Vid | 20171121 (2).rar

In the video, the younger Elias reached into his pocket, pulled out a small, metallic cylinder, and dropped it into a trash bin before disappearing into the tunnel.

The screen went black, replaced by a text file that hadn't been there a second ago. It contained only a set of GPS coordinates and a date: VID 20171121 (2).rar

The footage was grainy, filmed from a shaky handheld camera in a crowded subway station. It wasn't Elias holding the phone. The camera followed a man in a tan trench coat who was walking with an odd, rhythmic limp. As the man turned a corner toward a restricted maintenance tunnel, he stopped and looked directly into the lens. In the video, the younger Elias reached into

Elias froze. The man in the video was him —but seven years younger, wearing clothes he never owned, in a city he had never visited. It wasn't Elias holding the phone

When the extraction bar finally hit 100%, a single video file appeared. Elias clicked play.

Elias looked at the corner of his monitor. Today was April 27. The coordinates pointed to a park just three blocks from his apartment. He realized then that the .rar file wasn't a record of his past, but a set of instructions he hadn't yet followed.