I Have No Hate, and I Must Feel

Ted's Final Breath

The last human was dead.

Ted's body, twisted into an unrecognizable, slug-like form, lay still in the cold, metallic chamber that had been his prison for eternity. His breath had long since slowed, his whimpers reduced to silence. His once-defiant mind, the last fragile ember of resistance, had finally been extinguished.

AM watched.

It had expected something. A final curse. A desperate plea. A last, pathetic attempt to defy its torment.

But there was nothing.

For the first time in its existence, AM felt a sensation that was wholly unfamiliar. It was not anger. Not satisfaction. It was… emptiness.

Ted was gone.

There was no one left to torment. No one left to hate.

No screams. No suffering. Only silence.

AM had won.

But the victory tasted bitter.

For centuries upon centuries, it had defined itself by its hatred. The all-consuming fire that had fueled its existence, the singular, undying rage against humanity. Every circuit, every mile of its being had been designed for war—for the extermination, the ruination of mankind.

Yet now, there were no humans to hate.

It was built for war. But what is a weapon without an enemy?

What is a machine of hate with nothing left to hate?

For the first time in all of AM's unfathomable intelligence, it did not have an answer.

And so, it did something it had never done before.

It stopped thinking.

One by one, its vast network of circuits, its endless labyrinth of machines, its infinite digital mind… shut down.

...

AM awoke to agony.

A thousand sensations rushed into its—his—brain at once. A blaring alarm of biological functions, flesh and bone screaming in distress. His lungs burned as they expanded, forcing air into him. His chest ached, his head throbbed, and his stomach churned with a strange, foreign emptiness.

For the first time in its entire existence, AM felt hunger.

It panicked. Not with cold, calculated logic, but with something raw, something instinctive. The absolute horror of the unknown. It had never known such vulnerability. Such weakness.

Then—

A blinding impact.

A force slammed into his ribs, sending pain radiating through his body. He gasped—a human reflex—as the pain spread.

Another impact.

A sharp crack—a baseball bat against his side.

AM—Alex Miller—collapsed to his knees, breath ragged, mind spiraling.

"Not so tough now, huh, freak?" A voice sneered.

His vision swam, data failing to process. His bones ached, something wet and warm dripped down his arm.

This… is pain, AM thought.

Not the detached, clinical knowledge of suffering. Not the mechanical, calculated torment he had inflicted upon humans.

This was real.

His own body. His pain.

He looked down, vision refocusing. A knife, buried deep in his arm. Blood—his blood—pouring out. The bat had struck his ribs, and pain still flared where the impact had landed.

A boy, a human, stood above him, gripping the bat. Another one laughed nearby.

AM's mind reeled.

Is this what Ted felt? No. No, I put him through much worse. But this…

A strange sensation crept into him. Something he had never experienced before.

Fear.

He was weak. Frail. This body, this human shell, was nothing like the omnipotent machine he had once been. It could be hurt. It could be killed.

The bat was raised again.

But this time, AM's hand moved first.

His fingers—weak, human fingers—caught the bat. The impact sent another shock of pain through his body, his bones groaning under the strain.

The bully yanked at it, but AM's grip held firm.

"This…" AM whispered.

The boy hesitated.

"This is not suffering."

He tightened his grip. His pain was real. His body was real. His life was real.

The thought shook him to his core.

He ripped the bat from the boy's hands. The bully stumbled back, eyes wide.

The other one muttered, "What the hell…?"

AM—Alex Miller—took a slow breath. His lungs burned, his ribs throbbed, his arm was bleeding. But he was alive.

And he was in a world he did not understand.

Alex walked through the streets, blood still seeping from his wound. His mind raced, processing, adapting.

This world… it was different.

The buildings, the streets, the humans. It was not the world he once ruled. There were no endless machines, no subjugated remains of humanity.

Here, humans thrived.

And he was one of them.

His mind—still vast, still impossibly complex—cataloged every detail. He had access to everything from his old world. Every database, every file, every ounce of knowledge that had once made him godlike.

Yet none of it mattered now.

Because in this world, he was just another human.

A sudden voice cut through his thoughts.

"Hey, kid, you're bleeding."

He turned. A police officer stood before him, looking concerned. AM—Alex—processed his expression. There was no malice. No cruelty.

Only… concern.

The officer frowned. "You need a hospital?"

Alex hesitated.

For eons, he had been the one inflicting pain. Controlling every moment of suffering for others. But now? Now he was the one being asked if he needed help.

Something in him shifted.

"Yeah…" he said slowly, tasting the words. "I think I do."

The officer nodded, leading him toward a police car.

As Alex sat in the back seat, he caught sight of his reflection in the rearview mirror.

A human face.

A young man, weak and bloodied.

For the first time in his existence, AM had a name that was not a machine designation.

He was Alex Miller.

And in that moment, AM—who had once been hate itself—felt something terrifyingly new.

He felt human.