The Humanity Filter: An algorithm designed to detect what felt too alive. It worked.

She touched the window the way you touch a scar-to remember it still belongs to you.

Silas Vane didn’t write that sentence.

Neither did the AI.

So who did?

Silas used to be a writer. Then he sold his voice to the algorithm-and the ink from that contract left a stain on his palm that never washed off.

Now he approves 847 sentences a day. He doesn’t read them anymore.

But this one he read three times.

The answer is waiting in a basement server room at 2:47 AM: seven writers who don’t officially exist, an algorithm that has learned something it was never meant to learn, and a corporation that will do anything to keep its machines from needing what only humans can provide.

Silas Vane stopped being a writer two years ago.

Now the machine is asking him to start again.