But he heard breathing. Slow. Patient. On the other side of the wood.

He dropped the phone. It clattered on the hardwood floor, screen still glowing. When he picked it up, the ewallet app was gone. Not crashed. Not hidden. Gone. As if it had never been installed.

It went back sixty-three days. A perfect, mechanical rhythm. Deposit at 9:00 AM. Transfer to 'V_Never_Ends' at 9:03 PM. He’d never noticed. The ewallet was his junk drawer—where he stashed tips from focus groups and refunds from cancelled subscriptions. He checked it twice a year.

"2319 isn't the code to your wallet, Elias. It's the code to you."

Two days ago: Transfer to user 'V_Never_Ends' - $4,200.00

But the ewallet. The transactions. The midnight rhythm. The penny.

He laughed. A raw, desperate sound. It was absurd. It was a prank. It was—

His phone buzzed. A text from an unknown number.