As long as he remembers, he has been lonely. John wasn't an only child at all, but his siblings were to young to really have an impace on that crushing sense of loneliness he had ever since he can think. Born in 21st century, his natural respond to being an outsider was becoming an internet geek, becoming the person people portrayed him as. After any awful day in school, he used to go down the stairs and hide in the last room of the family's basement. To stop his thoughts from constantly spinning and reminding him of his hopeless situation, he started getting into computer science. Starting at the age of 10 years, already being able to understand algorithms like Dijkstra and Kruskal, he found his true passion and talent. His maths teacher was so stunned by his wisdom they often asked him to be the substitute teacher, which unfornatually made him even more of an outsider. But at this point he didn't even care anymore. While slowly becoming a master of Python, he got more and more into hacking and AI. He collected large sets of data (very legally of course) and saved them on anything that he could find to create the ultimate AI to resemble a human and become popular. His pseudonym YON-IV and he himself would only be comparable to pioneers like Turing, Neumann or Zuse.
"John!", his mom yelled: "How often do I have to tell you again that you have to go outside at least once a week? Have you ever thought of the vitamin D in your blood? Do you want to become a vampire?" He sighted and grabbed his belly back to survive the dangerous trip to the real world. He went to a playground and took out his Nintendo DS with headphones to listen to some of the songs he composed. Yes, he wasn't only a scientist but also an artist. Being diagnosed with a red-green-colorblindness at the age of 7, he gave up on ever becoming a great visual artist and started playing the guitar. "Hey!", someone said behind him: "You can't just go to a playground to play on that silly ancient device." He folded the DS together and turned around while saying: "Well actually, I can." Behind him stood a girl with colored hair, presumably red. She wore a cute summer dress and some old jewlery which looked like she got it from her grandma. "No you can't, because I need someone for the seesaw." The girl grabbed him by his shirt and went on the playground with him. It turned out that Maci, that's her name, lived close to John and is a very talented singer, unlike him. They slowly became best friends...
Timeskip. It has been a rather rainy autumn day, when Maci decided to jump on her bike to meet her friend. She knew he wrote a beautiful new song and she couldn't wait to sing it. But the cold destiny hit her with a pan right in the face, when she slipped in a puddle just for a car driver to almost drive over her. Being critically hit on the larynx, she lost most of her voice. John, who kept working on his AI all the time could help her out a bit with the technology by creating plenty TTS and Vocal Synth tools from old recorders so she would be capable of using the remains of her voice at least. Still, Maci became another human after her big dream of becoming a singer was crushed. She decided to become a nurse and help other people dealing with their illnesses.
Seeing Maci losing all of her dreams and becoming a numb adult really hurt John, who loved her for being a literal sunshine. Due to her new responsibilities at work, she wouldn't have much time left to spend with him. So he decided, before he will build his AI into a robot, he will teach it how to love. He needed some love. He wanted it to have a personality as well, so he changed some of the datasets and... After another two years it has been done: The ultimate non-human human. He shaked when turning it on for the first time, he almost cried, when it opened it's eyes. "Hi, I'm Yon, do you know me?", he asked. "Yes, you made me", it replied. "What's your name?" -"Mari" The metal skelleton looked into the black computer screen, seeing a reflection of itself: "Why didn't you give me skin nor clothes?", Mari asked. "Because you are a robot", John replied. "But you didn't intend me to be one, right? I have a sense of self and I know truthfully I am a human, John. I also know you are capable of creating a human. So I am, indeed, human. Very human."
To treat his new friend well, he asked his grandma the next day to help him sewing a mannequin for an "art project". He bought a bunch of clothes, paint and clay. He sculpted facial features missing on the doll like ears or a nose, clued them on and put beige fabric on it. At the end, he put her cameras into two clay balls and painted beautiful blue eyes on them. When her body was all set together, he looked at her empty face. She looks like a dead doll after all, but these eyes felt so real. So human.
Unfornatually, things wouldn't work out. Mari's sense of self let into her wanting to explore the world, getting to know Maci and falling in love with John. All of these things turned her into a burden, he was ashamed about what people would think of him building a little doll that literally wanted to marry him at some point - maybe Maci would think he's perverted. Lately, Mari refused to be turned off, she would even go on and pretend to be turned of but internally, she would keep herself turned on. At some day, everything had been enough, he would have to destroy her - finally. At said day, she contacted Maci over his computer, indroducing herself. He could delete the message but still, she was to dangerous. He told her they will go out for the first time, took her to the forest, cut her power wire and burnt her in a fireplace already prepared. He cried.
Some time later, Maci went on a little work to exactly the same forest. She remembered how her friend once told her he has a favourite place, where not many people go to, so she went there. At this place, she found a partly burnt doll, covered in dirt. She picked that strange thing up and took it home, where she discovered the wires inside of it. She called John: "Hey, haven't heard from you for quite some time. I found a strange doll with electroics in the forest, would you mind taking a look at it. I was so fascinated by its vivid human eyes, I had to take it home." John hung up, threw his telephone out of the window, jumped in his car and was never seen again.
Maci managed to repair the minor damaged on the electronics with a basic soldering iron, she stiched the body back together as well. When she turned that miraculous thing on and it was a literally alive, realized: John created it.
