She turned around, screaming. The stream cut to black.

The screen went silent. Then, a new image appeared: a static shot of a laptop screen in a dark room. On that laptop screen was the same static shot. And inside that, another. Marco’s heart stopped. Because the outermost frame—the one containing his own laptop, his own cluttered desk, his own hand frozen on the mouse—was his room . The film was now streaming him.

He looked.

Marco reached for the power cord. As he yanked it from the wall, the laptop battery held. The stream did not die. It only zoomed in. On the figure. On the face. Which was now smiling.

Before he could react, the stream resumed. But the image on his screen was no longer the film. It was a live feed from a hotel corridor—pale green walls, a flickering sconce, a door with a brass number: 101. The door began to open from the inside.