She remembered her professor’s words from the syllabus: “Originality is the currency of this class. Plagiarism, even accidental, is a debt you cannot afford.”

For a moment, she considered ignoring it. Who would check? But the free detector had done its job. It had held up a mirror to her shortcuts. It wasn't there to punish her; it was there to give her a second chance.

Maya stared at the blinking cursor on her screen. The clock read 2:17 AM. Her research paper on The Influence of Gothic Architecture on Modernist Poetry was due in nine hours, and she had three paragraphs of fluff and a desperate prayer.

Green. Mostly green. Her own work—the tired, 3 AM prose about flying buttresses and iambic pentameter—shone back as original. But then,