The reflected face wasn't human. It was a smooth, porcelain-like surface where features should be, save for two pinpricks of violet light. It stared directly into the camera—or perhaps, directly at Elias.
Inside the diner sat a single man, his back to the camera. He was perfectly still. For three minutes, nothing happened. Elias was about to close the window when the man’s reflection in the dark window pane shifted. g391.mp4
Elias didn't turn around. He just watched the screen, where the man in the reflection was now standing up and walking toward the edge of the frame, stepping out of the video and into the room. The reflected face wasn't human
The file labeled sat on the desktop of Elias’s workstation, a lone icon against a backdrop of deep space wallpaper. He didn’t remember downloading it, and the metadata was a mess of null characters and corrupted dates. When he finally clicked "Play," there was no sound. Inside the diner sat a single man, his back to the camera
As the "buffering" reached 100%, the sound finally kicked in—not through his speakers, but from the hallway behind him. It was the distinct, rhythmic chime of a diner’s door opening.