When people began to disappear from Earth thousands by thousands, Chaeyoung could promise you everything went downhill.

 

It happened quite discreetly at first, until someone realized that something was wrong. Alerts were given, scientists tried to understand how people were picked to disappear, but nothing pointed towards a certain explanation. Humans were just disappearing, and no one understood why. Of course, everyone had their opinion : God giving out punishments, aliens, magic… Chaeyoung just saw it as… destiny. It felt right, somehow.

 

What she didn’t expect was to be the only one left.

 

She had woken up from a nap at her grandmother’s house feeling like something was very wrong. The broken bowl on the floor, the unfinished cake on a plate, the tv still on with no one in front were giveaways that her whole family had disappeared. Everything was quiet, only the faint of the voices coming from the movie on the tv breaking the heavy silence.

 

She slowly picked up the porcelain pieces on the floor before throwing them out - what for, she wondered. She just couldn’t leave the place messy. She turned off the tv, finished the piece of delicious but somehow bitter cake on the counter, and went back to her room. She had prepared something in case that scenario would happen. The whole family had done it. She grabbed the red suitcase that had been resting at the corner of her room with a serious face ; quickly checked that everything she needed was inside, and left the house.

 

In a few weeks, half of the populations on Earth had disappeared. Groups used this opportunity to take control, other to break laws, almost no one worked in some countries whereas others decided to stay focused - Chaeyoung’s parents refused to let her go to uni, and took her and her brother to the countryside in case things would go wrong in the city. It had felt weird to go from studying engineering and robots all week to doing nothing all day.

 

The only interesting thing that happened before being left all alone was the discovery of an abandoned strawberry farm a few kilometers away from her grandparents’ place. The fruits were still growing by themselves but nature had taken back her rights on the abandoned buildings. It was the only time she had truly felt like it was the end of the world - until the day she remained - or so she thought - the last one on Earth.

 

The suitcase in the bike trailer, she cycled her way to the closest village only to discovered that it was empty - as expected, this time. She grabbed (she wouldn’t call it stealing) food she would need for the next few weeks, threw what she could at the back of her bike, checked if the electricity was till working, let out a reassured breath as all the lights in the town seemed to light up well. And finally, made her way to the strawberry farm.

 

She had prepared everything before coming here, in case things would go wrong even in a familiar place like the village. The interior of the building was clean, she had made herself a comfy room upstairs, and left the food in the cantine of the farm. Light was pouring in from the tall windows and she walked between the machines of the wide industrial room. She realized the only thing she was going to miss was speaking to people as she set her music a little bit louder in her earphones. Silence. She was afraid of that.

 

During the next few days, she tried to get accustomed to being all alone. Humming to herself, reading books out loud, going biking whenever she felt like moving. She would eat strawberries every morning ; they were really good.

 

One day, as she was wandering in the right aisle of the farm - the only area she hadn’t explored yet - she found the remaining of what seemed to be a humanly robot. It had probably been used for the farm, but eventually turned itself off when everyone left. It was a bit heavy for her, but she hadn’t worked out for nothing and managed to bring it to her living area. Setting it on a table, she frowned as she realized there might be a way for her to make it work again, but it would be tough.

 

She spent the next 2 months rebuilding the robot, giving it a more human look, the ability to talk, to ‘think’, understand the minimum of human knowledge. It made her life busy again, and stopped the lonely thoughts from intruding her mind. She had suffered a bit more from them than she had imagined.

 

As june and july rolled by, she began to worry about food, electricity, warm water for winter, but everything stayed fine, and she thought that would probably be able to live a few years before it would all fall apart. As long as she didn’t disappear too, of course.

 

She finished at the beginning of august, the blinds all closed to stop the incredible heat outside to find a way in, water filling her fridges, her hair up on a high ponytail. She finished giving the robot clothes with sweaty hands ; she rubbed them on her shorts before pressing her fingers behind its right ear. That activated the whole mechanism and she watched as the robot seemed to breath like she did before slowly opening its eyes. Chaeyoung stayed quiet. Her studies were worth something, even in an empty world.

 

The robot was moving almost as smoothly as a real human being as it observed its surroundings, balancing its legs and touching its wrists like they had been stuck for a long time - which was true. Its gaze lingered on Chaeyoung and slightly parted its lips, but no sound came out. Chaeyoung nervously gulped and got closer to her creation.

 

“Hello, my name is Chaeyoung. I’m the one who took care of reprogramming your body. I made it better, too. Do you understand me ?” it blinked. “Okay, nod your head, like that -” she showed it. “- if you know what i’m talking about.”

 

The robot did as it was told, and Chaeyoung smiled. It got mirrored by the robot as it tried to do it, too. Which failed a bit, but the short woman knew it would succeed at some point.

 

“I gave you the ability to speak, just like what i’m doing right now. Do you think you could try it too ?” she waited patiently as the robot proceeded what it was asked to do.

 

“Yes.” the tone was flat, like it was bored and Chaeyoung scrunched her nose in disappointment. She still had a lot of things to work on. Her eyes widened a bit as the robot tried to smile again ; Her expression amused it. Well, that was good.

 

“Now we need to find you a name ! I can’t just call you ‘it’ all the time, hmm ?” it nodded. “First of, do you see yourself as a boy or a girl ?” chaeyoung had dressed it in what would be considered girly clothes, as well as her face features, because she needed a female friend more than a male one, to be honest.

 

“What are you ?” Chaeyoung raised her eyebrows at the first question the robot asked her.

 

“I’m a girl. Of course, neither is fine, too. I put that info in your head already.” she lightly tapped her own head, and it did the same.

 

“Then... it am one too.”

 

“You can say I, you know. You’re a living entity now, maybe not alive as I am, but you’re here.”

 

“I am. Here.” this time, the smile was more heartwarming. Chaeyoung was proud, of her herself, of her creation. Her loneliness would finally go away.

 

“Now, try to get up.”

 

She watched as the robot set her feet on the floor and got up the table. She stayed still at first, before moving her legs a bit, getting used to the movements of her knees and ankles. And finally, a few steps. Chaeyoung grabbed her arm when she stumbled a bit, and was satisfied to feel that the robot’s skin was not cold. She managed to make it feel like the warmth of a real human being was there, and she praised herself again.

 

“Thank -” a pause. “Thank you.”

 

“No problem. Come on, we’re going to that shelf.” she pointed at the furniture at the end of the room. “Books ! we’ll check some for you to find a name, what do you think ?” the robot smiled and they carefully made their way there.

 

She left her alone for half an hour to clean the mess around the table - put the tools somewhere else, open the blind a bit, get water for herself. When she came back, the robot was still staring at the same page. She looked down at chaeyoung with what the girl would call a confused smile.

 

“Right.” she deadpanned. “Sorry. You know how to read but you’re not aware of it yet - here, let’s sit down, I’m going to show you.”

 

--

 

When the robot finally managed to read multiple pages by herself, the sun had set down, and they had moved outside, under the light breeze and warm light of the evening. They had settled around a tiny table in front of the entrance, Chaeyoung had cooked dinner for herself and the robot was quietly reading the books her creator had given her. The short girl was listening to an old audio tape of her grandmother telling her a story when she was younger - she had managed to put it on her phone, and had felt the need to listen to it.

 

She slightly jumped when she felt a tap on her shoulder and turned around a bit too quickly, bumping her head on the robot’s. She winced and rubbed the spot.

 

“Pain ?” the robot hesitantly - a better tone, good ! - asked.

 

“Yes…”

 

“I’m sorry.”

 

“It’s alright. Did you want to tell me something ?”

 

“Yes, I think I found a name I like.” the robot slide the book across the table and let go of it in front of chaeyoung. She pointed at a word floating in the sentences of the page, and Chaeyoung felt like she finally had a real person beside her as she read the name out loud.

 

“Tzuyu.”

 

“Yes, that’s me.”

 

“That’s you.” Chaeyoung couldn’t help the automatic gesture of hugging - she was feeling too much, too happy to have someone by her side again, to hear words after months alone. She wrapped her arms around Tzuyu, and the robot stayed still for a few seconds before awkwardly returning the gesture. It didn’t quite feel right yet, but Chaeyoung was satisfied with it anyway. At this point, someone could punch her and she would feel great.

 

Contact. She had missed that, too.

 

--

 

Tzuyu seemed to be really happy about her name, if it was possible for a robot to feel real emotions. Chaeyoung had done the most she could to make it feel it was like a real human ; so of course feelings weren’t, real, or felt, like hers, but there were here and Tzuyu could acknowledge them. So the short girl knew she was happy by the way she (still awkwardly) smiled and softly repeated her new found name.

 

They didn’t stay out much longer outside ; Chaeyoung was exhausted and Tzuyu was not helping, still reading stories out loud with her sadly rather plain and boring voice. Chaeyoung really hoped it would adapt quickly : she didn’t want to speak with what sounded like the ‘woman’ at the subway station, no. Of course, the robot asked if she could sleep, too. Chaeyoung told her that she gave her the capacity to, but that she would rather want her to stay up for the first night, in case it would affect her recently finished body. Tzuyu seemed to understand and she left Chaeyoung to read by the library, making sure to not disturb her creator during the night.

 

For the first time in months, Chaeyoung went to sleep knowing she wouldn’t be alone the next day.  

 

—

 

Did Chaeyoung feel sad when her friends began to disappear ? Of course, yes, it was terrifying, but she had accepted their fate before her close ones started to go missing. However, as a rather strange dream hit her in her sleep, she began to question herself.

 

She was standing still in the middle of a sunflower field, under a warm sun and a strong wind. She could only watch as her family, her friends and classmates, teachers even, walked around, not minding her at all. She wanted to shout to gain their attention, but no sound came out of . She managed to reach for her neck but her legs still refused to move. Even her mother seemed to ignore her - the only person watching her was far away, Chaeyoung could only tell their silhouette and that they couldn’t move, either. What did it mean ? She tried to move her legs again, but it felt like she tripped and her arms, in an attempt to stop her fall, stopped half way towards the room on what seems to be an invisible barrier. She saw the person at the side of the field do the same, and the only action she managed to do was punch the invisible wall before she woke up, a cold sensation hitting her cheek.

 

Her eyes shot wide open, and she calmed down when she realized the cold thing on her cheek had only been Tzuyu’s hand.

 

“You seemed rather unwell, so I thought waking you up would be the best idea.”

 

“Hm, thank you… Your hands are too cold.” she sat up, rubbing her eyes. “It’s not normal. What did you do during the night ?”

 

Tzuyu seemed to think for a few seconds, her eyes blinking and shining a  bit more lightly than they were supposed to.

 

“I can’t recall.”

 

“What ? you didn’t sleep, did you ?”

 

“I don’t know how to do that, Chaeyoung.”

 

The short girl bite down on her thumb. Memory problem, heating going low. She had some work to do again, today. She knew Tzuyu wouldn’t be perfect during the first days, but she was a bit disappointed, in herself, mostly. She couldn’t really blame the robot, after all.

 

She made her way to the kitchen, Tzuyu following close by.

 

“Okay, so only what happened during the night is blank, what we did yesterday is fine ?” she tiptoed to grab a bowl, grunted when it almost fell on her and mentally cursed for making herself look ridiculous in front of Tzuyu - who had managed to grab the bowl before it could hit her creator’s head.

 

She shivered as her fingers touched Tzuyu’s when she got the bowl back from her. They were way too cold.

 

“Yes.”

 

“That’s good news. We’ll take care of the matter later, though. want to go grab some strawberries with me ?”

 

Of course, Tzuyu agreed. She couldn’t do much without being with chaeyoung yet, and the girl hoped the robot would gain some self awareness and a sense of freedom soon, because she wouldn’t be able to bear having her by her side all the time - and she wanted Tzuyu yo enjoy herself, too.

 

The fruits seemed to glow under the morning sun, and Chaeyoung happily ran around the plantations to check which ones looked best. She stopped when she heard loud clicking noise and let out a sigh as she took in the scene of Tzuyu on all fours, strawberries splattered under her palms, hair hiding her face.

 

Chaeyoung stayed still. She wanted to see if the robot could get up by herself. She suppressed a laugh after half a minute, Tzuyu very clearly struggling in front of her. She knew it added a problem to the pile, but hey. Failure could be fun sometimes.

 

“Chaeyoung, please. Help.” Tzuyu said more than she asked -  but maybe that was just the flat tone of her voice. “It’s weird, the, the fruits. I don’t like the texture under my hand. Also, i can’t see you.”

 

It was ridiculous. The robot not even able to move her head, how, for once, Chaeyoung heard a clear emotion in her voice (disgust, but still rather flat), the fact that Chaeyoung could leave right now, but she wasn’t that cruel. She left the bowl on the floor, near the most good looking strawberries she had found, and she reached for Tzuyu. Placing her hands on her back and legs, chaeyoung pushed her up - she heard the knees rotations click again, and the rest of the body seemed to function again.

 

Tzuyu wouldn’t stop staring at the strawberry stains on her hands as chaeyoung dragged her to pick up some.

 

“Just wipe them on your shorts, we can always wash them.”

 

“Can I taste it ?”

 

Chaeyoung curiously looked up from her crouching position.

 

“Hm, since you can’t eat any real food, i don’t think it’ll have taste, but you can always try. Your tongue isn’t real anyway.” she watched as tzuyu tentatively her hand - but nothing happened. She kept a straight face before wiping her hands on her t-shirt. Chaeyoung was right : she didn’t even feel the texture on her metallic tongue.

 

“Told you. Hey, since it seems your knees bend easily, try sitting like me.” the short girl sat cross legged, and she winced at the weird squeaking sounds the robot made when she sat down. “...okay - we have to work on that too.”

 

Silence fell between the two as Chaeyoung picked the strawberries in front of her, and tzuyu watched attentively, her hands massasing her knees like she had realized the sounds had affected Chaeyoung. Eventually, the short girl spoke up.

 

“My friends used to call me strawberry princess, since I’ve always eaten a lot. But I’m going to tell you a secret, Tzuyu, I think I like apples more.” On that, the short girl engulfed 2 strawberries at the same time, and she looked a bit like a hamster, with her cheeks full and that stupid grin on her face. The robot stayed quiet, observing the fruit between her fingers. After squishing a few and tasting what seemed like nothing to her, she didn’t know what to say about it. She just wished she could love them as much as her creator did, enjoy them with a smile on her face. A true one.

 

“Hey, stop sulking, I’m sorry I’m not good enough to make you taste stuff. We can always try, it’s not like we’re going to disappear anyway -“ the last words got half caught in , and Tzuyu thought the girl had choked on the strawberries. “I mean I- I hope I won’t. But I think I’ll be fine.”

 

“What do you mean ?”

 

“I haven’t told you the reason why we’re the only ones here, right ? Or why I built you ?”

 

“I don’t recall.”

 

So Chaeyoung explained everything to the robot. The first people who disappeared, how countries began to attack others and accuse them of silent massacres, the realization that it was happening everywhere and to anyone. How the first person closed to her who disappeared was her seat and roommate at uni, jihyo, a brilliant girl, who did not deserve to be gone this early during the terrifying event. No one could feel when it would happen to them, there had been no signs, no warnings. They just vanished.

 

When she talked about her friends and family, Chaeyoung barely managed to stop her tears.

 

“We had a strong group, been friends for more than 10 years with almost all of them. Jeongyeon and Nayeon, they were like my older sisters, always there to encourage me and they were there when my parents weren’t. I used to study a lot with jihyo, my childhood neighbor and the girl I spent a lot of time at uni with. She was really smart, and caring, too. I had friend from overseas, they joined the same university as us, Mina, momo and Sana, three peas in a pod. Truly the strongest trio. They were in Japan before they vanished and I didn’t get to say goodbye...” she stopped to bite on another strawberry. It felt like she would break down any time, but she couldn’t appear that vulnerable in front of Tzuyu, not yet. She had to look determined, ready to face anything, or the robot would get worried and that was not in the plan. “And, my best friend, Dahyun. We got into an argument the day before she disappeared. I never got to say sorry.”

 

This time, she couldn’t avoid the sobbing. She had felt so bad about yelling at her on the phone for no reason, and never getting to apologize afterwards. It had crushed her and she would never forgive herself for that. She felt Tzuyu reach for her arm, but she didn’t move, her hands hiding her face to block her tears as she finally let go of her feelings, sitting on the floor in the middle of the strawberry field, the sun high and the faint sounds of Tzuyu’s metallic parts moving being the only thing breaking the silent, and her sobs.

 

—

 

Chaeyoung busied herself with Tzuyu’s problems during the rest of the day. She admitted crying had made her feel better, and Tzuyu’s attempts to cheer her up had worked just enough to make her feel like working today.

 

They settled in the mechanics room, Tzuyu sitting on the table, Chaeyoung moving around with her tools. The robot had requested to stay on, after making sure that she wouldn’t feel pain.

 

“No, no, no physical pain for you. No pain in general, normally. I can’t give you the gift of life and make you suffer like a normal human, please.” A scoff.

 

Chaeyoung opened the panel on the robot’s back first. She took care of the heating panel - one of the button was turned off, and she pressed it before reaching for Tzuyu’s hand : the heat was slowly coming back. Everything else seemed right, and she went for the knees : after her fall earlier that day, she was a bit worried things would have been damaged, but it seemed fine. She tried to understand where the sounds were coming from and only put a bit of oil between the junctions - she told herself it was because the whole body was new. She looked up to see Tzuyu look a bit distressed.

 

“It’s the first time I see myself under my skin.” Chaeyoung gave her a smile, unable to know what to tell the robot precisely. She knew she wasn’t human anyway, so it wasn’t really a big deal. She checked the palms too, the wrists, the arms. Took care of a few screws but overall, no problems. The most difficult part, now, the head and the memory problem. She asked Tzuyu to sit on the chair rather than on the table.

 

She put the robot’s hair up in a ponytail to get access to the head locks, and carefully turned them open before putting thin gloves on and taking the scalp off. A weird sound came out of Tzuyu’s mouth, and Chaeyoung left it on the table before asking what was wrong.

 

“It felt like you just took away a part of my head” silence. “You did !” the voice sounded genuinely surprised for once, and Chaeyoung gave herself a mental thumbs up. She knew the voice would fix itself eventually. She quickly stopped the robot from touching her head when she saw her raise her arms.

 

“No.” her tone was firm, and Tzuyu let her arms fall back down immediately. “Okay, listen, you might… feel little electric hits or weird things since i’m going to work on the second most important part of yourself. If it - if it hurts, which logically, shouldn’t happen, please tell me.”

 

She put her tiny lamptorch between her teeth to gave herself light and hovered above the tzuyu’s ‘brain’, not really waiting for an answer.

 

“I trust you.”

 

She paused.

 

“Of course. I’m the one who created you.” why not speak with the robot if it could move her attention away from what Chaeyoung was doing to her ? and it was her original purpose, after all.

 

“Well, that is true. But I meant that I trust Chaeyoung, the one with nice friends and love for strawberries even though she likes apples more. You are you first, and my creator second.” Tzuyu looked satisfied with her own clapback as she straightened her back and let out a happy huff.

 

“What books have you been reading...?” Chaeyoung opened a tiny panel on the left with her finest tool, and pressed the numbers 5, 9, 3 on it ; a blue light , like planned, and she closed it back.

 

“I don’t remember, I told you. But I have acquired for sure more vocabulary. Also, you are an interesting book yourself, Chaeyoung.”

 

“What do you mean ?” the girl asked, half mindedly. With the blue light on, she could now access the memory part without worry. She watched as the mechanics moved to let her have access to it ; it had taken her a while to build the head, as it was itself at least 3 little robots.

 

“You have stories to tell.” chaeyoung snorted. That would have been a perfect line in a movie, but she wasn't in one, and it looked more like an apocalypse one than a romance title anyway.

 

“Tzuyu, you won’t remember anything i’m going to say on 3, okay ? i need to check your memory card.”

 

“Alright.” the robot fidgeted.

 

“1, 2, 3.”

 

--

 

Tzuyu felt like someone had suddenly woken her up, as everything that happened the past days came flooding back into her head. Her first time seeing chaeyoung, choosing her name, picking the strawberries. But something… something seemed stuck between her memory and what she knew nothing about. Like a moment passed and she had only been half here to hear about it. She reached for her ears, surprised herself when she touched her hair, and rubbed the two earrings engines. Was something wrong with them ?

 

“You good ?” no, they were fine, she could hear Chaeyoung clearly. She turned to look at the girl, and the reason why they were in the reparation room made its way to her… mind ? too.

 

“I remember what I did last night.”

 

“Yes ? please tell me about it.” Chaeyoung was beaming.

 

“At first, I stayed at the book shelf, like you told me to. But then I heard some noises outside and went to check, it was only rabbits eating strawberries, though. It made me worried. And then… I think I made my way to the road, since I saw some light there. It was a car, but it had crashed into a poll and no one was in. maybe someone was still on earth with you and they, they disappeared during the night, while driving.”

 

Tzuyu was playing with her fingers again, avoiding Chaeyoung’s gaze.

 

“You sound unhappy… it’s fine, we didn’t know about them, but we’ll go check the car now. Anything else ?” her creator’s voice was calm.

 

“I also believe I hit my head when I went back inside, maybe that’s why something was wrong with my memory card. Thank you for taking care of it.” they exchanged smiles.

 

“I’ll always be here to fix you, Tzuyu, I promise.”

 

Tzuyu then lead the way to the car, and Chaeyoung was eager to discover it. She had been alone for 3 months, how and why would someone show up next to her farm a few hours earlier ?

 

The car was a recent model, deep red, the front window completely fractured as it took quite the impact from the pole - the lights were still even though the vehicle was clearly broken.

 

Chaeyoung forced the driver’s door open as Tzuyu went for the back of the car. She checked inside the door, found an empty bottle and a map of… China ? she decided she would analize it later and looked in every corner of the front seats. Empty cups and snack bags, money, 2 credit cards, an uncharged phone and headphones were the treasures she got, along with a portable but empty charger and two magazines.

 

The back seats were empty, if it wasn’t for the sleeping bag and the dirty cushions, plus all the cigarettes ends on the car mat.

 

The car boot, however, was more interesting. Tzuyu was looking through one of the many bags that were stored in there, and Chaeyoung estimated that it would take them a few hours to check them all. She suggested getting them back into the building instead of here, near the terribly empty road, and Tzuyu agreed.

 

In total, there were 8 bags, plus the backpack Chaeyoung had gotten at the front seats.

 

In two of them, they got change of clothes, mainly male but a few female in there too. Chaeyoung guessed that it had been a couple in the car, but that the woman might have disappeared before her companion. They kept them, of course, and Chaeyoung wrote on her notebook that they had to wash them tomorrow.

 

3 bags were mainly food. From cans to drinks to snacks and sweets, there was a bit of everything, but most were foreign and Chaeyoung wondered how the heck she was going to check if all of that was good without internet nor a book about chinese culture. Direction : the food storage.

 

They got various things in the 3 last bags. A small TV, a PS4, newspapers, a folder with researches about the best travel places, passeports, more money. Chaeyoung furrowed her eyebrows as her hand reached for a gun. Why would they had such a thing with them ?

 

“Oh, they had just gotten married.” Tzuyu spoke up, the passeports and other papers in hand.

 

“That’s too bad.”

 

The more Chaeyoung thought about it, the more she felt like she was in a video game of some sort, and that a loot had just dropped next to her location. The problem with video games is that you think most of them won’t ever happen, but then your whole family and close friends disappear and you think, oh , someone predicted that.