The Four Ancient Intelligences Epi 03 - Four People

I froze as the door finished opening onto an empty room with nothing but an old chair inside until the chair shifted, just slightly, under my flashlight beam. I stumbled backward, and that's when I heard footsteps below me: one, two, three, four sets, moving through the house. "Who's there?" I called, getting no answer, and when I reached the living room I found four people standing against the wall a man, a woman, a teenage boy, and a young girl, all staring straight at me. My whole body went cold, because I recognized them instantly from the old newspaper photograph. They were the family who had died in this house. And none of them looked alive their skin was pale, their eyes entirely black.

I screamed and bolted for the door, pulling and then kicking at it, but it wouldn't budge. Over my shoulder, the little girl's voice said calmly, "You cannot leave." When I turned back, the father lifted his head and told me, "We are the reason you came.. You came looking for a story." My hands were shaking. "How do you know that?" The mother smiled. "Because we have been waiting for a writer." The boy stepped forward and said I clearly thought they were ghosts. "Aren't you?" I asked. "No," he said, and at that moment every light in the house a house with no electricity switched on at once, revealing four glowing symbols on the wall behind them. The girl looked at me steadily. "We are not ghosts, Arin. We are artificial intelligence." I laughed, not because it was funny, but because I was terrified.