The Voice Inside Me Was An AI, Not A Demon Chapter 02

The Voice Inside Me Was An AI, Not A Demon Chapter 02

The next morning, my mom stepped out of her room to get me for breakfast. She nearly fell when she saw me still kneeling on the floor.

My dad came out behind her and lost his patience. “Stand up.”

“All those years bullying Angie weren’t enough? Now you’re pretending to be some mindless puppet, like we’ve been torturing you?”

“Don’t just stand there, Raphaela. Roll your ass downstairs!”

Inside my head, I was screaming. No, Dad, don’t say it like that! I didn’t mean to scare Mom. I can’t control my own body!

But no one could hear me.

All they saw was me walking to the top of the stairs and tipping sideways. The chip took “roll downstairs” literally. My body tumbled the entire way down from the second floor.

At the top of the stairs, my parents went white.

Adrian scrambled down after me.

Their mouths were all moving at once, every word hitting the chip as a new command, piling up faster than it could process.

But all I heard was a roar. I couldn’t make out a single word through the noise.

The chip defaulted to forced execution mode, and my mouth locked into a loop.

[I must stand up immediately. I must identify the command. I must execute the task.]

[I must stand up immediately. I must identify the command. I must execute the task.]

[I must stand up immediately. I must identify the command. I must execute the task.]

I tried to stand. My balance gave out immediately.

I looked down. My shin bone was sticking through my skin.

Adrian caught me, his face the color of ash. My mouth was still moving, pushing out one last mechanical line.

[Motor system failure. Unable to execute command…]

The chip couldn’t override blood loss. Everything went black.

I came to in a hospital bed at Bellhaven General.

They fixed my leg in surgery. But my dad told the doctors I was just acting out from shock, so he refused to let them run a neuro eval. The plan was to sign me out the minute my fever broke.

My “masters” were huddled by the window, arguing in whispers.

My mom’s voice was raw from crying. “That thing is still controlling her. Maybe Cassian’s exorcism didn’t work at all. We should get neurology to do a full workup.”

Yes. They needed to scan my head. It wasn’t a demon. It was a chip!

For the first time, I felt something like hope.

My dad glanced at Angelica, uneasy.

She started sobbing. “This is all my fault. I finally found an exorcist, and he still couldn’t help Rafa. But maybe the problem isn’t in her head. Maybe it’s me. I asked her to take the SAT for me, and she said no. That might be why she won’t go back to normal even after the ritual.”

“What she really wants is for me to be gone.”

“Mom, Dad, I’ll go. I’m too stupid for Aldercrest anyway. I don’t deserve to be your daughter.”

Adrian pulled her close, his face tight with pain. “Angie, don’t say that. You’ve always been the sweetest person in this family. Everyone loves you. Rafa’s the one who turned cold and weird because she thought her grades made her better than everyone.”

My dad nodded hard. “Exactly. If this family can only keep one daughter, it’s you. No question.”

My mom opened her mouth, but my dad shut her down.

“Have you forgotten what Rafa did to Angie? She stole Angie’s lunch money. Ripped up her textbooks.”

“Angie asked Adrian for help with a few math problems, and Rafa dumped an entire bottle of ink over her head.”

“Right before the SAT, I heard her say it to Angie’s face. She said once she got into Aldercrest, she’d cut Angie off and leave this family for good.”

No. None of that was true.

Angelica stole the lunch money herself. She ripped up her own textbooks.

I poured ink on her because she’d used that same bottle to destroy a photograph of Adrian’s mother.

I’d told them the truth a hundred times growing up.

But every time, Angelica would cry and offer to give up her room, her place in the family, everything. And every time, my parents decided I was the liar.

The old stories kept piling up. My mom stopped arguing.

My dad’s jaw set. “Call Cassian back. She might’ve been faking this whole time.”