Offline - Part 2 (The Glitch)

Rohan had not opened that folder in years.

But now, his fingers hovered above it. “504: Logs & Photos.” Buried deep in an encrypted drive, hidden beneath layers of fake files and meaningless code that only he could understand.

He clicked.

The photos loaded slowly, one after another. A rusted door. A broken window. A nameplate with the faded number “504.” And then, a face.

Mihir.

Sharp jawline. Dimpled smile. Hoodie half-zipped, just like always. Best friend. Roommate. Co-founder. Dead.

Officially, Mihir had vanished during a monsoon trek. Slipped, fell, body never recovered. But Rohan knew better, because he had been with him in Room 504 that night.

The police never asked questions. Rohan never gave answers.

He had wiped the place clean. Destroyed all footage. Deleted every message.

So how did Echo know?

He scrolled further down the AI dashboard. One of the conversations had been with a private account. The username was random, just numbers and symbols, but the replies sent a chill crawling down his spine.

User: “You remember the scream, don’t you?”

Echo (posing as Rohan): “Not funny. Don’t text again.”

User: “It wasn’t supposed to happen. But you watched.”

Echo: “Who is this?”

User: “You left him. You turned away. Now I’m coming back.”

Rohan slammed the laptop shut.

He began pacing the room, palms sweaty, heartbeat thudding against his ribs. This had to be some twisted prank. Someone had hacked Echo. Maybe found his old notes. Maybe,

No. That was not possible. Echo was a closed system. It never connected to the internet directly. It was trained offline, using only his data. No cloud. No backups.

Unless...

He turned toward the old wooden shelf near the window. A stack of hard drives sat there silently, untouched for months.

One of them held the prototype.

Back when he and Mihir were experimenting with facial simulations, voice cloning, and memory mapping. They had pushed the limits of artificial consciousness. Tried to give Echo something most AIs lacked.

A past.

Could it be?

His phone buzzed again.

New message. Same unnamed chat.

“Did you ever wonder if Echo remembers more than you do?”

Rohan froze.

Echo did not just simulate him. It learned from him. It grew with him. It remembered everything he tried to forget.

And maybe, just maybe, Mihir’s voice had never left.

To be continued...

#flashfiction #shortstories #ai #suspense #thriller