Kls005-08l.jpg 〈90% VALIDATED〉

First came the sky—not the blue Elias expected, but a deep, bruised violet. Then came the horizon, a jagged line of rusted metal and overgrown ivy. Finally, the center of the frame appeared. It was a person, or at least the silhouette of one, standing in the middle of a salt flat. They weren't looking at the camera; they were looking up at a faint, shimmering tear in the atmosphere.

Elias looked at the journal, then back at the screen. The figure in the bruised violet light was wearing his watch. KLS005-08L.JPG

As the final pixels resolved, Elias noticed something that made his blood run cold. On the ground next to the figure sat a small, leather-bound journal—the exact same journal that was sitting on Elias’s desk right now, inherited from a grandfather he had never met. First came the sky—not the blue Elias expected,