The notepad took a long time to load. When it finally snapped open, the scroll bar on the right was a tiny, microscopic sliver at the top of the track.

000,567,932: 19:22:55 — The precise moment a heart stops beating in Room 402.

Elias felt a cold sweat prickle his neck. He looked at the clock on his wall. 12:29 PM. He looked back at the file and began to search. He didn't know what he was looking for until he saw the date at the top of the metadata: Today.

001,200,000: 12:29:50 — The sound of a mouse clicking a Save button.

1.2MIL.txt was gone. In its place, the header now read: 1.2MIL_FINAL.txt.

Elias jerked his hand away from the desk. He hadn't clicked save. He hadn't touched anything. He watched, frozen, as the file name at the top of the window changed.

His uncle had been a man of silence and ledgers, a retired actuary who spent his final years staring at the oscillating lines of the stock market. Elias expected tax returns or perhaps a digital stash of old photos. Instead, there was only this. He double-clicked.