The old hard drive hummed with a mechanical rattle that sounded like a dying breath. Elias found it in a box of his late uncle’s estate, a heavy brick of metal labeled only with a handwritten date: 1998. When he finally bypassed the outdated security and mounted the drive, his screen filled with thousands of nameless files. But one stood out.

In the first few, he was sitting at his desk, exactly as he was now, but the room was empty of furniture. In the next dozen, he was older—gray-haired and stooped—standing in a garden he didn't recognize. The timestamps on the files were dated forty years into the future.

He scrolled faster, his heart hammering against his ribs. The photos began to blur, showing him in places that didn't look like Earth. The sky was a bruised violet, and the buildings were made of translucent glass. In the very last file, a video titled "KSN_Final," a version of Elias with eyes like polished silver looked directly into the camera.