As Elias watched, a figure in the video turned toward the camera. Even through the digital grain of thirty years ago, the gymnast’s eyes seemed to lock onto his. The video cut to black, and a new file appeared on Elias's desktop, appearing out of thin air: _v_jb_nn_Gymn_MIS-SUN_USER_FOUND.rar

The "suitcase" was no longer just holding data; it was sending it back. Elias realized then that the "Gymnasium on the Sea" wasn't a memory of the past—it was a recruitment terminal for a future that had already decided he was the next trainee.

The file had no business existing on Elias’s desktop. He hadn't downloaded it, and the timestamp claimed it was created in 1994—four years before he was born. The name was a jumble of underscores and abbreviations: _v_jb_nn_Gymn_MIS-SUN_GymOnThSe.rar .