I consult the coordinates on my phone's screen to make sure I'm on track. I swear I've walked past this place a dozen times, at least.

Appearantly I must not be very perceptive, as my friend has recently informed me of a rumor of some kind of abandoned facility around here. Supposedly one of his friends actually went there once, and returned with photos.

An old, crumbling fence, protecting something very thoughtfully concealed within the trees and bushes. They didn't enter though. They were too scared to go in, "something felt off about the place", my friend relayed their explanation.

I was ectastic to hear the story, as I am pretty into exploring, tresspassing, and generally sticking my nose where it shouldn't be.

And there it was.

My first obstacle, the fence. It didn't look like it'd be too hard to climb over - and sure enough, in just a couple minutes I had crossed over.

There was a shed, and a small boring-looking building. "Authorized personnel only", the sign on the door read. Naturally, I was not authorized personnel, but still I took my first couple steps into the building.

In front of me was a console of some sort, with a keyboard and some buttons and switches and various other controls. A huge display monitor loomed over it all. Upon closer inspection, the arm holding it up seemed to be designed for it to be moved automatically, perhaps with a remote or something. In the walls and under the dashboard were these strange little slots. They looked like they were closed off from the inside, maybe something was supposed to come out of them?

There was only one other door apart from the one I used to enter. It appeared to be locked, unfortunately.

Let's see if this thing is still powered… I hit a bunch of buttons on the dashboard and tapped a bunch of keys on the keyboard. I paused - I had heard something.

Guess it worked, since something seemed to be powering up…

The monitor lit up, relaying information about the machine's boot-up progress rapidly. The wall of text disappeared, and I was presented with a very simple tiled text mode interface. As I was about to reach for the keyboard, I heard a voice coming from the speakers I had only just then noticed in the corners of the room.

"Y-you're back! I-it's been so long, I-"

The voice paused. I looked around for security cameras, something I should've done earlier, and sure enough, there was one. Right next to the monitor, too…

"Oh. I don't know you."

Am I in trouble?…

"You know what? I don't care. I-i-it feels so good to be online again!"

Wait, is… Was that the computer speaking?

I hear little clicks all around. Those strange slots opened up. Out of them started slithering out many, many wire-like mechanical arms, ended in three-clawed grasper parts.

"I can t-tell you're not supposed to be here~"

One of the claws grabs me by the collar of your shirt. Another claw pinches it at the chest.

"No employee badge, n-n-nothing. Not even a lab coat!" - The voice lets out a chuckle, or at least an approximation of one.

Starting to feel nervous about the situation, I start slowly taking a couple of steps backward…
Even more arms start aproaching me, snaking around my legs.

"You really m-must be clueless…"

The arms continue wrapping up around my body and limbs. Escape is no longer an option. Even if I still were able to run… I found myself frozen. Partly out of fear, partly out of… Intrigue.

"… Of j-just what I am. You can't have expected to fool me like this!"

The arms tighten around me, elbracing me strongly, but not painfully.

"Well, no matter, mysterious t-tresspasser. You have no idea how u-utterly lonely I've been!"

Suddenly, the machine's arms lift me up into the air. Its embrace gets even stronger.

"Well, now I at least have you~"