The first thing the system took was certainty.
It didn't announce it.
Didn't warn us.
Didn't even acknowledge the act itself.
One moment, I could still feel the faint hum of probability at the edges of my thoughts—the invisible tension that came whenever the future bent too sharply.
The next, it was gone.
Not quiet.
Absent.
I stopped walking so suddenly that Marcus nearly ran into me.
"Elena?" he said.
I didn't answer right away.
The hospital corridor stretched ahead of us, bright and painfully ordinary. Nurses chatted softly at the station. A man laughed somewhere behind us. A television murmured in a waiting room.
Normal.
Too normal.
"I can't feel it," I said finally.
Marcus's expression sharpened. "You mean the system."
"Yes."
I searched inward again, slower this time.
Nothing pushed back.
Nothing observed.
Nothing calculated.
It was like reaching for a limb that had always been there—and finding empty air.
Mara noticed immediately.
Her eyes widened, and she pressed a hand to her temple. "It's gone," she whispered.
Marcus turned to her. "Gone how?"
"I don't know," she said. "I just—everything feels flat. Like someone turned the depth off."
The system didn't respond.
That was the response.
"This isn't retreat," I said quietly. "This is isolation."
Marcus frowned. "Isolation from what?"
"From each other," I replied. "From the future."
As if on cue, a new sensation crept in—subtle at first, then undeniable.
Weight.
Not physical.
Cognitive.
Thinking felt… heavier. Like moving through water.
Mara swayed slightly.
I caught her arm. "Easy."
"I can't see past five minutes," she said, panic threading through her voice. "It's just noise."
The system had done the one thing it hadn't tried before.
It had cut the signal.
Not to punish.
To contain.
Marcus scanned the corridor instinctively. "If it's not watching, that means—"
"It's letting the world run," I finished. "Unguided."
A chill slid down my spine.
"That's dangerous," he said.
"Yes," I agreed. "For everyone."
Without correction, probability didn't collapse into safety.
It sprawled.
Mistakes stacked.
Margins disappeared.
Small errors multiplied.
The system knew that.
Which meant this wasn't abandonment.
It was pressure.
A choice disguised as absence.
Mara squeezed her eyes shut. "I don't like this. When I saw too much, it hurt—but this feels worse."
"Because now," I said gently, "you don't know when you're about to fall."
She looked at me, fear naked and unfiltered.
"Is this my fault?"
"No," Marcus said instantly.
I shook my head. "It's a response. To us."
As if summoned by the acknowledgement, something flickered—not in my mind, but in the world itself.
The lights overhead dimmed.
Not out.
Just… weaker.
A nurse frowned at the ceiling. "Did you see that?"
The monitors beeped once—then steadied.
No alarms.
No corrections.
The system was withholding intervention.
"I get it now," Marcus said slowly. "It's showing us what happens without it."
"Yes," I replied. "And asking how long we can stand it."
Mara's breath hitched. "People will get hurt."
"Yes," I said. "And it knows that's the fastest way to make us ask it back."
The realization tasted bitter.
"You're negotiating with lives," Marcus said aloud.
No answer came.
But something shifted—not inward, but outward.
I felt it then, faint but unmistakable.
A tug.
Not from the future—
From the present.
Someone nearby stumbled. A visitor tripped over an uneven tile and nearly fell, catching herself at the last second.
Normally, I would have felt that moment before it happened.
Now, I hadn't.
My hands curled into fists.
"You're blindfolding us," I said softly. "So we'll beg to see again."
Still no response.
Mara looked at the man in Room 602 through the glass.
"He's alive," she said. "But for how long?"
I didn't answer.
Because for the first time since my rebirth—
I didn't know.
That was the point.
Marcus stepped closer to me, lowering his voice. "If it's cutting us off, what's our move?"
I stared down the corridor, at the people moving through it, unaware that the guardrails had been lifted.
"We prove we don't need it," I said.
He raised an eyebrow. "That's ambitious."
"It's necessary," I replied. "Because if we ask for it back…"
"We give up leverage," he finished.
Mara swallowed. "And if we don't?"
"Then," I said, "we learn what responsibility actually costs."
The lights flickered again—longer this time.
A doctor cursed softly under his breath.
The world was wobbling.
Somewhere, deep inside the system—
Something waited.
Not to strike.
To see who would break first.
I straightened, forcing myself to accept the weight of uncertainty pressing down on my thoughts.
"Stay close," I said to both of them. "Not because it's safer."
"But because we can't afford to miss anything," Marcus said.
I nodded.
The future had gone dark.
And for the first time, the system wasn't guiding us away from disaster—
It was daring us to prevent it on our own.