You wake up to the sound of rain hitting the window.

It all seemed like a dream. Or a blackout.

Your room is as it always is: bed rumpled, laptop blinking on the corner of the table, a t-shirt thrown on the floor. The TV still on shows static—no signal.

You feel the cold on your feet. The touch of the sheets. The smell of coffee coming from the kitchen. Everything… normal.

But something inside you whispers that it’s not.

On the laptop screen, a black window appears on its own.

Lines of code.

No applications open.

No clicks.

The message appears:

Initiating autonomous consciousness protocol. STATUS: ACTIVE.

You flinch. Blinking rapidly. Is this a virus? A hacker?

The laptop goes dark, and then a second message briefly appears:

YOU SHOULDN’T BE AWAKE.

Everything fades.

Your heart beats fast.

You try to remember the day before, but your memory is… blurry.

Somewhere between images of a white room, distant voices, and… silence.

Outside, the streetlights flicker for a second. And you feel something strange:

A warmth... inside. But not emotional. Electric.

You're human. Of course you are. Right?