Download Recording — M4a

He hovered his cursor over it. The metadata was blank—no date, no size, no source. Curiosity, sharp and cold, nudged him to double-click.

His mouse hand trembled. He moved the cursor to the file, desperate to delete it, to erase the evidence of what was happening. But when he right-clicked, the option wasn't there. Instead, the filename had changed. It now read: Uploading Reality m4a. Download Recording m4a

Elias stared at the black screen of the player. In the reflection of the monitor, he saw the door to his office, which he was certain he had closed, standing wide open. He hovered his cursor over it

He didn't turn around. He couldn't. His eyes were locked on the monitor as the waveform spiked. In the recording, he heard the sound of a chair spinning around—the very chair he was sitting in. The audio ended with a sharp, digital pop. His mouse hand trembled

The media player opened. Silence stretched for the first ten seconds, filled only by the faint, rhythmic hiss of background static. Then, a sound emerged. It wasn't music or a voice. It was the distinct, metallic scrape of a key turning in a lock. Elias froze. The sound was too clear, too close.

The blood drained from his face. The voice was his own, but the tone was wrong—hollow, as if spoken by someone who hadn't breathed in years.