Elias reached for the power button, but his finger passed right through the plastic. He wasn't in his office anymore. He was the broadcast.

The "TV Titles" began to cycle automatically, faster and faster. The room around him began to lose its color, fading into a high-contrast black and white. The edges of his desk became sharp, aliased lines.

The file sat on Elias’s desktop like a digital time capsule. He’d found it buried in a forum thread for "lost media" enthusiasts, posted by a user whose account had been deleted minutes later.

The animation was a spiraling tunnel of gray snow. As he watched, the "static" began to resolve into faces—hundreds of them, blinking in unison. Elias realized with a jolt of ice in his chest that one of the faces was his own. Not a drawing, but a perfect, flickering capture of him sitting at his desk, wearing the same headset he had on right now. He tried to close the window. The cursor wouldn't move.

He looked down at his hands. They were no longer flesh; they were composed of scan lines, flickering at 60Hz. The final file in the folder was simply titled YOU - Vol.1 .