### **Chapter 2: Whispers in the Static**
The city hums beneath the neon glow, indifferent to the quiet unraveling happening inside her mind. She sits at her usual café, stirring her coffee absentmindedly, watching the steam curl upward like unanswered prayers.
It happens again. The waiter—a new one, someone she's never seen before—sets down her drink and, with a casual smile, says, *"Same as always, right?"*
She hesitates. **She's never ordered the same thing twice.**
The words—innocuous, ordinary—settle uncomfortably in her chest. It's the fourth time in two weeks that someone has referenced habits she doesn't remember forming. The barista yesterday had already started making her order before she spoke, even though she'd planned to try something different. The florist had wrapped up her favorite roses—without asking.
She wants to shake off the unease, but something deep inside resists.
The background noise sharpens—footsteps on pavement, a car engine humming outside. She focuses on the subtle shifts in her environment, sensing something that isn't quite right. For the first time, she wonders: *How much of her life is hers?*
She types.
The only space where her thoughts belong to her, where her words—undiluted, unedited—can escape the gravity of whatever force seems to be shifting her world.
*"I am being watched."*
She doesn't know if she means it literally, metaphorically, or something worse. But as the words take shape on her screen, she feels something deeper, darker stirring.
And the moment she presses 'save,' her screen flickers—just for a second, too quick for proof, too slow to ignore.