Elias didn't turn around. He didn't have to. The chill on the back of his neck told him that the note was no longer online. It was in the room.

Elias grabbed the laptop to slam it shut, but the screen stayed upright, locked by an invisible force. The timestamp on the notepad began to count upward, faster and faster, blurring into a strobe light of digits.

Elias lunged for the laptop, desperate to delete the note, to close the tab, to break the connection. His fingers hit the keys, but the keyboard felt like cold stone. He looked at the screen. The text was changing in real-time, appearing faster than any human could type.

He walked toward it, his hand reaching for the refrigerator handle, but his eyes were locked on that digital note. Why that specific time? Why that specific warning?

In the mirror-world of the kitchen, a figure was standing directly behind him. It wasn't Sarah. It was a tall, blurred shape with fingers like frayed rope, reaching out toward his reflected neck.

The cursor blinked steadily against the white digital void of the online notepad, a silent witness to the silence of the room. At the top, the timestamp sat like a tombstone: .

He looked at the clock on his taskbar. . Only seconds had passed since the note was created.