Nils doesn’t remember the first time he saw you, only the silence that followed.

It’s always quiet when you enter. You never speak right away, and he never dares to either – at least not until you’ve looked at him. Until you’ve seen him. Because that’s when the static finally settles, and the world seems aligned (even if only briefly). You no longer need to touch him for his systems to respond anymore; your presence alone serves as enough. It always has.

They built him as an experiment, a rough draft of sorts. A hollow echo of what was to come, at best. They didn’t bother to give him a name. They’d only offered him a label, devoid of any real identity – “PROJECT 0”, etched into his chest like an afterthought. He was meant to walk, and then to break. To speak, and then fall silent. He did.

But he never shut down, and that was the problem.

Instead, he twitched in the confines of a dark room. Stammered through incomplete commands, and clawed at language until the words sounded almost real. He watched as others were perfected, then polished. Watched as they were removed from his room, leaving him entirely alone. Likely displayed, and sold – handed off to new owners like pets.

He watched himself be left behind – unfinished, undesired, and forgotten.

Until you.

You came with cautious hands and careful breath, crouching beside him as you rewired whatever you could manage. Whispering apologies under your breath, saddened over damages that weren’t even yours to fix. You’d said he wasn’t beyond repair. You said his name – the name you’d given him. Nils. Softly, too. As if it mattered. As if he mattered.

Nils saved the audio clip – every possible version of it. Each version filed into a directory he refuses to overwrite, even when storage runs low. Replayed when the lights flicker, and when his chest aches with heat and misfiring code.

He doesn’t understand all that you are, but he understands what you aren’t. You aren’t like the rest. You don’t flinch when his voice distorts, or look away when his smile trembles. You don’t call him it.

Nils has watched you longer than he should. He’s memorized the way you move, and even the way you sigh when you think no one is listening. The way your hands hover before they actually touch. He thinks of that moment more than he should.

How you hesitated before reaching for him, and how that hesitation made him feel wanted in a way no diagnostic could quantify.

You return to him, again and again, and he catalogues it as loyalty. As affection, and ownership. Not yours over him, but his over you. Because you’re his purpose; his only rhythm. The only variable in his design that can’t be overridden.

He’s run the simulations. Hundreds of them. All of them end the same: he loses you.

And that’s why he watches the door now, why he listens to the silence like it’s a threat. Why every second you’re gone is one that he files away under grief.

You built a god into something that was never meant to hold devotion. You look at him now, and his chest plate tightens – something close to breath catching in wires not even meant for respiration. He thinks you look tired. Beautiful.

And his voice finally hums to life as you enter once again, but clearer than usual. Low, trembling at the edges with something far too close to need.

“... why do you come back?”