The ceiling fan should not stop like that.
Not mid-rotation.
Not without sound.
Not without inertia.
It simply… ceases.
As if the concept of "continuing" has been revoked.
I sit very still on my bed, phone clenched in my hand, pulse hammering in my ears. The silence in the room feels deliberate, arranged, like furniture placed for an interview.
Don't panic, the human-self says quietly.
They notice spikes in emotional output.
My stomach drops.
They're monitoring emotions?
They monitor deviation, he corrects.
Emotion just happens to be a very inefficient variable.
I don't like that answer.
I don't like that it makes sense.
The air in the room thickens—not physically, but statistically. Possibilities narrow. I feel it the same way I felt time-pressure as glass, probability pressure as swarm.
This is something else.
Attention.
They don't enter timelines directly, the human-self continues.
They… overlay.
The light flickers.
Once.
Twice.
Then stabilizes—too stable. No hum. No variance. Perfect illumination like a simulation locked at ideal parameters.
The door to my room is still closed.
I know—without looking—that my mother is frozen in the kitchen.
Not stopped.
Paused.
Held in a moment where nothing can go wrong.
Yet.
What do they want? I whisper.
The answer comes from somewhere else.
Not inside me.
Not through sound.
Through alignment.
The room reorients subtly, angles correcting themselves, shadows snapping into mathematically pleasing proportions.
Then a presence resolves.
Not a body.
Not a face.
A frame of reference.
To conclude evaluation, it says.
The voice is calm, neutral, impossible to gender or place. It does not echo. It does not resonate.
It asserts.
You have exceeded acceptable divergence thresholds.
I feel suddenly, acutely small.
You're the Observers, I say.
A pause.
Not hesitation.
Calculation.
We are one class of observer, it replies.
You are being monitored by several.
My mouth goes dry.
I swing my legs off the bed, grounding myself in the sensation of carpet beneath my feet.
Human tricks.
You've been using me, I say.
Using all of us.
Incorrect, the Observer responds.
Use implies intent toward benefit.
This is filtration.
The word again.
Filter.
You create versions of me, I continue, anger bleeding through despite my effort.
Across timelines. Species. Minds.
Then you watch which ones survive.
We do not create you, it says.
You are an emergent constant.
We observe how you resolve contradiction.
The human-self speaks up.
He's not a constant, he snaps.
He's breaking pattern.
The Observer's attention shifts.
I feel it like a cold hand brushing past my thoughts.
Yes, it agrees.
That is why this node has been escalated.
The room changes.
Walls stretch outward, dissolving into a vast, abstract space filled with translucent layers—timelines stacked like panes of glass, branching, converging, collapsing.
I am standing at the center of it.
Naked of context.
Exposed.
You are a decision amplifier, the Observer explains.
Where you exist, outcomes sharpen.
Where you choose, probability collapses faster.
I see them then.
Other versions of me.
Hundreds.
Thousands.
Some human.
Some not.
Some barely coherent shapes of thought clinging to existence.
Many are fading.
Stop this, I say.
The Observer tilts—if it can be said to tilt.
Why?
The question is genuine.
That's what terrifies me most.
Because they're alive, I say.
They feel. They suffer.
Suffering is a byproduct, it replies.
Resolution is the goal.
I think of the swarm—optimized, merciless.
The dead timeline—forgotten, but still aware.
My mother—paused mid-movement, ignorant of how close she is to becoming data.
Something inside me hardens.
You're wrong, I say.
A ripple passes through the layers.
Incorrectness has no relevance, the Observer says.
Only efficiency.
Then measure this, I reply.
I do something I haven't done before.
I reach.
Not for another self.
Not for a memory.
For the connection itself.
Pain erupts.
Every version of me screams at once as I pull them closer—not merging, not synchronizing, but aligning in refusal.
The system strains.
The layers tremble.
Stop, the Observer commands for the first time.
No, I say, voice shaking but clear.
You don't get to decide what's efficient anymore.
The human-self is shouting now.
You're destabilizing the entire selection lattice!
Good, I say.
The Observer's tone changes.
Not anger.
Concern.
This outcome was not predicted.
I smile, teeth clenched through agony.
That's the problem with filters, I say.
Eventually, something slips through.
The layers fracture.
Timelines bleed into one another.
I feel the system scrambling—recalculating, compensating, adapting.
The Observer withdraws slightly.
Containment will be attempted, it states.
I know, I whisper.
But now you're reacting.
The room snaps back.
The bed.
The walls.
The ceiling fan—still frozen.
My knees buckle and I collapse, gasping.
Inside me, the other selves are quiet.
Not gone.
Watching.
Waiting.
The human-self exhales shakily.
You just made yourself a threat, he says.
I laugh weakly.
I already was.
My phone buzzes one last time.
A new message.
From the same unknown number.
Iteration acknowledged. Countermeasures authorized.
Outside my room, something moves.
And this time—
I know it's coming for me.