On screen, her future self pulled up a holographic interface—tech that didn’t exist in 2024. The file number matched: .

And in the underground lab beneath the old Baeyeonseo Temple ruins, a bell began to ring.

First Accessed: 2024-08-06 20:06:30 KST — the same date as the file name. Last Modified: Never.

She looked back at the screen. The video player had changed. A new line of text glowed faintly beneath the frozen final frame:

A man’s voice, calm and terribly familiar though she’d never heard it before, said: “You just played file KA24080630. Did you finish the video?”

The video opened on a woman who looked exactly like her, but older. Same scar above the left eyebrow. Same nervous habit of tucking hair behind her ear. She sat in a room with no windows. Fluorescent lights buzzed overhead. Behind her, a whiteboard was covered in equations that made Eris’s temples throb.

She opened the file properties again. Buried in the hex data, almost invisible, was a second timestamp.

Future Eris glanced over her shoulder. Someone was knocking. Three slow knocks. Then two fast ones.