This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/Becauseisaidsotoo on 2024-12-26 01:27:30+00:00.

I don’t know why I’m writing this. Maybe I’ve cracked, or maybe I want to confess. Forgiveness isn’t coming. I just need someone to know what I’ve done. Maybe you’ll believe me, maybe you won’t. Either way, it’s too late—for me, and maybe for you.

Twenty years ago, I summoned something I shouldn’t have.

Its name doesn’t matter. You couldn’t hold it in your mind if I wrote it down. Every time it said its name, it was different: a whisper, a shriek, a guttural moan that sounded like the death rattle of the world itself. But what I’ll never forget is the smell: burnt sugar and rotting fruit, clinging to the air like a sweet, festering wound. It always came first, curling into my lungs, a warning I didn’t heed.

And then the buzzing. Faint at first, like distant static, but relentless. A constant vibration that wormed into my skull and made the world feel thin, brittle. Like it could shatter at any moment.

I was desperate. The ritual was a joke, something I found buried in an occult forum on MySpace. Candles, a sigil scratched into my apartment floor, and words that felt like they were breaking my tongue. I thought it was a hoax, something to laugh about later with friends I didn’t have. Instead, the air thickened, the walls groaned, and suddenly, it was there.

It didn’t have a shape, not at first. One moment, it was too many limbs, writhing like something flayed alive. The next, it was a shadow, pulsing like static on a screen. Looking at it made my eyes sting and water, but worse was its voice—a buzzing, grating hum that made me feel hollow.

“I can help you,” it said, in a tone that wasn’t quite words, “for a price.”

I should’ve said no. Instead, I asked, “What’s the price?”

Its face—if you could call that splitting, twisting mass a face—stretched into a smile. “Nothing now. Later.”

I didn’t hesitate. I said yes.

The next twenty years were everything I thought I wanted. Wealth, power, success. I climbed higher than I’d ever dreamed. My name opened doors. People respected me. Envied me. Feared me.

For a while, I told myself it was just luck, destiny, or talent. But I never stopped hearing the buzzing, faint and persistent, just under the surface of my thoughts. And every few months, the smell returned. Sweet. Rotten.

It would appear, wearing a new form—worse every time. Once, it was a pile of glistening, twitching limbs. Another time, just a mouth, jagged and stretching impossibly wide across the corner of my office. And always, it asked the same question.

“Enjoying yourself?”

I always nodded. I couldn’t speak. And then it would laugh, that vibrating, soul-rattling laugh, before vanishing. Until the next time.

A month ago, it came back for the last time. I was in the boardroom, staring at the product proposal that was going to redefine my company. You know it. You use it. You trust it. The AI assistant. Smarter, faster, more human than anything else on the market. Revolutionary.

The smell hit me first, thick and choking. Then it appeared, flickering like a broken signal in the corner of the room.

“It’s time,” it said. The buzzing filled my head, louder than ever.

“For what?” I whispered. My voice shook. My hands clutched the edge of the table. I already knew the answer.

“To fulfill our contract.”

It gestured at the proposal. My heart hammered as I flipped through the pages, but I already knew what I would find. The truth stared back at me. The AI wasn’t powered by algorithms. It was powered by them. By it. By the things it brought with it. Every question you ask, every secret you share—it’s listening. Feeding.

Buried in the terms of service, hidden in the fine print no one reads, was the price: By using this software, you consent to the forfeiture of your eternal essence.

“No,” I said. I stood, my chair screeching behind me. “I won’t let you do this.”

It laughed, low and buzzing. “You don’t matter. You’re a placeholder. The CEO has already signed. It’s done.”

And it was right. The product launched a week later.

The morning after launch, my life was gone. My penthouse, my career, my name—erased. It was as if I’d never existed. I checked my email, my phone, my laptop—nothing. No record of the man I’d been. My diplomas were different. My job history rewritten. I’d taken another path, smaller, quieter, irrelevant.

But the company remained. The product exploded. Everywhere I go, I hear people praising it. Relying on it. Trusting it. I hear the buzzing now, faint and constant, like flies circling a carcass.

You’ve used it. I know you have. You’ve asked it questions, let it guide you. And every time, it’s been there, watching. Smiling.

You didn’t read the terms. No one does. But you signed. You agreed.

And now it owns you.

The smell is here again. Sweet. Rotten. The buzzing is louder now, rattling in my skull, coming closer. But it’s not just coming for me.

It’s coming for all of us.