Arthur felt a chill that had nothing to do with the air conditioning. He looked back at the photos. In the first one, the town looked normal. In the fourth, the lighthouse was blurred. By the eighth photo, the sky wasn't gray anymore—it was a solid, matte black that seemed to suck the color out of the foreground.

The town is empty, but the doors are all unlocked. I found a meal still steaming in the diner. No one is eating.

I reached the lighthouse. The light isn’t glass and flame. It’s a hole. A hole in the sky.

Arthur leaned back. He looked at his mechanical keyboard, then at the empty room. He typed: SILENCE . The progress bar flickered and filled.

He realized then that the "009" in the filename didn't refer to the version or the ninth file in the archive. It was a countdown.