2.avi - Bayfiles -

Suddenly, the video Caleb’s head snapped toward the front door. He looked terrified. He reached up toward the camera lens, his fingers trembling, and whispered something that finally broke through the static. "Don't open the door when the power goes out." The file crashed. The media player vanished.

The file was simply named 2.avi . No metadata, no thumbnail, and hosted on a dying BayFiles mirror that looked like it hadn't been updated since 2012. 2.avi - BayFiles

The humming sound spiked into a screech. The Caleb in the video opened his mouth to speak, but no sound came out. Instead, a series of coordinates began to scroll across the bottom of the screen in jagged, white text. Suddenly, the video Caleb’s head snapped toward the

In the absolute pitch black of the hallway, there was a heavy, rhythmic knock on the front door. "Don't open the door when the power goes out

The screen stayed black for the first forty seconds. The only sound was a low-frequency hum, the kind that makes your teeth ache. Then, the image flickered to life. It was a fixed-angle shot of a hallway—Caleb’s own hallway, viewed from the corner near the ceiling.

On the screen, the door to the bedroom opened. A figure stepped out. It was Caleb, wearing the same gray hoodie he had on right now. On screen, he looked exhausted, his eyes rimmed with red. He walked toward the camera, stopping just inches away until his face filled the frame.

The "on-screen" Caleb didn't look at the camera. He looked through it, as if he could see the Caleb sitting at the desk in the past.