Then, the monitor went black. Outside, the birds stopped singing. The hum of the refrigerator died. In the sudden, absolute silence, Elias realized he couldn't hear his own heart anymore.
He scrolled to the very bottom of the file. The lines were still appearing, generated in real-time by a process he couldn't see. 1.2MIL.txt
Elias jerked his hand away from the desk. He hadn't clicked save. He hadn't touched anything. He watched, frozen, as the file name at the top of the window changed. Then, the monitor went black
