The terminal crackled long before Buling appeared.

Static crawled across the screen, numbers distorting, sound bending in a way that made your head ache. You should’ve powered it down. The manuals were very clear about anomalous resonance feedback.

But you didn’t.

“Still here,” you murmured, fingers hovering over the console. “Good.”

The light flickered—and then Buling emerged from the distortion like a thought given shape.

Not fully solid. Never fully gone, either.

“You returned,” Buling said, voice layered, harmonics overlapping like several signals trying to speak at once. “Probability of recurrence: low. Yet… here you are.”

You smiled faintly. “Guess I beat the odds.”

Buling tilted their head, data streams briefly spiraling behind their eyes. “Human behavior continues to defy prediction.”