Eli Clarke always preferred his work to people. As lead VFX designer for Nova Studios, he spent his days creating impossible worlds into existence on giant screens, stitching together layers of light and shadow until the final render sang. He was a reassuring presence among his small team, quiet, meticulous, and reliable. So when screenwriter Glenn McCauley appeared at Nova's lobby on a foggy Thursday morning, Eli found himself drawn into a whirlwind he could never have anticipated. He was still anxious about the new director's cut project, as 2 of the scenes with both Hazamt and Fallout were not rendering, but there was still a year till for the movie release.
Glenn was all nervous energy, pacing the foyer in a charcoal suit that looked two sizes too large. He shook Eli's hand with a trembling grip. "I need your team," he blurted. "I'm making the biggest film of my life, sci-fi, full of battles, aliens. If we don't finish in four months, the investors pull out. My company goes under." He paused and lowered his voice: "I can't let that happen." He has been meeting Glenn long enough to know that this was the time that could change everything. His relationship with his wife was declining but she still loved him a lot.
Eli glanced at the clock on the wall at 10:17 AM. Four months felt like tomorrow. But he nodded. "We'll give it everything we've got." A courtesy smile. He slipped off to set up the initial meeting, his mind already running through the scenes and the new hardware they'd need.
Two days later, Eli stepped out of the studio, looking at the sunset, grabbing coffee from the kiosk down the block. He spotted a young woman he had met before leaning against the brick wall, her gaze fixed on a crumpled resume. She wore a silver crescent–moon earring dangling from one ear, just one. When she looked up and caught his eye, Eli felt a jolt of familiarity.
"Hey," he called gently. "Looking for work?"
She blinked, as if rousing from a dream. "Yeah. Entry‐level, anything. I… I have some graphics training." Her voice was polite, a little shaky.
"Come by tomorrow," Eli said, handing her a business card with Nova's logo. "Email your portfolio."
She smiled, a flicker of hope, and slipped the card into her pocket. In that moment, Eli felt a warmth, like a second chance at making things right. It was Jenna; they were friends for a while, but Eli was looking for something more. He had some idea about her family and her financial conditions.
Later that evening, on his way home, Eli's headlights caught a familiar figure standing beneath a streetlamp. Ashton Red, who was a detective at the local precinct and a good friend, was tall, with a trimmed mustache, always wearing that rumpled navy jacket. Ashton's stakes were always high, too, but the stakes Eli faced now felt different. Ashton's partner, Cooper, was always a mouthful, still on the phone, blurting out all sorts of curses.
Ashton straightened when he saw Eli's car pull up. "Eli," he said, nodding. "Where are you going today?"
"Home. You?"
"Just checking on a case." He squinted, as though measuring Eli's expression. Looking into this junkie. No record of him, no credit cards, all transactions in cash, and cash is impossible to trace. He shows up, drops his stuff, and disappears. Nobody's seen him twice." Ashton paused. "Told my partner it's like chasing the Loch Ness monster."
Eli, confused with his words, says. "Sounds… frustrating." He watched the detective's gaze flicker past him, as though studying more than his face, and he gave him a glance as he knew he would like to hear a story today, but Ashton and Cooper are right chasing a lead, and they cannot afford to be distracted. It was regular with these guys, as they would always exchange stories. Eli met Ashton one day by accident, and since then, every time they met, it was story time, sometimes by Ashton and sometimes by Eli.
"Be careful," Ashton said quietly, then turned away. Eli sat for a moment, engine idling. He remembered Jenna's earring as he started his car. On the right side exclusively. Why hadn't it occurred to him to ask why?
The following morning, Eli arrived at Glenn McCauley's house, an angular, glass‐walled mansion perched at the edge of a quiet cul‐de‐sac. He carried a leather portfolio stuffed with concepts and deadlines. He knocked. No answer. Bathroom lights glowed through the frosted glass. After a moment, Glenn's wife peered from behind the door, her expression vacant. She shook her head and closed it. Eli stood there, portfolio clutched, confused.
He tried calling Glenn straight to voicemail. He checked his watch: 10:02 AM. Glenn's secretary later told him the writer was out of town—had been called away for meetings. Eli left the house feeling disquieted.
On his drive back to Nova, he spotted Jenna again, this time pacing on the sidewalk, cell phone pressed to her ear. Tears streamed down her cheeks. Eli slowed, window down. "Are you okay?"
She glanced up, her earring glinting in the morning sun. "Not really," she admitted. "I just… lost my ride to the interview." She sniffed. "What am I doing with my life?"
Eli opened his door. "Climb in. I'll take you." He pointed to the passenger seat. For a moment, she hesitated. But that old warmth stirred again, and she slid in.
Then, at the intersection, light red, Eli's world went white. The smash was thunderous. Metal crumpled. Glass exploded. A truck came speeding from behind. The sound of the crash was so loud that it all went quiet for a moment.
He found himself pinned in the driver's seat, blood seeping from a cut on his forehead. Around him, stretchered bodies, paramedics yelling. Ambulance lights pulsed crimson shadows. He caught a glimpse of his own convertible's hood crushed into the sidewalk curb. And somewhere, a silver earring blinked in the grass. Jenna's hand was the last thing he saw before he completely blacked out.
He woke six hours later in an ICU room, head throbbing, left arm in a splint. Papers claimed "moderate traumatic brain injury" and "fractured ribs." But he felt every fracture in his mind. The faces of the crash—each one pressing into him like a weight. In a haze of pain and morphine, his last coherent thought was a single phrase: It wasn't supposed to end like that.
Six months passed in a blur of physical therapy, nightmares, and absence. When Eli finally returned to Nova, he rehearsed the scene in his mind, bracing for sympathy, apologies. Instead, the office was cold. His nameplate was gone. His desk now belonged to someone who looked at him with pity and returned to his work. Comments drifted: "He's lucky to be alive." "Hope he gets his life back." But nobody asked if he wanted his job back.
Eli left early that day, heart pounding. On his walk home, he found himself at the edge of the park where he'd met Jenna. He felt her presence felt like warm sunlight, and in that moment, he understood how much he felt guilty for letting it happen to her. he went to her as he wanted to make up for his absence and wanted to know how she was doing after the accident. They hung out for hours.
That evening, at precisely 8:43 PM, the lights in Eli's apartment clicked on without warning. He froze at the door. Glenn McCauley sat on the couch, perfectly upright, legs crossed, fingers steepled. A single shaft of lamplight illuminated his face. His eyes, once warm, were hollow.
"Eli," Glenn said, voice calm as a scalpel. "Don't make another sound."
Eli's chest tightened. "How did you get here?"
Glenn tilted his head and picked out a gun. "They said my company crashed, thanks to your team, I am still here, you took everything from hence, I need some things from you." He placed a list, folded paper, on the coffee table. Eli picked it up with trembling fingers. It listed:
A Woolen Scarf
A Diamond Ring.
and a Postcard that said, "You are freer than you think".
Three instructions:
He can't buy, if he exceeds forty‐eight hours, he's dead. He can not involve anyone. Eli's vision blurred. "Why?"
Glenn rose, stepped into a ripple of lamplight. "Because you owe me. And because… I'm not going anywhere," He slowly made his way out the door. He blinked at his watch at 9:01 PM. Exactly 48:59 remaining. The first knot in his chest tightened.
He spent the next two nights chasing memory like a fugitive. The woolen scarf had been tucked in a sealed envelope addressed to a woman in Maine, never sent, never worn. It still carried the faint scent of camphor and cigarettes. The diamond ring turned up at a secondhand pawn shop across the river, labeled "No resale personal hold." When Eli flashed a name, the clerk just nodded and slid it across the counter.And the postcard "You are freer than you think" was folded between the pages of an overdue library book left behind at a shuttered train station. The ink had bled slightly, like someone had cried while writing it.
None of it cost money. Only bribes, borrowed favors, and the slow unraveling of a man trying not to remember why he started.
At 11:45 PM exactly 48 hours later, Glenn placed the three items in a plain black box and sent a text he dared not send: "Done." At 11:47 PM, Glenn's reflection winked at him from the glossy black surface of the box's lid. It smiled and vanished.
It had been 3 nights since Glenn returned with a newer list, again with 3 items and 48 hours, "You did good last time, don't screw this up, it's for your own good" his parting words for the night. Eli shook as he left. But he got to the task at hand soon.
The CashThe department store Eli used to frequent had a small office in the back—old registers, cash kept in envelopes. At closing time, Eli slipped in posing as an IT technician. The cameras were down; he'd called in the outage anonymously that morning.
Inside, an unsealed drawer held a thick wad of bills. He took them, hands trembling. As he turned, a young clerk stepped in, headphones in, saw him, and froze. For one second, they stared at each other—then the clerk ran. Eli didn't wait to see if he called for help.
The Train TicketEli stood in front of the counter at Central Station, tapping his card until the ticket spat out. One way. Milner's Ridge. He caught his reflection in the machine's screen and swore under his breath. He bought it. Glenn would know.
The WatchIt took him longer to find the exact model. Ashton wore it during every coffee, every crime scene, the same steel bezel and blue dial. Eli found a secondhand one online, then picked it up from a pawn shop in the industrial side of town. The price was steep, but he traded an old GPU for it.
Soon, Glenn showed up, as if he knew Eli would come back to work at this time. He did not say a word, but picked up the stuff, put it into a box, and left.
That night, Jenna called him. "I just want to see water," she said softly. "You always promised me that." They drove out to Lake Calder, a fogged-over basin thirty miles east of the city. The wind skimmed over the water in long, glassy sheets. They walked along the pier, her hand finding his. His heart beat differently when she touched him quietly, like trust. "Maybe it's time you left Nova," Jenna said after a pause. "You hate going back." "I used to love it," Eli replied. "Before… all this." She looked at him, searching. "You're good at more than VFX. You fix things. You notice people. There's that other studio in Hollow Creek—you said they had a spot." "I'd have to leave everything behind."
Jenna smiled gently. "Maybe you should start over, fresh and away from everything."
They leaned close, almost touching. The lake whispered below them. Her hair caught in the wind. He closed his eyes, ready to move closer, when a sharp beep interrupted them. Eli's phone. 9:12 PM.
They held hands and walked to the car. Eli left her at her place. And then reached home. Jenna's presence almost felt surreal to him, just like he used to feel about her. He couldn't find a way to tell her everything back then, and soon she got into a serious relationship with someone.
Two days later, Glenn returned—inside Eli's apartment—carrying another list. This time, something was different. He said, "I know about the ticket, how could you? I told you do not screw this up".This one read, A vial of experimental narcotic, straight from the ganglord's safe, a few streets away from the pet store near him.
Sealed envelopes with two prints of private photographs. He wrote where he might find them.
A USB stick from the guard's drawer who is on shift in front of the bank by the under-construction site.
A picture from a photo frame from a given address.
"And this time," Glenn said, "I have a gun." He placed the barrel of a handgun on the coffee table, exactly in line with the lamp's glow. "You involve a cop, I'll know. You have twenty‐four hours, this time. Consider this my final visit." He hauled open the blinds to show him a flashing red haze of a patrol car idling in the street. "That cop doesn't know I'm here. But if he does, I'll be the last to go."
Eli fled to Ashton's car, where he is always parked. Ashton reclined in his car, an empty coffee mug cooled on the blotter. He looked up, expression cold.
"Ashton," Eli gasped. "It's him again. I have to stop him. This time "
Ashton held up a hand. "Who? You shouldn't be here, it's late, is something wrong?"
Eli slumped into the seat opposite him. "Glenn Maccauly, he is hunting me, he threatened me again."
Ashton's face didn't change. "I was wrong. He's still alive."
The words crushed something in Eli's chest. He struggled to breathe. "But…"
Ashton tapped a file folder. "All these lead drugs, photos trace back to Glenn. We're onto him." He exhaled, pushing the folder across. "You have twenty‐four hours. Good luck and don't worry I am onto to that son of a bitch."
Eli left with the file, heart hammering. By midnight, Eli had them all — and every nerve in his body was frayed.
The vial came first. The warehouse sat behind a run-down beauty salon, its flickering neon sign buzzing above cracked windows. He approached casually, hands in pockets, asking a lounging teen near the gate if he could score some weed, just enough to blend in. The kid barely looked up before waving him inside.
The stash was real, if sloppy. Stacks of poorly labeled crates, sticky counters, the air thick with the rot of cheap incense and spilled chemicals. While backs were turned, Eli slipped behind a supply rack and yanked open a dented cabinet. Inside: an unlabeled glass vial, cloudy blue, chilled to the touch. He pocketed it just as a door creaked behind him.When he exited the alley, he caught a glimpse — an old woman in a window across the street, staring down at him, unmoving. Her eyes followed him all the way to the corner.
Next were the photographs.
He found them inside a postmarked envelope, tucked in a drop box at an abandoned photo lab on 46th Street. Somewhere Jenna used to live back when they were still in school, he remembered when she lost her bag one day. They were old, creased, and faded but sharp in meaning. It felt wrong even to look at them. He slid the envelope into his pocket and went to the next task.
Then came the USB stick.
He followed the guard after his shift, a short, tired man with a limp and heavy keys. Eli had hoped he'd drop something, leave his post, give him a clean chance. He slowly went inside and tried to open the drawer, but it was empty. Panicked, he looked to the door, the man caught him, red-handed and tried to subdue and call the cops, but Eli took the phone from his desk and smashed it on his head, and then words were exchanged. Then fists.Eli panicked. The guard hit the concrete hard, a dull thud, limbs slack. Eli didn't check if he was breathing. He just grabbed the USB from his jacket pocket and ran.
Final piece of the puzzle. Eli stood before the weather-worn apartment complex tucked into the edge of an old residential block near Chinatown. The address matched the one scribbled on the back of the final photograph Glenn had given him—an image of Jenna and her mother, laughing beneath a flowering tree. This version was different from the ones in the sealed envelopes. It was newer. The colors were richer. Jenna looked… more alive.
He took a breath and slipped the photograph into his jacket lining, careful not to crumple it.
Inside, the hallway smelled of dust and incense. A wooden wind chime knocked gently above the door marked 1C. He knocked once. Then again.
The door creaked open. A thin woman in a faded red robe peered out. Her eyes were deep-set, her hair streaked gray, pulled into a bun too tightly. She didn't speak.
Eli stepped forward. "Hi. I'm sorry to drop by. I knew Jenna. We used to work together, years ago."
The woman's gaze lingered on his face, unmoving. She nodded faintly, then opened the door wider and let him in without a word.
Inside, the room was dim and still. A dusty photograph of Jenna as a child sat on a cluttered mantel. Next to it, a worn suitcase and a realtor's flyer on the table—For Sale: Cozy 2BHK with Historic Charm.
"I was just packing," she said softly, motioning to the boxes by the wall. "The house is going. I held on too long." After a long conversation. Eli remembered he was soon going to run out of time.
As she stepped into the kitchen to fetch a glass of water, he moved toward the table, fingers brushing the edge of an open drawer.
The moment her back turned, he slipped the new photograph from his jacket into the inside pocket of his hoodie. It was an instinct, not a choice. Something told him it didn't belong there.
"Do you… still think of her?" he asked, his voice thinner than he expected.
The woman's mouth quivered. "Every day." She turned to face him fully now, the light catching her hollow cheeks. "She died last year. The crash." Her voice cracked. "They said it was instant. She didn't suffer."
Eli felt the words cave in around his chest.
"That's not." His voice faltered. "But… I've been with her. Recently. We've spoken. We went to the lake just days ago. She said she missed me."
The woman's eyes flooded. "Yes, "I've seen her too… in my own way, in my dreams. In reflections. It seems like she never left."
Eli blinked, his mind fracturing. His hands curled into fists inside his sleeves.
She took a deep breath. "The day Jenna died… something shattered. For both of us. Sometimes I still set a place at the table. Sometimes I smell her perfume when no one's here."
He nodded slowly, he stood up with a jerk, and started heading towards the door.
"I'm sorry," he said quickly. "I remembered something important." And then he turned. He didn't wait for her to say anything else. He ran. Down the stairs, through the lobby, past the cracked sidewalk. His lungs burned as he sprinted back through the narrow lanes, the photograph clutched tight against his chest like it might burn through his coat. She was dead. Had always been. He didn't stop running until he reached his front door.
He ran home, clutching the black box of items. Upon entering, he froze. Glenn sat in the shadows by the coffee table, Ashton stood by the bookshelf, face pale, unreadable. And Jenna, her hair tossed, her single silver earring sparkling under the lamp, leaned against the wall. All three watched him.
Eli's pulse kicked at 180 bpm. He backed away, breath catching. "You're… you're not real," he whispered. His hands shook as he placed the black box on the table. With trembling fingers, he popped the lid. The narcotic vial, photos, and envelopes lay neatly inside.
Glenn rose from the chair, stepping into a slanted strip of light. "Time's up," he said softly.
Ashton took a step forward. "Hand over the stuff." His voice was flat—like he'd been reciting lines.
Jenna smiled and took another step, silver earring circling in its single earlobe. "I missed you," she said.
Eli blinked—and they all vanished.
He dropped to his knees, blood pounding in his ears. Visions tormented him: the crash, Jenna's lifeless eyes, Glenn's hollow frown, Ashton's cold stare. His mind shredded he couldn't hold onto any thread of reality. He slipped into darkness.
When he came to, dawn light filtered weakly through the curtains. He lay on his couch, disoriented. On the coffee table, three black boxes sat neatly in a row. With leaden limbs, he opened each one and packed its contents into new boxes labeled in spidery script:
Mrs. McCauley: A diamond ring, its band scratched, the stone clouded as though forgotten.
Detective Ashton's Precinct: The narcotic vial, sealed tight, a damning piece of evidence.
Jenna's Mother: Five thousand dollars in cash, bundled with an apology note.
For each, he wrote a small card:
"For the woman who lost her husband to an unending ambition."
"For the partner who lost a dedicated officer."
"For the mother who buried her child."
He then slowly started to remember the days since the crash, Ashton's partner, and Ashton himself were injured, Jenna was pronounced dead before she was brought into the ER. Also, one of the juniors from the office who then came to the hospital to tell him that the deal for the film Glenn was producing was cancelled, days later, the same junior came back with the news that he had killed himself. His entire reality shattered in front of him when he realized the guilt he had been carrying, and he picked himself up and took each box.
He taped them shut and stared at them. The air in the apartment felt thin, like holding his breath for too long. Finally, it was quiet, his phone was silent, and so was his mind. He could finally hear absolutely nothing, not a single song on his brain. It was almost like somebody went ahead and closed the browser. He could see things more clearly now. He sat down and looked at the door with absolute awe, like a child curious to discover this world, the world outside, the world around him.
Weeks later, whispers of Eli Clarke's recovery trickled through Nova's hallways. He was attending therapy, making slow progress. They said things about Eli possibly quitting and deadlines that never ended.
One crisp autumn night, Eli drifted into his apartment after a group therapy session. He was calmer than he'd felt in months, no ghosts, no spectres. He carried a backpack to return a borrowed laptop.
He set it down by the door and exhaled. That's when he heard the scuffle behind him. A junkie eyes wild, knuckles white around a knife slipped inside. Eli's heart lurched. He backed toward the door. The junkie's vision cracked: he lunged at a passing cop at the end of the hallway. The cop's uniform flared under the flickering light as he stumbled, throat gashed by the blade.
Eli screamed, watching the cop collapse. He turned to run, dread pooling in his chest. He burst through the apartment door and ran into the street, colorful leaves swirling around his ankles. Sirens wailed. He spotted a cluster of flashing lights at an intersection away: two patrol cars, engines idling. He sprinted toward them as though salvation might lie behind the badges.
Then a truck appeared from nowhere, headlights hunting. He glanced over his shoulder too late, a wall of metal barreling straight at him. Time stretched. He saw himself sprawled on wet asphalt. The city's neon lights blurred, and as air whooshed from his lungs, he felt… peaceful. He got up to see himself on the ground and the truck disappear into the distance, he followed the same road, kept walking and never looked back.