I opened the folder because I recognized the name.
I did not remember creating it.
That was not unusual.
What was unusual was recognizing it.
The folder was called “anchor.”
Inside were eleven screenshots.
The first showed a lime-coated wall.
The second did too.
The third looked identical until I noticed a crack that had not been there before.
I zoomed in.
A note was attached beside the crack.
I could not read all of it.
Only three words.
“You weren’t here.”
I closed the screenshot.
Waited a few seconds.
Opened it again.
The note was still there.
I checked the date.
Then again.
It did not improve.
The sequence was inverted.
The fourth screenshot had been saved before the first.
The seventh existed months before the folder that contained it.
I found a text document.
Empty.
Or so I thought.
When I scrolled to the bottom, a single line appeared:
“The lock came later.”
There was no lock in any of the images.
Not yet.
The room felt familiar.
Not the room itself.
The sensation.
The same wall.
The same light.
The same waiting.
As if I had passed through it too many times without stopping to look.
I opened another screenshot.
It showed a shackle.
Not attached to anything.
Simply resting on the floor.
I recognized it immediately.
The strange part was that I did not know from where.
I kept going.
In a later photograph the shackle was gone.
In the next one it had returned.
In the last one it occupied exactly the same position as in the beginning.
I studied the dates.
Then again.
Then a third time.
The last image was older than the first.
I found a folded note between two files.
The handwriting was mine.
I remembered writing it perfectly.
What I did not remember was reading it.
It contained only one sentence:
“You never left.”
For several minutes I stared at the words.
Then I searched for another note, expecting an explanation.
None appeared.
I found something worse.
A photograph.
In it I was pointing at the wall.
The same wall.
The same crack.
The same light.
The date was old.
Much older than it should have been.
I zoomed in.
Something was written beside the crack.
Difficult to read.
Still, I managed.
“The difference matters.”
It explained nothing.
That was exactly why I kept reading.
There was an activity log.
Hours accumulated.
Dozens.
Then hundreds.
I did not remember spending that much time there.
At first I assumed it was an error.
Then I found entire weeks filled with repeated access to the same files.
The same screenshots.
The same notes.
The same wall.
The same waiting.
Something had been costing me all that time.
I still did not know what.
I opened the final image.
I expected to find the shackle.
It was not there.
Only the empty wall.
And a sentence written directly onto the lime.
I recognized the handwriting.
It was mine.
The date belonged to tomorrow.
I read the sentence once.
Then again.
Then a third time.
It said:
“The next folder won’t sound familiar either.”
I closed the image.
Looked at the directory list.
There was a new folder.
I did not remember seeing it before.
Its name felt strangely familiar.
For several seconds I tried to remember when I had created it.
I could not.
I think I need to move my neck.
I do not remember whether I already did.
Because directly above the folder there was another screenshot.
I had not seen it before.
It showed me.
Looking at the screen.
My hand resting on my neck.
As if I were checking something.
The date was earlier than the first time I ever thought about doing it.
I have to move my neck I am not moving it the record cannot close I should…
