The first email my wife sent after her funeral didn’t arrive in my inbox. It arrived in my company’s secure archive, stamped with tomorrow’s date and marked DO NOT FORWARD.
I stood frozen in the abandoned station hallway, unable to take my eyes off the photograph. I turned it over, hoping to find some clue that it was a cruel prank, but the back contained only a single handwritten note in Claire’s unmistakable handwriting. Don’t trust photographs until you’ve counted the shadows. I frowned and looked again. Three people stood in the picture—Claire, Oliver, and me—but four shadows stretched across the driveway. The fourth shadow belonged to someone standing just outside the frame. Whoever had taken the photograph wasn’t casting a shadow at all. Someone else was. My pulse quickened. I opened the metal cash box. Inside were dozens of printed emails arranged by date, each one sent from Claire’s address but none appearing in her actual account. The earliest was dated one week before her death. The latest was dated almost six months into the future. I pulled out the final page. It contained only one sentence. If you’re reading the last email, then I failed again. Again. The word refused to leave my mind. I quickly scanned the other messages. They weren’t conversations. They were warnings. Don’t let Oliver answer the front door on September 8. Never sign the insurance release. If David smiles before asking about Claire, leave immediately. Every prediction was unnervingly specific. Then one name appeared over and over. Mason Reed. I had never heard it before. Every few pages another warning appeared: Never tell Mason what Claire remembered. As I closed the folder, I noticed something taped beneath the lid of the cash box—a tiny USB drive labeled Office Camera 7. I hurried back to work and plugged it into an isolated computer. The video opened instantly. It showed my office from the security camera mounted above the hallway. The timestamp made my stomach tighten. It was dated three weeks from now. I watched myself walk into the office carrying a cardboard box. My face looked exhausted, older somehow. Then my future self looked directly into the camera. Not toward it—directly at it—as though he knew I would eventually watch the recording. He reached into the box, held up a sheet of paper to the camera, and slowly turned it so the words could be read. DON’T LET THEM FIND THE LOCKER. Seconds later, three men wearing company security badges entered the office. One of them was my manager. The second I didn’t recognize. The third was wearing a visitor badge with the name Mason Reed. The video ended abruptly before anyone spoke. My phone rang immediately. The caller ID displayed my company’s main number. “Ethan,” my manager said cheerfully, “could you come to Conference Room B? There’s someone here who’d really like to meet you.” My eyes drifted back to the frozen video frame. Mason Reed was smiling exactly the way the warning had described. I quietly unplugged the USB drive and slipped it into my pocket. Instead of going to the conference room, I headed for the emergency stairwell. As I pushed open the heavy door, I nearly collided with an elderly janitor mopping the landing. He looked up, studied my face for a second, and sighed with obvious relief. “Thank goodness,” he whispered. “This time you opened the locker.” I stared at him. “Do I know you?” “Not yet.” He leaned on his mop and lowered his voice. “I’ve watched you fail eleven times.” Every muscle in my body went rigid. “What are you talking about?” He reached into his pocket and handed me an old employee identification badge. The plastic was scratched almost white with age. The photograph showed me—but I looked at least twenty years older, my hair completely gray. The badge expiration date was impossible. It wouldn’t expire for another nineteen years. On the back, someone had written a message with a black marker. Attempt #12. Don’t repeat what happened in Conference Room B. Claire finally escaped once. Make sure she does it again.