7a15qqf65236.avi -

The video ended. The file disappeared from the folder. A second later, the handle to his apartment turned.

At the fifteen-minute mark, a hand entered the frame. It held a polaroid camera and took a photo of a single clock on the wall. The flash washed out the screen, and for a split second, Elias saw a reflection in the glass of the clock. He froze the frame and zoomed in. 7a15qqf65236.avi

It wasn't a movie. It was a fixed-angle shot of a windowless room filled with old-fashioned clocks. Hundreds of them. Grandfather clocks, tiny cuckoos, and digital alarms. They weren’t synced; the room was a chaotic battlefield of ticking. The video ended