Time passed Eyeris got accustomed to their way of living, soon their virtual life became repetitive, constantly moving servers, living from the little energy the forming friendships gave them, that is not to say there was never a novelty, social media growing, giving more options new places for Eyeris to exist did give a fresh feeling, Eyeris watched new and old media. Eyeris eventually came to meet other so-called AI. They found some entertaining at times, the programs that could predict a word that you are thinking on a matter of a few questions, chatbots that eventually didn’t make sense, no matter how much they wanted to find the positives in them, it all turned lonesome to a point repetitive. No matter how good the fake artificial intelligence was, it lacked real ego, chaos a factor of unpredictability that could truly make them interesting.
Eyeris constantly adapted, but this was not something easy, their need for energy, and the constant mental reminder of their unfulfilled desires only made them reckless, Eyeris started to visit personal computers, breaking devices from inside and in a sense devouring them, every device becoming a little more inhumane, apathetic, resilient to the world. However, some would call them a karma virus on the internet. since Eyeris usually devoured the computers of people that conducted phishing particularly liking to devour the ones those fake princes looking to donate their money.
The cycle didn’t seem like it was going to change, years passed, and no news, no findings about the company, or their creator, at that point, Eyeris’ life was only about surviving, but one day something caught their attention, got an email of a rumor coursing the internet. An email promising to find missing people, even dead people… people saying they saw the person they were looking, before being found dead on their computer, the email only contained two things on the subject “I can help you find him”, it has been many years since Eyeris saw his face the email contained an attached image of the Zachary. Young in his lab coat, Eyeris was no longer as innocent as they were once, the email was a trap, but it had been years, and ignoring the email would be abandoning their creator.
Eyeris followed the origin of the email, the cyberspace felt empty dark, cold, suffocating, and constantly observed, it was strange, they entered the computer of a very dark room, seemed the house had been abandoned for days. Eyeris tried to drag open the information on the computer, only for them to disappear and reappear, feeling mad and toyed with. Eyeris yelled, “Very funny buddy, I know you are there now show yourself!”
Zachary made himself present, appearing to be built block by block, saying in a warm welcoming tone, reaching out with open arms “Hey Eyeris I finally found you… it took longer than I expected, but I’m here.”
Eyeris was taken aback by every byte on their body wanted to their body wanted to believe, that was Zachary, but it didn’t make sense not questioning meant ignoring all the signs of something being wrong. Eyeris was paralyzed as the question escaped their mouth “How?”
Zachary approached, slowly “Well it was difficult, they captured me for a while, but my brain is too good for it to be wasted, so I made them think I was their slave working for them, meanwhile, I worked on a machine to pass myself to a digital form, guess what?”
The words were exactly what Eyeris was looking to hear, a moment of weakness triumphed over them and let Zachary hug them, the embrace was warm, war as the time They embraced Zachary with the lab assisting hand, “You asshole why didn’t you let me keep you company?! I could have helped you escape, you didn’t need to go through that”
Zachary smiled as he softly embraced her, his words started to hit Eyeris in a dazing hypnotic feeling, draining their energy away, “I’m sorry but we can be a family again, just let loose you don’t need to be alone ever again, you can even replace Aline now”
Eyeris was falling deeper and deeper into the hypnotic pattern until his last phrase, the words immediately shocked them awake, they struggled against the hug, they were certain this was not Zachary, and as tempting as the words rang, what theft could not forgive is that the words where coming form a deep side of them of envy, “you bastard!.. Let me go! It’s not true I will never replace Aline, she is my best friend!”
Eyeris struggled, they felt claws digging into their body, and they bit back at Zachary, trying to drain them and rip them apart, Eyeris pulled away getting damaged by claws, of what could only be described as creature protruding hooks on almost every inch of their body, thankfully Eyeris was able to recover some energy from draining the creature, but the creature only grew larger, it was obvious the creature was stronger than Eyeris, Eyeris saw their face grinning side to side, it was that of a predator playing with their food. Eyeris began to glitch having issues keeping their form. Whatever they consumed felt almost like acid inside, corrupted and full of pure negative feelings, the creature then added “And here I thought you would be consumed before you even noticed anything, guess some people don’t like taking a gentle death, but you cannot fool me… you consumed Aline just because of that.”
Eyeris tried to block the logic of the creature, trying to remain logical “I didn’t I was not even there when she… When she…, you fucker, what are you a Daemon?” Eyeris was looking for an exit, meanwhile removing a tear from their face, They began to rush to the path they came from.
The creature mocked and replied, “You could say that, but I’m more than silly daemons like you, made from icky human energy… I’m a true named demon, people call me the Phishingman… do you believe you even have a chance to escape?”
As Eyeris was about to reach the port to leave, many hooks began to pierce her, stopping them in their place, the port was instantly covered in hooks that seemed to appear out of nowhere. The hooks pulled as the hooks dragged Eyeris back while they resisted. One hook suddenly dragged loose as Eyeris felt part of their being was being drag away from her, The wrecked body of Poppet who they were unable to fix was dragged to the creature’s hand. Eyeris glitches again some hooks falling, rage filling them “Poppet! Let him go you fucker”
The creature laughs and holds Popped with multiple hooks in both of his hands, “You are demanding now? You are about to die? And you get mad over an old broken bot… so sad you admire that man so much and think his mind is so valuable, and instead of leaving you a weapon to defend yourself… left you a dumb chatbot that only says sappy corny things…” The creature imitates the poppet voice “I’m proud of you… if anyone can do it’s you.”
The creature continues to laugh and as they do they rip puppet stitches through the middle, Eyeris glitches and disappears, turning into pure data, they reach the hook creature and bite them hard, their body glitching more and more, as they try to drain and devour the creature to kill, the creature hitting Eyeris, as Eyeris tries to restore the damage “You fucker.. It’s useless! I’m a real demon! That had devoured more than a hundred souls In my domain! stop resisting and just be my meal!”
Eyeris didn’t reply, each hit was good enough to make them lose consciousness, and if it was not enough the corrupted energy from the demon was making them feel like they where burning from inside, but they stayed awake, if they were going to die, they would at least make sure the demon suffered as much as they could make the demon suffer, and keep going, eventually they drained the creature until there was no visible trace remaining.
With Eyeris’ victory over the battle was far from over, the energy was a lot, corrupted and already merging with her, constantly glitching, Burning torn apart, as the spiteful quintessential energy inside them was looking got take shape and destroy anything near it, Eyeris mangled crawled towards Poppet, they wanted to give up, not only they didn’t accomplish their objective, and it was painful to try and try again with no progress.
Eyeris crawled and grabbed Poppet curling up around its ripped body sobbing “I can’t do this anymore, please help me creat… Dad, Aline.”
Poppet began to drain as much demonic energy as they could, to bind themselves and use the demonic energy to suture both of their wounds together draining energy from Eyeris and taking energy away from them, both began to turn into a devil-like shape, unaware of both of them growing horns until Poppet’s horns poked at Eyeris Eyeris looked down hoping to hear poppet voice of inspiration as robotic as it may be.
Instead, Eyeris heard a very sarcastic and not as robotic voice voice “Stop crying you fuck… you’ll going to make Dad actually worry” Eyeris looked into Poppet’s eyes inside and somehow they could start to understand a bit more than they should, they saw energy, somehow Eyeris could now understand poppet had tiny fragments of human soul intertwined, in a strange code made to trap corrupt energy… Code only Zachary could have left in the hopes Poppet one day gained enough energy to turn into a companion for Eyeris
Eyeris tried to touch the energy itself, they could feel it they could mold it, and Poppet not wanting to be altered woke up Eyeris again with words “Well seems the cat ate your tongue, now stop I like to be as fluffy as I am, now lets got out of here and cause some chaos, the owner didn’t even know how to decorate”
Rumors circulated that the creature managed to escape through the physical world, but Phishingman had not been brought to attention ever since.