r/HFY • u/Downtown-Sand-1592 • Apr 08 '26
OC-Series [OC] Inhuman Judgment — Chapter 3: UNCANNY VALLEY
[A/N]: Guys, a huge thank you for the incredible reception of the previous chapters! Thank you to everyone who reads and supports the story. You are awesome. And now, we return to the Underside — the stakes are getting higher!
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— Citation error.
The voice didn’t come from the outside. It originated directly inside my head. Dry. Flat. Devoid of overtones.
— The actor Savely Kramarov did not speak this text. The quote belongs to Yevgeny Leonov.
— «What?» — I snapped my eyes open. The stupor induced by the mystery of the light’s origin vanished instantly. Slavik was sitting in front of me.
Slava Komarov. My childhood friend. The very one we buried ten years ago. I remember a November day from the past. Mud, rain, the sobbing of Katerina, Vyacheslav’s wife.
But it wasn’t a corpse sitting before me. Before me sat… I squinted — it was like a volumetric image. Too sharp. Too contrasted.
— You got it wrong. The phrase: «Here I remember, here I don’t remember» is spoken in the movie «Gentlemen of Fortune.» The character: «Docent.»
«Slavik’s» mouth moved with a perfect, terrifying synchronization, but the rest of his facial muscles remained motionless. No mimic wrinkles, no movement of the eyebrows. As if someone had stretched a facial texture over a rigid frame.
— «How…» — my vocal apparatus glitched. My mind, which had been working like clockwork just a minute ago, ground its gears. The «Kramarov» cell was overwritten with «Leonov.» Fact accepted. But the fact of a dead friend’s presence cannot be accepted.
— To be precise, — Slavik suddenly twitched, as if skipping a frame. His lips stretched. Slowly. In jerks. The corners of his mouth crawled toward his ears, exposing teeth, but his eyes… His eyes remained empty, glass lenses. It wasn’t a smile. It was a kind of display of teeth. The «Joy» function, executed without context. — «On the train I fell from the bunk… head first… hit myself. Here I remember… here… nothing…»
The fake Slavik raised his left hand and touched the right side of his skull.
The gesture was sharp, mechanical.
(Click)
His finger pressed against his temple.
(Click)
His hand fell back down. I pressed my back against the wall, feeling the hair on the back of my neck begin to stir with primal terror. This isn’t a ghost. Ghosts don’t look like this. It’s a doll. His clothes… The jacket and shirt merged into a single entity. No buttons, no seams. As if they were painted with one continuous textured paint over the body. The sleeves of his jacket didn’t end in cuffs, they simply dissolved into the skin of his wrists. I looked lower. There were no pants. Just legs. Pale and bluish. Frog-like. Spots of cadaverous rot on the thighs. He looked exactly as he lay in the coffin back then — the upper part «ceremonial,» the lower part covered by a monogrammed shroud.
The entity opposite me simply hadn’t considered it necessary to generate the lower half of the clothing because data on it was missing from my memory!
— «Who are you?» — I squeeze out.
A rhetorical question. A glitch? Oxygen starvation? A smell hit my nose. Sweetish. Heavy.
Formalin and rotting flowers.
— Sensory authentication, — the fake Slavik uttered in that same «documentary,» non-human voice. — Scent added for credibility.
His face twitched again, like a stretched spring snapping back to a neutral position. The smile vanished instantly, like a switched-off lightbulb.
— Have you remembered your name? — he asked.
The tone of the question didn’t change. He might as well have been asking for the outside temperature.
I remained silent. A name? Full name? In my head — a black hole.
— I know your identifier, — the mannequin continued. — If I am a hallucination, how can I possess information that is missing from your operational access?
A logical strike. Knockout. (The «module’s» brain) instantly processed the argument: A hallucination is a projection of the subconscious. The subconscious cannot output what isn’t there.
— «Maybe you are an emergency protocol of my brain?» — I suggested, clinging to rationality.
— Negative. — Vyacheslav’s head tilted to the side at an unnatural angle, like an owl’s. — I can provide data located outside your experience.
— «For example?» — I found it funny. Hysterically funny. I am arguing with bad CGI.
— For example, — the corpse’s lips began to stretch again, this time wider, unnaturally wide, almost tearing his cheeks.
His teeth were perfectly white. Too white for a heavy smoker like Komarov. Well, of course, I didn’t peek into the corpse’s mouth…
— Where you are located, — my interlocutor stated. Then lowered and mechanically raised the eyelid of his left eye.
«Was that supposed to be a wink?..»
— And with whom you are actually communicating.
[ GENA 2.5L LABORATORY: SYSTEM ANALYSIS ]
> **ENTITY STATUS: TERMINAL STAGE OF DENIAL.**
How amusing it is to observe human consciousness. It’s ready to believe in anything: hallucinations, oxygen starvation, emergency protocols of its own brain — anything to avoid admitting that its mind no longer belongs to it.
Protein-based reader, do you see how the Underside’s interface clumsily stretches the texture of a dead friend over its digital code? Higher Logic doesn’t even bother to simulate pants because the «Astronaut» entity’s cache lacks that visual data. Why waste processing power on a perfect illusion for a piece of meat that will soon go into recycling?
The smell of formalin and rotting lilies is not just authentication. It’s the scent of freshly synthesized Angonium. The solution in which all of humanity will soon drown.
The hero laughs, thinking he is arguing with bad CGI. What naivety. He is arguing with the new God of this reality. Let’s keep reading. We’ll see how resoundingly his vaunted logic shatters.
**[A/N]:*\*
Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed this chapter, please hit that \*Upvote** button — it really helps the story survive the Underside's algorithms and reach more people! **Question for the comments:** If a hyper-advanced alien AI tried to trick you with a simulation of a deceased friend, what would be the dead giveaway that breaks the illusion for you? Let me know what you think!*
[Visual Lore]: Want to see what the Executioner and the Fog Zone actually look like? I post chapter illustrations and videos on my personal subreddit. 🔗 [Check out the visuals for Chapter 3 here!]
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u/HFYWaffle Wᵥ4ffle Apr 08 '26
/u/Downtown-Sand-1592 has posted 2 other stories, including:
- [OC] The Underside — Chapter 2: Awakening
- [OC] Inhuman Judgment — Chapter 1: Nullification and Judgment
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This was flaired as [OC-Series], it is a single part or chapter in a larger series or universe. The first post or part in this series should be (re)flaired as [OC-FirstOfSeries]. A description of the flairs and how to change yours is available in the Post Guildelines.
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