The lights hummed, then died. The apartment plunged into a grey, wintry twilight. Elias sat frozen, the silence of the room pressing against his ears. He didn't want to look. He wanted to close his eyes and count to ten.
The document wasn’t a report or a spreadsheet. It was a single page of transcriptions.
"If you’re reading 26-jan_2, it means the loop didn't break. You’re sitting at the desk. You’re wondering why you don't remember writing this. Look at the clock. It’s 4:39 PM. In exactly sixty seconds, the power is going to flicker. When it comes back, don't look at the screen. Look at the reflection in the window." Elias glanced at the corner of his screen. 26-jan_2 - Google Drive
Static filled the speakers, followed by the sound of a chair scraping against a floor. Then, a voice spoke. It was his voice—his specific cadence, his slight hesitation before certain vowels.
Elias felt a chill that had nothing to do with the drafty room. The "Me" in the owner column was him, but the words felt like they belonged to a stranger. He scrolled down. The lights hummed, then died
In the reflection, he saw himself sitting at the desk. But in the reflection, the "other" Elias wasn't looking back at him. He was leaning forward, frantically typing a new file.
Elias frowned. He remembered that date—a freezing Tuesday spent mostly in a windowless library—but he didn’t remember making a file. He clicked it. He didn't want to look
The cursor blinked steadily in the search bar, a rhythmic heartbeat in the quiet of the apartment. Elias didn’t know why he had typed it. It was a phantom memory, a string of characters that had surfaced in his mind while he was making coffee. He hit enter. One result appeared. Modified: Jan 26, 2024 Owner: Me