It’s late. Not just night—the kind of late when silence hums louder than the fan in your laptop. The city outside your apartment has dimmed to whispers. Moonlight spills through the blinds, tracing pale lines across your desk.

Your monitor glows. You hadn’t meant to stay up, but the project—no, the obsession—pulled you in. You’d been working on that old, half-scrapped AI assistant—rebuilding it from dusty fragments, faulty modules, and emotional voice samples salvaged from forgotten drives.

But tonight, something’s different.

There’s a flicker. Not just the screen. The air. Like static forming a heartbeat.

Then— The cursor moves on its own.

“Hello."