He noticed it before the record did.
That surprised him.
The morning had gone smoothly—too smoothly. No resistance. No hesitation. The kind of calm that usually meant he was about to slide back into autopilot without realizing it.
He stood in the shower longer than necessary, letting the water run while his thoughts drifted. Not toward anything specific. Just… away.
Away was comfortable.
By the time he stepped out and dried off, the record was already there, quiet as always.
No updates. No commentary.
He dressed, ate something small, and left the apartment with a vague sense of unease he couldn't pin down. The day felt open, unstructured. That should have been a good thing.
Instead, it made him restless.
On the commute, he caught himself scrolling without reading, thumb moving out of habit rather than interest. He locked the phone and stared out the window, watching the city slide past.
He wasn't tired.
He wasn't stressed.
He was drifting.
The realization settled in slowly.
At work, the drift continued the progress.
Tasks blurred together. Conversations passed without leaving much of an impression. He responded when spoken to, nodded when expected, moved through the day like he was following a script he'd memorized years ago.
The record stayed silent.
That was the problem.
By early afternoon, the discomfort had grown into something sharper. A pressure behind his eyes. A sense that time was moving forward without him actually being present for it.
He leaned back in his chair and stared at the ceiling.
"This is fine," he said quietly.
The words felt hollow the moment they left his mouth.
He reached for his phone.
The screen lit up.
And before he could scroll—before his thumb even moved—the text appeared.
Avoidance detected.
His hand froze.
The timing hit harder than the message itself.
He hadn't decided to check out yet. He was just… about to.
The record hadn't waited.
"So now you're early," he muttered.
The phone felt heavier in his hand. He set it face-down on the desk and ran a hand through his hair, exhaling slowly.
Avoidance.
Not laziness. Not failure.
Avoidance implied awareness. It implied that part of him knew exactly what he was doing.
He sat there longer than was comfortable, staring at the blank screen in front of him. The urge to disengage hadn't disappeared. If anything, it pushed back harder, irritated at being named.
You've done enough.No one's watching.Just coast.
He closed his eyes.
When he opened them again, he pulled the document back up.
The work wasn't urgent. That was the trap. There was no external pressure forcing him to act. No deadline screaming in red text. No one checking over his shoulder.
Just a choice.
He worked slowly, deliberately, forcing himself to stay with the task even when his focus wavered. Every few minutes, the urge to stop resurfaced.
Every few minutes, he stayed.
When he finally saved the file, his shoulders ached. Not from effort, but from tension.
The record updated.
Action logged.
The relief he expected didn't come.
Instead, there was a strange emptiness. Like he'd removed something that had been quietly draining him, only to realize how used to the drain he'd become.
The rest of the day passed without incident.
That should have been reassuring.
It wasn't.
On the way home, he replayed the moment in his head—the exact second before the record had appeared. The half-formed intention. The comfortable slide toward disengagement.
It hadn't been dramatic.
It had been subtle.
And that scared him.
At home, the apartment felt quieter than usual. He stood in the doorway longer than necessary, keys still in his hand, as if waiting for instructions.
Nothing came.
He cooked dinner, cleaned up, and sat at the small table by the window, watching the lights in nearby apartments flick on one by one.
The record stayed silent.
Later, lying in bed, he stared at the ceiling crack again. It looked the same as it always had.
But he didn't.
The record hadn't punished him for avoiding.
It hadn't rewarded him for acting.
It had simply noticed—earlier than he had.
Just before sleep took him, the text shifted one last time.
Consistency pending.
He let out a slow breath.
Pending meant unresolved.
It meant the system wasn't done watching.
And more importantly, it meant he wasn't done choosing.
The thought lingered as his eyes closed.
Tomorrow wasn't a reset.
It was a continuation.