The dust in the attic felt heavy, like a physical weight pressing against Elara’s lungs. She had spent the better part of the afternoon sifting through crates of water-damaged ledgers and moth-eaten linens until she found it: a small, black external drive labeled with a simple, handwritten sticker—.

Curiosity piqued, she brought the drive down to her study. The hum of her laptop felt strangely loud in the quiet house as the file directory blinked into existence. There was only one file. She double-clicked it.

Finally, her fingers caught on a rusted iron ring. She pulled back the thick curtain of ivy to reveal the door from the video. It was smaller than it had looked on screen, but unmistakably the same.

The video flickered to life, the grain of the footage suggesting it had been digitized from an older 8mm film. There was no sound at first, just the rhythmic whirr-click of a phantom projector. The screen showed a sun-drenched garden she didn’t recognize, filled with oversized sunflowers that seemed to glow from within.

Elara sat back, her heart racing. The woman in the video was her grandmother, but much younger than in any photo she had ever seen. More importantly, the garden wasn't just anywhere—it was right outside.