291856.mp4

The media player opened to a black screen. There was no scrub bar, no volume control, just a void. Then, sound: a rhythmic, wet sliding noise. Schlick. Schlick. Schlick.

On the monitor, his digital self stopped directly under the camera. He looked up. But instead of a face, there was only a blurred smudge of static, a swirling vortex of white noise where features should be. The "Elias" on screen raised a hand and pointed—not at the camera, but at something behind it. 291856.mp4

In the video, a door at the end of the hall creaked open. A figure emerged. It was Elias, wearing the same gray hoodie he had on right now. On screen, the digital Elias looked exhausted. He walked toward the camera, eyes fixed on his phone, oblivious to the fact that he was being recorded from the ceiling. "What is this?" Elias whispered, his breath hitching. The media player opened to a black screen

The video Elias spoke. No words came out, only the sound of a dial-up modem shrieking. Suddenly, the 0 KB file began to grow. Schlick

The glitch in the timestamp made his skin prickle. He lived alone in a high-rise where the only sound was the hum of the HVAC and the occasional muffled siren from the streets of Chicago. It was 11:30 PM. He double-clicked.

A grainy image flickered into view. It was a high-angle shot of a hallway. Elias felt a jolt of recognition—it was his own hallway, the one leading from the kitchen to his bedroom. The lighting was sickly green, the way it looked when only the stove light was left on.