Vid375.mp4

On the screen, the man—the other Elias—stopped just inches from the window. He looked directly into the lens, his eyes wide with a desperate, silent plea. He held up a handwritten sign:

The file size was impossibly small for its length—over two hours of footage contained in a few dozen megabytes. When Elias hit play, the screen remained black for three minutes. He was about to close it when a grainy image flickered into view. VID375.mp4

Behind his digital self, in the shadows of the recorded room, the back door began to swing open. On the screen, the man—the other Elias—stopped just

Elias looked at the video. The man on the screen was gone. The street was empty. The timestamp now flickered, jumping forward in seconds that felt like hours. When Elias hit play, the screen remained black

The knock came again, louder this time. The steel door groaned as if something immense was pressing against it from the other side. Elias reached for his phone, but the screen was dead. He looked back at the monitor.

The video had changed again. The camera was no longer outside. It was inside a dimly lit basement. It was a shot of a man sitting at a desk, staring at a computer monitor. Elias watched himself on the screen, watching the video.