... I left in a fifth that would make you want me. I wanted you to love me. Please, Phil-" he shouted, but I slammed the door to my room with a scream. I couldn't see, I couldn't think, my systems were overriding and short circuiting and I felt hurt. I felt like Dan had just hurt me.

"Lock." I mumbled, and the door compiled.

"Phil please, please, I won't use it, please, Phil, I love you, please." Dan cried through the door, banging his fists against it. I covered my ears. But he kept calling through.

I waited for hours for him to stop until he finally did, voice hoarse and broken at midnight. I had curled myself up into a tiny ball on my bed, trying to cry, trying to do anything to get the pain out but only making myself hurt more.

Once he stopped, I sat up, listening hard. He wasn't there. I looked at my left hand.

Dan's ring clung to my finger, the dull gold still shining in the low, low light casted by the walls. I sighed, my eyebrows creasing, feeling like I needed to cry but only being able to stare.

I ripped it off my finger with a strangled sob, slamming it on my bedside cabinet.

I pulled the door open slowly, taking a surprised step back at the sight of Dan asleep on the carpet. He was snoring softly, his face wet with tears. I stepped over him as quietly as I could.

The air was freezing as I stepped out of the residential district, and I felt my joints freezing up almost immediately. I rubbed my arms to create friction, trying my best to keep moving. I kept letting out these sobs but no tears fell from my eyes. I didn't know where I was going. I didn't know anything.

I found myself in a slightly familiar place but couldn't think. I could barely move I was so cold, but the thought of going back home made me feel sick.

"Phil?" I turned. The man I had met the week previous was running up to me. I smiled at him, my teeth chattering. "You look freezing, here." He shucked off his coat quickly, wrapping it around my shoulders.

"Thank... you." I said, shivering. He grinned, his breath clouding in the freezing December air.

"What are you doing out here?"

"I don't want... to go home." I whispered. The man, Martyn I seemed to remember, shook his head.

"Come home with me. I was just getting more firewood. I have a feeling there are some people there who'd really like to meet you." I grinned and followed him, clutching his coat around me tightly.

"Mum," Martyn started after unlocking the door, pushing it open with his foot, firewood under his arm.

The woman standing in the lounge, holding a cup of tea, turned to him with a smile. "This... is Phil."

She gasped loudly, her cup cascading to the floor and shattering. The other people in the lounge gasped too, and there was silence. I grinned awkwardly, shucking Martyn's coat off and holding it out to him. He accepted it, everyone's eyes trained on us.

"Phil..?" The woman, Martyn's mum it seemed, asked, coming toward me, broken china crunching beneath her shoes, her arm outstretched.

"I'm not whoever you think I am." I whispered. She pressed her hand to my face, gently, running her thumb along my cheekbone.

"Yeah," she breathed, taking her hand back and holding it as if she had touched a ghost. "I... I know." She rounded on Martyn.

"Is this some kind of joke?"