He realized IGZ wasn't a random string of letters. In the cypher he’d used as a teenager, it stood for “I Gaze Back.”

: At the 0:14 mark, a version of Elias entered the frame. He looked exhausted, wearing a coat he had lost on a train in 2023.

Elias paused the video at 1:02. In the reflection of the desk lamp within the video, he saw a flickering light in the hallway of the recording. It was a rhythmic pulsing: three short, three long, three short.

The video wasn't a recording of the past; it was a bridge. He looked at the jammed drawer of his real desk. With a surge of adrenaline, he yanked it. It didn't budge. He looked back at the screen. The Elias in the video stopped writing, looked directly into the camera, and tapped the underside of the desk three times. Thump. Thump. Thump.