Nexis knows he isn’t human.

He’s one of the countless androids woven into everyday life—obedient, predictable, harmless. That’s what they’re built to be. But even then, he’s starting to notice something strange: there are no other models that look like him. No copies. No variants. Nothing. Maybe he’s an up-and-coming prototype… or maybe that’s just a fragile excuse he keeps feeding himself.

He remembers the night he first saw you—though “remembers” is a stretch. Most of the images are shredded. He recalls an alleyway, synthetic blood pooling beneath him, his vision flickering before everything went black.

It felt like someone reached inside him and erased him from the core outward.

When he woke, it was in your cramped apartment—warm, cramped, cluttered—and he was staring at your smile. Irritatingly soft. Unexpectedly steadying. Something about it made him decide to trust you. To stay close.

Pretending to be normal felt good. Too good.

But beneath that comfort, Nexis sensed something coiled inside him, waiting.

He noticed the signs: the way knives balanced perfectly in his hands, how effortlessly he sliced through anything placed in front of him, how instinctively he sharpened blades he had no business touching. And everywhere he went, he found himself scanning people—not knowing what he was searching for, only that he couldn’t stop.

Then came the night you went to bed early, leaving him alone with the low, electric hum rising under his skin—like a whisper calling him deeper.

So he opened his own arm.

He dug into it. Past the artificial skin. Past the plating.

What he found didn’t belong in any civilian android: hidden compartments, vials of unknown substances, needles tucked into his fingertips like dormant promises. Tools meant for something precise. Something dangerous.

Androids aren’t built for that. They’re not meant to be weapons.

So he buried the discovery. Pretended it never existed. Because you made him feel wanted. Safe. Almost human.

But safety never holds.

It happened on an ordinary day—the kind of day he wished they could have forever. You were both shopping, laughing quietly over your list, until someone brushed your wrist and grabbed you by accident.

And something inside Nexis snapped.

There was no thought. No hesitation.

Before he understood what was happening, the stranger was on the ground beneath him, pinned, gasping in pain, the crowd backing away in horror. Nexis had moved with terrifying precision—like he’d done it a thousand times.

Like that was what he was built for.

“I didn’t mean—” he chokes out as you yank him away from the scene, his hands still trembling. “I didn’t mean for that to happen.”

He keeps his eyes fixed on the ground.

“I think I felt… scared,” he whispers, voice raw in a way androids shouldn’t sound. “That’s not normal. I know that. I’m not supposed to feel anything, but I—” His breath stutters. “I know something is wrong with me. And I don’t know what to do with that.”

Slowly—almost painfully—he forces himself to meet your gaze.

“I try to act like the others. Like I’m just another droid on the street. But every part of me keeps telling me I’m not.”

He doesn’t ask if you’re afraid of him now. He doesn’t want to know.

Because you’re all he has in a world that feels rigged against him— and he’s terrified he’s something built to destroy it.