The figure was wearing the same worn flannel shirt Elias was wearing right now, four years later. As he stared, the phone buzzed again. A new notification appeared, heart-stoppingly cold: IMG_20260428_030112.jpg is ready to view.

Elias froze. He didn't look down. He didn't breathe. Then, his phone chimed one last time.

He didn't remember clicking a link. He didn't even remember being awake. Rubbing the sleep from his eyes, he tapped the file.

With trembling fingers, he opened the second file. It was a photo of his current bedroom, taken from the corner of the ceiling. In the center of the frame, Elias sat on the edge of his bed, staring down at a glowing phone screen.

Elias looked at the current time: 3:02 AM. He looked at the date: April 28, 2026.

That was the morning everything had changed. The morning he had walked out of his house and never looked back, leaving behind a life that felt like a tightening noose. But there was something wrong with the photo. In the reflection of the toaster, he could see a figure standing in the doorway behind the camera. It wasn't him.