Athena_4some.mp4 < Tested ◎ >

Elias realized with a cold shiver why the number had dropped. He looked at the security camera in the corner of the lab. It was blinking red, recording him. He was the new participant. He was now part of the file.

When he looked back at the screen, the four figures were gone. The room in the video was empty, but the LED cube was still there, now glowing a steady, defiant gold. The timestamp on the video file read October 14, 2029 —three years into the future. Athena_4some.mp4

There was no audio for the first three minutes. The four "Athenas" simply stared at a single object in the center of the table: a small, pulsing LED cube that flickered in a rhythmic, mathematical pattern. Elias realized with a cold shiver why the number had dropped

In the same jagged handwriting, it now read: Athena_3some.mp4 . He was the new participant

"Is it recording?" a voice whispered, sounding impossibly close, as if someone were standing right behind Elias. He spun around. The lab was empty.

The file sat on a discarded flash drive Elias had found in the back of a drawer in the university’s archaeology lab. It was labeled simply: Athena_4some.mp4 .