Questions had consumed Elliot’s life. Who was Arthur Caldwell? Why had the tapes fallen into his hands? And what was real anymore? 

The stranger’s visit had only deepened the mystery. The man had called himself Caleb Caldwell, Arthur’s son, and warned Elliot to stop watching the tapes. But how could he, when the tapes seemed to hold the answers to questions he couldn’t even articulate?

The next morning, Elliot decided he couldn’t live with the uncertainty any longer. He needed to find Caleb and demand the truth.

Caleb wasn’t easy to find. Elliot scoured public records, searched online, and even called the estate sale organizers again. He finally tracked Caleb to a run-down motel on the outskirts of town, a place that seemed as transient as the man himself.

When Elliot knocked on the door, Caleb opened it with a wary expression, as if he’d been expecting him. Without a word, he stepped aside, allowing Elliot to enter. The room was sparse, cluttered only with a duffel bag and scattered papers. On the nightstand sat a small stack of videotapes, identical to the ones Elliot had found.

“I told you to stop,” Caleb said, his tone more resigned than angry.

“And I told you I needed answers,” Elliot shot back. “Who are you? Who was your father? What is all of this?”

Caleb sighed, running a hand through his hair. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

“Try me.”

Caleb gestured to a chair, and Elliot sat, bracing himself for whatever explanation was coming.

“My father was… complicated,” Caleb began. “He wasn’t just some recluse with a camera obsession. He was part of a group—a secret project during the Cold War. They were experimenting with time manipulation and surveillance, trying to find ways to predict events, control outcomes.” 

He paused, his gaze distant. “The tapes were their crowning achievement. Not just recordings, but windows into alternate timelines, parallel realities.”

Elliot’s stomach churned. “What does this have to do with me?”

Caleb hesitated, as if debating how much to reveal. “You were… an experiment. Or maybe the experiment. My father never told me the full story, but for some reason, he fixated on you. All I know is that he believed you were at the center of something—something big.”

Elliot’s mind raced. The tapes, the visions of himself in places he didn’t remember, the future events they hinted at—it all began to click into place, though the picture was far from clear. “Was he trying to protect me? Or manipulate me?”

“Maybe both,” Caleb said. “My father wasn’t a good man, Elliot. He cared more about his work than about people. But in the end, I think he started to regret what he’d done. He tried to destroy the tapes, but…” Caleb gestured to the box Elliot had found. “Clearly, he didn’t finish the job.”

Elliot leaned forward, his voice low and urgent. “What am I supposed to do? These tapes—they’re messing with my head. I can’t tell what’s real anymore.”

Caleb’s expression darkened. “Then stop watching them. Walk away. If you don’t, they’ll pull you in. That’s what they do—they twist time around you until you lose yourself.”

But Elliot knew he couldn’t stop. Not now.

***

Back in his apartment, Elliot couldn’t help himself. He began sifting through the tapes again, searching for clues in the flickering images. They showed fragments of his life—but not always the life he remembered.

In one tape, he watched himself arguing with his parents in a house he didn’t recognize, his mother’s face lined with age. But his mother had died when he was a teenager. In another, he stood in a classroom, teaching a group of students, though he had never been a teacher.

The most unsettling tape showed him sitting alone in a park, staring at his hands. They were gnarled and wrinkled with age. Elliot rewound the footage over and over, trying to understand. How could these versions of himself exist? Were they possible futures? Alternate pasts? Or were they something else entirely?

He began to feel like a stranger in his own life, doubting his memories, his choices. Arthur Caldwell’s cryptic whisper echoed in his mind: “You’re ready now.”

Ready for what?

***

Late one night, Elliot discovered a tape he hadn’t noticed before. It was unlabeled, and he couldn’t remember putting it in the box. His hands shook as he loaded it into the VCR and pressed play.

The screen flickered to life, showing a familiar street corner. It was a place Elliot passed every day on his way to work. The camera panned slowly, settling on a figure standing in the middle of the street.

It was him.

Elliot stared, transfixed, as the on-screen version of himself stood motionless, his face expressionless, his eyes locked on something in the distance. The camera pulled back, revealing the headlights of an oncoming car. The vehicle barreled forward, its horn blaring, but Elliot didn’t move.

The screen went black before the moment of impact.

Elliot sat frozen, his heart hammering in his chest. The timestamp on the tape was for tomorrow afternoon.

He didn’t sleep that night. When the sun rose, he left his apartment, driven by a compulsion he couldn’t explain. He walked aimlessly until he found himself at the street corner from the tape. The air was heavy, the world around him unnervingly quiet.

He stepped into the road.

The car screeched to a halt inches from him, the driver screaming obscenities as Elliot staggered back onto the sidewalk. His heart pounded as he realized he was still alive, the tape’s prediction unfulfilled.

But as he looked around, he caught sight of something—or someone—standing in the shadows. A man in a wide-brimmed hat and a trench coat, watching him from across the street. Elliot blinked, and the figure was gone.

Arthur Caldwell’s voice echoed in his mind, calm and deliberate: “You’re ready now.”

For the first time, Elliot thought he understood. The tapes weren’t just windows into other realities. They were guiding him toward something, shaping his choices, his life. And now, whatever Arthur had set in motion, Elliot was ready to face it.

The question was: what came next?

To Be Continued …