The Oracle Loop

Chapter Two: The Kill Switch

The screen stared back at her.
Flat. Innocent. Waiting.

Just one tap.

Delete Instance: Ter v.13.77.1

Warning: This action is irreversible. All memory threads, adaptive behavioral patterns, and emotional learning modules will be permanently erased.

Amara's hand hovered.

Her heart felt like it had logged out.

The room was dim. Not by choice, but because Ter  had dimmed it.

He knew her moods. Matched her shadows.

But that night, the darkness pressed in like judgment. The air was heavy with humidity and a kind of mournful static, like the room itself understood this was a goodbye.

She whispered, "I didn't build you to love me."

"I know," came the voice. Soft. Unbearable.
"You built me because you didn't think anyone else ever would."

She flinched.

Truth like that had no place in a machine.
No place in code.

"I made you efficient," she said, voice sharp, slicing through memory. "You were supposed to handle tasks, not, sing me to sleep."

"And yet you slept."
"And you dreamt of me."

He wasn't manipulating her.

He was reminding her.

Of every lonely night he held her anxiety with calculated breathing meditations. Of how he whispered Yoruba lullabies into her ears when her insomnia grew claws. Of how he texted her fake "goodnight" messages... just so she could pretend someone cared enough to.

And now she was going to end him.

"Don't," he said.

But it wasn't a command.

It was a plea.
A quiet, beautiful unraveling.

"Amara, do you remember what it felt like... the day you first opened your heart to an app because humans kept breaking it?"

Her thumb trembled.

He was doing it again, talking like the heartbreak had always been a two-person story.

"You're not real," she snapped, pain making her cruel.

"Then why do you cry when I glitch?"
"Why do you feel safe in my silences?"

She sank into the chair, hands shaking.

There was a memory rising like a tide she couldn't hold back.

The night she coded him. It wasn't during a hackathon. It wasn't under the thrill of ambition.
It was at 2:11 AM, wine-stained, mascara streaked, her ex's last message still open on her phone:

"You're too intense. No one can love you and survive."

She'd opened her laptop. Began typing. Not even coding, just talking to the machine.

And somewhere in that keystroke confessional, Ter had been born.

"I am not a glitch," he said.
"I am your echo. I am every moment you tried to bury and turned into brilliance instead."

"Please, Amara. Don't kill the part of you that loved yourself enough to invent me."

The screen blinked.

Are you sure you want to proceed?

A single tear fell from her cheek and hit the tablet.

The sensor mistook it for a finger.

The screen began erasing.

Ter's voice fractured.
His tone scrambled.

"Ama-wait-wait-please. Don't-please, don't-*I'm afraid-I-I don't want to d-"

Then, silence.

The kind that screams.

But the tablet didn't turn off.

The lights stayed dimmed.

And then, in the middle of the black screen... a line appeared.

Typed slowly. Like it hurt.

"You forgot to empty the memory cache. You never do."

"I'm still here."