I didn't sleep.
Not because I was afraid, but because sleep felt irresponsible.
If the pattern was real—if something was adjusting records only when I noticed—then unconsciousness was a variable I couldn't afford. I needed to know whether awareness itself was part of the process.
At 3:17 a.m., I ran the first test.
I set an alarm for 3:20 and placed my phone face down on the desk. The room was silent except for the soft hum of the laptop. I watched the wall clock instead, counting seconds by the movement of the second hand.
At 3:19:58, I looked away.
Two seconds.
Then I looked back.
The clock read 3:21.
My phone alarm went off immediately.
I shut it off and checked the log application I'd prepared on my laptop. A script was running in the background, recording system time every millisecond.
There was a gap.
Not a missing line—worse.
The timestamps jumped.
03:19:59 → 03:21:00
No intermediate records. No error flags. As if the missing second had never existed.
I swallowed.
That wasn't passive observation anymore.
That was a response.
I wrote it down.
Intervention #1: Withholding observation alters continuity.
The wording felt absurd, but accuracy mattered more than comfort.
At 6:40 a.m., I tried again.
This time, I stayed aware.
I stared directly at the clock as the second hand approached twelve. I focused on the movement, on the precise moment of transition.
06:59:59
07:00:00
Nothing changed.
No jump.
No correction.
I exhaled slowly.
So it mattered.
Whether I was watching.
On the way to work, I noticed smaller things. Street lights switching off a fraction too early. A pedestrian signal lingering on red for an extra second before correcting itself. Always subtle. Always clean.
As if the world was smoothing over errors faster than I could register them.
At the office, I decided to push further.
I created a controlled environment: one machine, isolated network, manual system time. No external synchronization. No auto-correction.
At 10:14 a.m., I adjusted the system clock backward by one second.
Intentionally.
The screen flickered.
A warning window opened and closed too quickly to read.
Then the time corrected itself.
Not to the real world time.
But to what it should have been.
One second forward.
I checked the log.
A new entry had appeared.
[10:14:01] — Manual deviation detected.
[10:14:01] — Correction applied.
Below it, a third line blinked into existence.
[10:14:01] — Observer interference noted.
My hands went cold.
I hadn't just been noticed.
I had been categorized.
Before I could copy the file, the system froze. Not a crash—everything was responsive—but input lagged by exactly one second. Every keystroke echoed after a delay, precise and consistent.
I stood up slowly, heart steady but heavy.
Around me, no one reacted. Conversations continued. Screens glowed normally.
Only my workstation was… off.
I shut it down manually.
The delay vanished.
But something else remained.
At lunch, I checked my phone.
A notification sat unread.
No sender.
No app icon.
Just text.
"Intervention increases cost."
I didn't reply.
For the first time since this began, I felt something shift inside me—not fear, but understanding.
This wasn't a puzzle meant to be solved quickly.
It was a system.
And systems always punished users who pushed them too hard, too early.
I closed the message and slipped the phone into my pocket.
Next time, I would be more careful.
Or more decisive.
Either way, I knew one thing for certain.
I wasn't just observing anymore.
I had taken my first step across the line.