Elias gripped his desk, his eyes darting to the file properties of . The "Date Modified" field was flickering, the numbers counting down like a stopwatch. It reached zero, and the screen went pitch black, leaving Elias in the sudden, suffocating silence of his room—until he heard the wet, rhythmic sound of footsteps climbing the stairs.
A heavy thud echoed from the hallway of Elias's real apartment. It wasn't coming from the speakers. video501.mp4
He looked back at the screen. The video was no longer showing the library. It was now a live feed of his own hallway, filmed from a high corner he had never noticed. On the screen, he saw the door to his basement slowly creaking open. Elias gripped his desk, his eyes darting to
For the first ten minutes, nothing moved. Then, a hand reached into the frame and placed a single, blue-bound book on a mahogany table. The person’s face remained off-camera, but Elias noticed a distinctive silver ring on their index finger—a ring he realized, with a jolt, was currently sitting in his own jewelry box. A heavy thud echoed from the hallway of