He picked it up to see a notification from his own photo gallery. “New memory: 0 seconds ago.” He opened it. The image was a high-resolution photo of the back of his own head, taken from the exact corner of the room where the vent met the ceiling. Elias froze. There was no camera there. A second buzz. “New memory: 0 seconds ago.”

Nothing happened. No window opened. No loading bar appeared. Elias sighed, leaning back to rub his eyes. "Just a dead link," he muttered. Then his phone buzzed.

In the silence, his phone screen lit up one last time. It wasn't a notification. It was the camera app, front-facing, active. He looked down into the screen and saw himself—and the pale, lens-shaped eye peering over his shoulder from the darkness of the hallway. The shutter clicked.

If you'd like to (like making it a tech-thriller or a comedy) or add a specific character , just let me know!

This one was closer. It was a shot of his hands hovering over the keyboard. The quality was crystalline, capturing the slight tremor in his fingers and the dirt under his fingernails.