Elias clicked the second file. Same hallway, but the lighting was a deep, nauseating red. The Doberman was sitting in the center of the frame. This time, there was a man standing behind it, his face blurred out by a digital glitch that seemed to pulse in time with Elias’s own heartbeat.
The video opened. It wasn't a recording. It was a live feed of Elias’s own room, filmed from the corner of his ceiling where no camera existed. In the video, he saw himself sitting at the computer, hunched over, staring at the screen.
He opened the first one. It wasn't stock footage. It was a high-definition, static shot of an empty hallway in what looked like a brutalist concrete building. No sound. No movement. For ten minutes, nothing happened. Then, a black Doberman walked slowly across the frame, looked directly into the camera with glowing, amber eyes, and barked once. The audio didn't sound like a dog; it sounded like a human throat trying to mimic one.
By the sixth video, Elias realized the "Studio" wasn't a place where films were made—it was a place where things were kept . The 1080p clarity was so sharp he could see the dust motes dancing in the air of the room on screen. He began to notice details in the background: a set of keys on a table that looked exactly like his own. A coffee mug with a chipped handle—the same one sitting on his desk right now.
