The camera panned down to a rusted iron hatch set into the forest floor, half-hidden by artificial-looking moss. His brother reached out to touch the handle, but before he could pull, the video distorted. Static tore across the screen in jagged white lines.
Through the interference, Elias saw a reflection in the phone's dark screen as the video ended. It wasn't his own face looking back. It was someone standing directly behind him in the darkened room. Download File VID-20221130-WA0031.mp4
The progress bar crawled with agonizing slowness. 10%... 45%... 90%. When the file finally opened, the video quality was grainy, filmed on a phone held by shaking hands. It showed a dense thicket of pine trees under a bruised evening sky. For the first ten seconds, there was only the sound of heavy breathing and the crunch of dry needles underfoot. The camera panned down to a rusted iron