His phone buzzed again. A second notification slid down the screen, identical to the first, but slightly larger.

The image opened. It was the same shot of the living room, but this time, he was in it. He was hunched over the coffee table, reading the first note. But in the photo, standing directly behind his chair, was a figure—tall, blurred, and grey—reaching out a long, static-filled hand toward the back of his neck.

Elias looked up. The note was there now—a jagged scrap of yellow paper.

Heart hammering against his ribs, he leaned forward and read the ink: “Don’t look at the next one.”

The notification sat on Elias’s cracked screen like a digital dare: .