Ultra-realistic, photoreal close-up of a space pilot seated in a cockpit, framed from the shoulders up. The helmet visor is transparent and heavily detailed, reflecting active HUD elements that are malfunctioning in a subtle, unsettling way. Navigation symbols, timestamps, and targeting reticles double briefly, misalign, then resettle--like a buffering memory rather than a glitch. A system message repeats faintly in the visor reflection, partially overwritten by itself: EVENT CONFIRMEED The pilot’s face is lit by soft, pulsing cockpit light--cool blues and dim ambers--synchronized imperfectly with the HUD refresh rate, creating the impression that the ship is a fraction of a second ahead of reality. Their expression is controlled but disturbed: not fear, but recognition. The look of someone realizing the system already knows what they’re about to do. A hairline crack in the visor refracts the HUD text into a faint echo, causing certain symbols to appear twice--once sharp, once delayed--like visual afterimages. A small warning icon flickers on and off near the pilot’s eye, labeled only: "RECURSIVE INPUT DETECTED" \