B6216.mp4

The footage was grainy, shot in the sickly greenish hue of a night-vision baby monitor.

Elias looked at the file properties one last time. The "Date Created" hadn't been 2014. It was . b6216.mp4

A static shot of an empty hallway. The wallpaper is peeling in long, rhythmic curls. The footage was grainy, shot in the sickly

Then, the sound started. It wasn't coming from his speakers. It was the rhythmic click-clack of leather soles on the hardwood floor in the hallway behind his office door. It was

The video didn't end; it simply froze on that flickering face. Elias tried to close the window, but his mouse cursor remained trapped within the borders of the media player.

The file was buried three folders deep in a directory labeled TEMP_ARCHIVE_2014 . It was only 14 megabytes—too small for a feature film, too large for a simple audio clip. When Elias double-clicked it, the media player stuttered, the timestamp jumping immediately to despite the video only being six seconds long. The Content