I didn't touch the Airdrop request.
I just stared at it.
ERASE HIM FIRST.
Was that the message?
Or the command?
I closed the phone, but the screen didn't go dark.
It played the file without my permission.
---
There was no music.
Just breathing.
Not hers.
Not mine.
Deeper. Slower. Intentional.
Then a male voice whispered — almost inside my skull:
> "Congratulations, Ezra. You made it this far without cracking. Let's change that."
Click.
Elena's voice came next. But not as I remembered it.
It was monotone. Dead. Recited.
> "You asked for me. I came. You looked for me. I answered. But I was never real."
Her tone changed mid-sentence. Softer. Sadder.
> "The real me is buried inside what you refuse to hear. So stop looking… and start playing."
> "Play me last."
---
Then silence.
But not total silence.
There was something underneath. A layered frequency — like a sound you can't hear but feel.
My ears rang.
My head pounded.
I opened my laptop.
I needed something—anything—to ground me.
But the screen was full of files I didn't name.
HerLastBreath_01
Ezra_Archive4
FakeMemory_TrialB
The last one was already playing.
---
> "In this memory, you came home and found her crying. But that never happened."
> "In this memory, she kissed you and said she'd stay. But that was inserted later."
> "In this memory, you held her when the call came. But that was a dream we planted."
What was happening to me?
These weren't memories.
They were edits.
Someone — or something — had been reconstructing my entire relationship like a film on a hard drive.
And now I couldn't tell what actually happened.
---
Then the music started.
A piano.
Her melody.
The one we wrote together.
But this time, it played in reverse.
Each note pulled at a different part of me. My throat tightened. My hands twitched. My heart skipped.
At the very end of the reversed melody, one word played forward:
> "RUN."
---
My lights went out.
The screen went black.
And on the reflection of the monitor, I saw someone standing behind me.
But when I turned—
There was no one there.
Just the file still whispering in the dark:
> "Play me last."