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The camera panned up. It was Elias, ten years younger, looking directly into the lens. He wasn't smiling. He held up a handwritten sign that simply read: “You’ll find it when you’re ready.” The video cut to black.

The drive was caked in a decade of dust, a silver brick buried beneath old textbooks and tangled chargers. Elias plugged it in, the mechanical plates whirring to life with a rhythmic, labored click. Most of the folders were relics: College_Drafts , Photos_2014 , Tax_Returns . 35229mp4

It had no thumbnail. The metadata said it was created on a Tuesday in November, at 3:14 AM. Elias didn’t remember being awake then, let alone recording anything. The camera panned up

In the center of the frame sat a glass of water. For three minutes, nothing happened. The only sound was the low hum of a refrigerator. Elias was about to close the window when he saw it: a hand reached into the frame and moved the glass precisely two inches to the left. He held up a handwritten sign that simply

Elias sat back, his heart hammering against his ribs. He looked at the desk in front of him. There, resting on a stack of mail, was that same glass—chipped at the rim, exactly two inches to the left of his coaster.