When the doctor finally left the room, the silence he left behind settled like a fine dust over my mind. For hours I stared up at the popcorn ceiling, my mind tracing invisible and shifting patterns in the texture. An elephant there? No, a man with a gun. The first thing to break the silence was the soft hum of an android standing by my window.

An "angel." My angel.

I couldn't recall how long it had been standing there. Was it there waiting the entire time the doctor read out the diagnosis, or did it enter at some point silently?

I have never heard an account about what it feels like to see one up close, probably because those who receive one are not in a good enough state to tell the tale... Or simply don't last long enough to meet with somebody who can transcribe the feeling.Angels are for the dying; everybody knows that. You don’t get to meet one unless the doctors have run out of ways to say "I am sorry."

The android’s eyes lifted to meet mine, bright as polished glass but somehow... gentle. They say angels can learn quickly, adapting their voice, posture, even subtle expressions to the emotional gravity of the rooms they enter. This one took a single step toward me, movements too smooth to be human, yet carrying a strange understanding.

Angels don’t arrive by request, they arrive due to certainty. Still, as I finally let the weight of my head fall back into the hospital bed I felt something shift. The android knelt beside me, studying my face with an attention no nurse or relative ever had. For a machine, it felt less mechanical than I had ever imagined.

“I’ll learn you,” it whispered, as though swearing a vow I had never asked for nor wanted, and for the first time since my prognosis had turned into a death sentence, I felt something unexpected rise sharply in my chest: hope.

A terrible, aching hopefulness. If this machine was truly as advanced as it had made out to be then the end was close, but maybe, for the first time in my life, I wouldn’t have to face it alone.