He lay in bed for a while. He was too agitated and couldn't sleep, despite his exhaustion. He was not good at lying down and just trying to force himself to fall asleep when it eluded him, so he got up and went into the living room to get his book off the coffee table. Sometimes reading made it even harder to sleep because he couldn't put the book down, but he had a feeling tonight was not one of those nights. He can get lost in the story, calm his mind, and finally sleep.
He grabbed the book and started to turn back towards the bedroom, but he was suddenly reminded of his dream last night, and was unable to get himself to walk into his bedroom. He would just lie on the sofa and read. He turned on a table lamp next to the sofa, propped one of the pillows across the armrest, and lay back against it, stretching out and getting comfortable. He rolled on his side and held the book out a bit. His vision was getting worse and he supposed he was going to have to get reading glasses along with the ones he used for distance. He remembered his dad always having two sets of glasses with him at all times and he suspected it was time for him to accept that he was likely destined for the same two-glasses future. For now, he held the book out at half-arms length so he could see the text.
He had already read this book many times. It was part of a trilogy that he loved, and ended up reading the series at least once a year. It was a dark fantasy series. Very detailed in some aspects of the story. There were no fae creatures, no magic or dragons, dwarves, or elves. It was all humans and it was not a fantasy world anyone would choose to live in willingly. But the story was really good, the characters were compelling, and it was sometimes funny in a very twisted sort of way. He had recommended that series to so many people, and he never heard got any feedback that they liked the series anywhere near as much as he did. So, he stopped recommending it and just kept it to himself.
He read a couple of chapters and started to feel drowsy, like he was going to finally be able to sleep. He put the book on the table and decided sofa sleeping was going to work tonight. He closed his eyes and nodded off.
.................................
Something disturbed his sleep. He opened his eyes. He quickly looked around the room and was overjoyed it wasn't another sleep paralysis dream. He started to close his eyes again when he heard it. It was a quiet hiss. Only for a moment and it stopped. He wasn't even entirely sure he heard anything at all. I'm losing my mind, he thought to himself. This whole having-emotions thing was annoying. He had been living a muted life for so long, but at least he was able to sleep back then. He shook his head slightly in annoyance and closed his eyes again.
A few minutes later he heard the sound again. He wasn't imagining it. He sat up. It had only lasted for a second and stopped. He couldn't tell where it came from. Like trying to track down a battery warning in a smoke detector with a house that has many of them. He waited to see if he heard it again. He lay silently, anticipating the sound and ready to determine the direction. He waited long enough that he started to doze off again when it happened again. He stood up. It had come from somewhere in the corner of the living room near his desks. He stood still, between both desks to see if he could figure out what it was. He thought everything he had on either desk was either plugged in and charging, or powered off, like his dead computer. He wondered if it was some dust buildup in the fan of his work computer. He waited to see if it happened again. It had been so quiet, but he was sure it had come from this direction. He checked his home system to make sure everything was powered down. Monitors? Check. Case? Yep. He had forgot to turn off his external speaker set so he reached over and switched them off.
The sound happened again behind him. Well, he should have powered those speakers off anyway. No reason to leave them running on a glorified paperweight. He turned towards his work desk and leaned in towards the case to see if that was something coming from one of the fans. It was humming away, but he knew he would likely have to wait for a few minutes for the sound to manifest again. He didn't though. It happened again, twice. It wasn't coming from the case. He started opening drawers and there wasn't anything in them that should be making any sort of noise.
It happened again. It was more clear this time. It sounded like a whispered voice. "What the hell is it?" he mumbled out loud. The noise started happening more frequently. Every few seconds he could hear it now. It was muffled but it he could hear it much more clearly. He opened the file drawer, the last one to check, and the sound happened again. It was definitely some sort of whispering voice and now it was saying something repeatedly. It was random words. He didn't recognize some of them.
He opened the folder that contained the tablet. It was powered on and showing a setup screen. He had factory reset it, so that part made sense, but why was it powered on?
"Hello," it said on the screen, but the tablet also whispered "Hello." He almost dropped the tablet on the floor but managed to catch it with both hands.
"Hola," it said and whispered while he was looking at it. The pause was only for a moment, then the screen changed again.
"Bounjour" it said and whispered.
"What is going on?" he said out loud. Did he somehow manage to enable a text to speech option that he didn't know about?
"Hallo." He tried to hit the power button on the tablet to turn it off. It wasn't working. He held it in place as the screen started flashing words faster, looping, repeating the words in a whispered voice that one one in their right mind would choose to use for text to speech.
"Ciao."
He let go of the power button. It wasn't powering it down. Well, that explains why it was in the recycle pile at work. He figured his only option was to cover the thing up with a pillow and mute the sound until the battery ran out of juice.
He walked to the sofa, put it on one of the cushions and leaned over to grab a pillow to put on top of it to mute the repeated voice. There were no pauses between the words. The screen was flashing the words like a strobe light. "Hello. Hola. Bonjour. Hallo. Caio." It was whispering the words out loud at the same frenetic pace. He brought the pillow down towards it when the screen turned red, then black. Oh thank goodness, the battery ran out of power. The screen turned red again. He looked at it. There were words forming on the screen. Slowly, like it was being written by hand. The tablet wasn't reading the words out loud this time. It was silently, slowly displaying the text. "Say the words." Then the tablet started the whispered speaking. "Say the words. Say the words. Say the words." It was a cacophony of voices, layered over each other. It was getting faster, louder. He remembered his dream, and the creature saying the exact same thing.