You step back from the desk and let your eyes adjust to the dim shape of the room. The monitor's glow spills across a half-empty mug, a tangle of charging cables, and a window that reflects only a faint, ghostly version of your face. The hum from the speakers continues, but now it sounds less like a machine and more like something listening. Every object in the room seems ordinary until you look at it too long, when it starts to feel staged, as if someone placed it there for your benefit.

Near the desk, you notice a small notebook lying open to a page of dense handwriting that you do not remember making. A single sentence is underlined three times: 'The story responds to attention.' The cursor on the screen pulses once, then waits. It feels like the room has narrowed into a question, and whatever answer you choose may decide whether this place remains a room at all.