Henry woke before the alarm.
He lay still for a moment, watching the ceiling, listening to the old house breathe. The pipes creaked. The refrigerator hummed. A car passed outside, tires whispering over damp asphalt.
Eighteen. Henry was finally eighteen.
He didn't feel different.
He didn't expect to.
People said you knew when it was coming. Said there was a weight in the air, like the atmosphere was holding its breath.
Henry had lived in held breath for years—living in this foster home, waiting for the day he would finally be able to leave.
He swung his legs off the bed and sat forward, elbows on his knees. The alarm clock read 6:02 a.m.
Still nothing.
He stood.
The moment his bare feet touched the floor, the world stopped spinning. Time did not freeze visibly. It did not distort.
It simply tightened.
Like pressure changing before a storm.
Then the screen appeared.
It didn't project from anywhere. It simply existed, suspended in front of him. Matte black. Borderless. Silent.
He didn't flinch.
Everyone knew this part.
On your eighteenth birthday, the System arrived.
Private. Unseen by others. A question tailored from the sum of your life. From the weight of your choices. From the parts you thought no one saw.
Henry had heard the stories. Some said it felt holy. Others said invasive. A few said it felt like being dissected.
To him, it felt familiar.
Observed.
Red text materialized.
SYSTEM INITIALIZATION COMPLETE.
A thin line pulsed once beneath it.
No sound.
No voice.
Just text.
He waited.
He had been waiting longer than today.
The line vanished. New text replaced it.
WHAT WOULD YOU HAVE SACRIFICED TO SAVE YOUR FATHER?
The room didn't move.
The house didn't creak.
The question did not feel abstract.
It felt surgical.
Not Do you miss him.
Not How did he die.
It went straight to the boundary. Straight to the day everything split in half.
What would I have sacrificed…
Henry didn't close his eyes.
He didn't look away.
There was no point pretending to think about something he had answered years ago.
His father's truck folded around a drunk driver at an intersection two miles from here. They said it was instant. They said that like it was mercy.
His mother tried to hold the house together.
Then the bottles started multiplying.
Then the silences.
Then the night he found her body.
Rooms emptied. House sold. His younger siblings separated from him and scattered into the foster system.
He became another file.
Teachers adjusted their tone.
Parents adjusted their distance.
He replayed the day he learned his father was dead more times than he could count.
If I had been there.
If I had seen it coming.
If I had known.
The answer had always been the same.
He spoke evenly to the screen only he could see.
"Everything."
The word left him without hesitation.
The screen remained.
He expected the immediate response everyone described. A flicker. Confirmation. The next instruction.
Instead—
Nothing.
Not blank.
Not gone.
Waiting.
The thin line reappeared.
It did not pulse.
It held.
A fraction too long.
Henry felt it.
The same way you feel the pause before someone decides not to shake your hand.
The same way a new teacher hesitates after reading your file before calling on you in class.
The System was not stalled.
It was evaluating.
Reevaluating.
Red text emerged slowly, character by character.
RESPONSE UNEXPECTED.
Henry's jaw tightened slightly.
Unexpected.
That meant anticipated alternatives.
That meant models.
That meant prediction.
A higher power does not encounter the unexpected.
It already knows.
The text shifted.
EVALUATING PARAMETERS.
The line beneath it flickered once.
Just once.
Henry's pulse remained steady, but something cold slid into place behind his ribs.
It hesitated.
The screen updated.
DEMO INITIALIZING.
LOADING…
The word lingered.
Not complete.
Not granted.
Not certain.
The air in the room thickened.
The floor beneath him seemed to narrow.
Reality did not shatter.
It tightened.
And Henry understood something before the Demo even began.
The System had expected him to draw a line.
He hadn't.
Somewhere beyond his sight, something recalculated.
The world blinked.
And Henry fell forward into the Demo.