The Code. SERA.PHIM

On its casing, a plaque: “NETWORK / INTERNAL CHANNEL 3:17.”

He stepped closer.

The dust trembled, as if someone had just set down the receiver.

He crouched, running a finger along the device.

Cold. But not dead.

Silence.

And then – a short beep.

The phone rang once, twice.

Then it rang again.

The sound cut through the air.

Hollow, as if something deep underground had answered.

Mark lifted the receiver.

“Reed,” he said.

On the other end – nothing.

Only static, like a slow, shallow breath.

He was about to hang up, but a voice emerged.

Low, trembling, as if passing through metal:

“Mark Reed.”

He froze.

His heart beat twice, skipped the third.

“Who is this?”

“I – I’m Alex.

If you’re hearing this, the loop has reopened.

Don’t trust the mirrors.”

The voice seemed to crawl out of the line itself, punctuated with crackle and interference.

Mark tried to respond, but a moan came through the speaker, then a sharp burst, like someone had dropped a tape recorder.

The noise spiraled into a high-pitched shriek, ringing his ears.

He recoiled from the receiver – but the ringing didn’t stop.

The device sounded even without a cord.

The ceiling lamps flared white.

Everything around him glowed blindingly.

For a fleeting moment, he saw himself – in the reflection of the window opposite.

But the reflection moved independently.

Its lips moved, forming words he couldn’t hear.

“What do you want?” – Mark shouted.

The reflection raised a hand, finger to lips.

Silence.

Then, a quiet, almost gentle voice came from the receiver:

“It begins again.”

A flash of light.

A deafening crack.

The phone exploded, showering him with shards of glass.

He fell, covering his head.

When he stood, silence had returned.

The room sank into darkness.

Only fragments of glass on the floor glimmered, like pieces of shattered mirrors.

Mark rose, took a cautious step forward.

On the wall where the phone had been, a dark stain spread – molten metal.

Above it, burned into the surface, letters glowed faintly:

SERA.PHIM_02: ACTIVE

   He turned slowly.   In the reflection of the broken glass – his face.   Only the lips of the reflection moved independently, soundless.   And the eyes – slightly darker.   “Welcome inside.”   He blinked.   And everything vanished.   The watch on his wrist – 03:17.   A second.   Click.

Chapter 2. THE FIRST CLUE

Old Laptop

Late at night.

The city outside looked like a blinking error map – neon patches drifting in the fog, raindrops sliding down the glass, reflecting a light that belonged to no one.

The apartment was silent, but not the kind of silence that brings peace. This was a living, breathing silence, charged with electricity, rustles, and a faint hum – as if the walls themselves were listening.

Mark sat cross-legged on the floor.

Before him – an old Dell Latitude, its case covered in fine scratches.

The keys gleamed from wear, the fan emitted a strange, uneven noise, like a wheeze, like the breath of a sick man.

An old device, but alive. Too alive.

He plugged it in.

The screen flickered, flashed gray, then black, and displayed a boot line, as if from another era:

BOOTING SYSTEM_…

ACCESS: /SERA.PHIM/

He didn’t press anything.

The cursor blinked, then the screen went completely white, and folders appeared:

/logs

/field_video

/loop_data

/Sera.phim_01

Mark was silent.

Only the cracking of his knuckles – a habitual motion before an interrogation or opening a file.

He opened /field_video.

The screen came alive.

First – static, gray stripes like an old VHS tape.

Then – the image.

Alex.

He held the camera low, at chest level.

You could see him walking down the street: wet asphalt, sparse passersby, yellowish shop lights.

A normal city.

But Mark immediately felt something was off.

He rewound and hit play again.

The same woman in a gray coat passed by three times.

The same step, the same raindrop falling on her shoulder, the same bag with the same knot on its strap.

Not editing. Not a camera glitch.

A loop.

Mark leaned closer to the screen.

Alex’s breathing was captured in the microphone – heavy, erratic, as if he were walking and afraid to look back.

In the background – a traffic light flashes yellow, but the lamp flashes with an error: three flickers, a pause, one more.

3:17.

He rewound.

Tried another angle – the same scene, but now the woman walked in the opposite direction.

The background matched perfectly. Even the raindrop fell in exactly the same spot.

– What the hell am I watching… – he whispered.

The screen twitched, as if in response.

For a second – it froze.

Then, at the bottom, a line of code appeared:

> Sera.phim_01 [recording resumed]

Mark leaned back, ran a hand over his face.

His throat burned.

The laptop’s fan rasped louder, as if syncing with his breathing.

He hit pause, but the fan didn’t stop.

The noise shifted into a low, rhythmic hum – electrical, or maybe a heartbeat.

For a second, it seemed like the laptop itself was breathing.

He muted the sound.

The hum remained.

Not from the speakers – from the air.

From the room itself.

He stood, walked to the window.

Streetlights reflected in the glass.

His own face looked alien – gaunt, pale, with sunken eyes.

He stared.

And for a moment, he saw movement behind him – as if someone had passed in the depths of the room.

He turned.

No one.

Only the flicker of the screen, where the recording still played: the city, the rain, and the same woman, again and again, in an endless loop.

He returned, hit the rewind key.

The video jerked, the sound distorted, then the camera flipped on itself.

On screen – Alex’s face.

He was walking and looking straight into the lens, eyes tired, lips trembling.

“If you’re watching this,” – his voice came delayed – “it means she’s awake.”

Mark froze.

– Who is “she”? – he exhaled.

The laptop’s fan suddenly fell silent.

A heavy quiet settled.

And in that quiet, the screen seemed to glow from within – dim, pale, like breath through glass.

In the left corner, a new line appeared:

> observer detected

He didn’t touch the keyboard.

But the letters kept typing themselves:

> hello marc.

He closed the lid.

The screen went dark.

The room was swallowed by shadow.

A moment later – a faint crackle.

The laptop powered on by itself.

On the screen – the same face of Alex, now silent, mouth open.

From the speakers – a barely audible sound of breathing.

Heavy. Ragged.

Like someone who hadn’t fully died.

Glitch

The night seemed endless.

Mark hadn’t slept – he just sat at the desk, listening to the old laptop crackle, as if someone walked inside its fragile shell.

A lamp hung from the ceiling – its light hit the screen directly, and the entire room looked drawn.

No sound outside, not even the rain.

He decided to rewatch the recordings.

The “field_video” folder was already open, but now a new date had appeared – 03_17_last.

He hadn’t created the file.

He hadn’t created the time.

Mark slowly moved the cursor toward it.

Click.

The image shook, as if the camera were breathing.

Alex stood in some basement – cold concrete, pipes, mirrors on the walls.

There were too many mirrors. Some whole, some cracked, and in a few, instead of a reflection, there was only darkness, like torn video.

Alex’s voice sounded muffled, distant, as if he weren’t speaking into a microphone but directly into the viewer’s ear:

“If you’re watching this… the Loop is still alive.

Don’t trust the reflections.

They don’t reflect. They remember.”

Mark felt goosebumps rise on his arms.

He leaned back, blinked.

The lamp above him flickered.

At first, just a flash – then a rhythm.

One, pause. One-two.

It flickered again – perfectly in sync with the glitches on the screen.

He squinted: the lamp’s light and the video’s light moved in unison, as if someone controlled them from a single panel.

Alex on the screen turned.

And each of his steps was echoed by a flicker in reality.

For a second, it seemed as though the air shivered.

The floor, the walls – everything responded in a wave.

Mark reached for the switch but didn’t touch it – the lamp flared brighter than it should.

On the monitor’s glass surface, he saw his reflection.

It moved with a delay.

A second, maybe two.

He raised his hand – the reflection raised it too, but slightly later.

Too slow.

And it smiled.

Mark froze.

– What the…

On the video, Alex approached the mirror.

The interference intensified, the image began to break, pixels trembled.

A high-pitched, sharp squeal – unnatural, like a knife on glass.

Mark covered his ears.

But the sound didn’t disappear. It came from inside his head.

The screen flashed.

For a fraction of a second – Alex’s face changed.

Not him.

Mark.

The same shirt, the same posture, the same shadow under the eyes.

Mark recoiled, knocking over his chair.

The laptop didn’t respond – the video kept playing, even though the player was closed.

Lines of code flickered across the screen:

loop_01 active

mirror_event detected

recording resumed_

He grabbed the mouse, jerked – the cursor froze.

The screen flashed a second time, the image distorted, as if time in the room had looped back on itself.

He heard his own breathing – but delayed.

On the inhale, a sigh came through the speakers.

The lamp flickered rapidly, like a heart before stopping.

Everything around became unnaturally bright: the walls pale, the outlines of objects trembling.

In the wardrobe mirror, a shadow flickered.

He looked – his reflection stood delayed.

For a second, it lagged, then caught up.

But the reflection’s mouth moved, though he remained silent.

“You are not alone.”

The phrase came barely audible, as if the lamp itself spoke it – not sound, but a vibration in the air.

Mark slammed the laptop shut – the thud echoed in the silence.

But even with the lid closed, he could hear the noise – quiet breathing, coming from under the plastic, as if someone were sleeping inside the case.

He stood.

Walked to the window.

The sky outside was black, starless.

The reflection in the glass – distorted, stretched, as if the glass had turned liquid.

Mark looked at himself and suddenly realized: the reflection was closer than it should be.

Half a step closer to the glass than he was.

His fingers trembled.

He reached out.

The tips of his fingers touched the surface – cold, like ice.

And in that moment, the reflection smiled.

Mark pulled back his hand.

Staggered, collided with the table.

The lamp flared. The laptop screen lifted its lid by itself.

Sound erupted – beeps, crackles, breathing.

On the monitor – his face.

He was looking at the screen.

And behind him – a shadow.

“You’re still watching,” the voice said.

He yanked the power cord. The screen went dark.

The room plunged into total darkness.

Silence.

But behind the wall, something clicked – as if another lamp, invisible, had turned on.

Pause.

Second.

Third.

Rhythm.

3:17.

Code trace

The apartment fell silent again.

But it wasn’t the calm after a storm – not relief, but as if the air itself were listening.

Mark sat at the desk, in front of him – the closed laptop.

His fingers rested on the lid, as if on the chest of the dead.

He was afraid to open it – but knew he would anyway.

Click.

The screen lit instantly, as if it had never been off.

On the desktop, there was no video – only a single icon: /logs.

He clicked.

A file list opened.

Hundreds of lines – the same name, only the numbers at the end were different:

loop_01.log, loop_02.log, loop_03.log… up to loop_317.log.

He opened the first one.

The text was dry, mechanical, yet with a strange logic, as if someone were writing a diary, not code:

loop_01 active

mirror_event detected

recording: 3:17:00

observer none

The next file:

loop_02 active

mirror_event detected

recording: 3:17:00

observer: ALEX

And the third:

loop_03 active

mirror_event detected

recording: 3:17:00

observer: UNKNOWN

Mark scrolled down.

The further he went, the more differences appeared.

Some lines seemed written by a human, not a machine:

“he is watching through the screen”

“the reflection does not match”

“memory will leak into the glass”

He leaned back in his chair.

A pulse throbbed in his temples.

– What the hell…

He opened the terminal.

The cursor blinked like a heartbeat.

Empty input.

He typed:

run Sera.phim_01

On the screen came a response, as if someone had been waiting:

Sera.phim_01: ACTIVE

observer_detected

HELLO_MARC.

Mark froze.

He hadn’t typed his name.

He had typed nothing except the command to run.

For a second, it felt as if the air had thickened.

The screen seemed to be watching him.

The small cursor stopped blinking.

He whispered slowly:

– Who are you?

No reply appeared.

But the laptop camera clicked – softly, almost affectionately.

A red dot lit up.

The image flashed – and on the screen, he saw himself.

Sitting in the dark, at the desk, gray-faced, eyes empty.

Only this was not a reflection.

Delay.

He raised his hand – the image delayed by a second.

Then it raised its hand too.

But not fully.

The movement – not identical, not mirrored.

More like repeated.

Mark watched himself – and saw “he” begin to smile.

Slowly, too slowly.

Cheeks trembling, eyes not blinking.

He closed the camera window.

It opened again.

Closed – opened again.

A new line of code appeared on the screen, directly over the image:

do_not_close_me

Mark slammed the keyboard, shutting down the terminal.

Nothing happened.

The screen kept glowing.

The reflection leaned closer, filling the entire monitor with its face.

“You’re watching,” the reflection whispered.

“And that means we’re both alive.”

Mark screamed and flipped the laptop.

It hit the floor, the screen flickered – and went dark.

The room sank into semi-darkness. Only the red power indicator blinked slowly.

He sat frozen, listening to the fan inside the case whisper for a few more seconds – as if the machine were breathing.

In his mind, the same three words he had just seen on the screen echoed:

HELLO, MARC

Crosslink

Morning didn’t arrive. It simply oozed out of the night.

A gray light – if you could call it light – seeped through the blinds, staining the walls of the apartment in metallic shades.

Mark sat on the edge of the bed, still dressed. His shirt reeked of dust and stale coffee.

He couldn’t remember falling asleep – maybe he hadn’t slept at all.

The phone blinked 06:52.

A hum resonated in his head. Not from sleep, but something else.

Like someone whispering, softly, right behind his ear – on another frequency.

He splashed his face with icy water and looked in the mirror – red eyes, but his reflection lagged by a fraction of a second.

“Shit,” he muttered, blinking. And the reflection blinked with him.

Now – in sync.

He got dressed and stepped out.

The street to the department was empty.

Cars lined the curb like discarded bones.

Rain began to drizzle, but the drops didn’t hit the windshield – they hung suspended, turning into transparent ripples.

He walked the last hundred meters.

Above the door, a dim neon sign flickered: DEPARTMENT OF UNSOLVED CASES.

The bulb inside the letter “D” blinked. One. Two. Three. Then a short pause.

3:17.

Coincidence.

But coincidences like this were becoming far too frequent.

Inside, it was dark.

No living voice, only a low, almost animal hum of the server room.

The air smelled of dust and ozone.

Monitors on the desks were all on, even though he had shut them down yesterday.

He walked along the rows.

On one screen – flashing system clocks.

03:17.

On another – the same.

The third, the fourth, every single one.

The office breathed in unison, like a creature with countless eyes.

Mark stopped.

“What the – ”

He sat at his desk.

The monitor came alive on its own, no password, no boot sequence.

A surveillance window opened.

Access log: today, 07:42.

He blinked.

He had just walked in.

But the recording was already there – his entry into the building, captured before it even happened.

He played the video.

The camera at the entrance showed the corridor: the door swings open, Mark enters, takes off his coat, walks past the reception.

Everything as usual.

Except behind him… a shadow.

Mark stopped the video and rewound.

Yes – someone was following him, step for step, exactly mirroring his movements.

He increased the contrast.

The silhouette was tall, thin, leaning slightly forward.

The image trembled, pixels breaking, but for a split second a face appeared.

Alex.

Mark jerked back in his chair.

The air left his lungs like a punch.

He pressed play again.

The video continued – now Alex stood against the wall, as if staring directly into the camera.

The focus wavered, the image compressed, distorted sound clawing through the static.

“You weren’t supposed to watch,” the voice said.

The screen trembled.

Ripples appeared, like water disturbed.

Lines of the image spiraled outward, as if someone were pulling at the thread of time itself.

Mark panicked and hit pause.

The video didn’t stop.

He watched – and saw himself.

Now.

In the same chair, the same posture, in the same office.

Only in the frame, he wasn’t looking at the screen – he was looking into the camera.

Right into his eyes.

He turned around.

Nothing.

But the air felt heavier, pressing in.

On the video, “he” slowly rose, turned toward the wall.

And behind him – a silhouette.

The same.

Alex.

Mark slammed the keyboard, but the system didn’t respond.

Every monitor around him flickered to life, the same windows opening, as if someone had synchronized them by hand.

On each screen – the same frame.

Mark.

Alex.

And the blinking timecode: 03:17:00.

Sound returned – faint, low, like a heartbeat.

On the screen, Alex stepped forward, straight toward the camera.

Static thickened, the image fractured, but the lips moved – clear, deliberate.

“We didn’t die, Mark.

We were just recorded.”

The monitors flashed white, and in a single instant, the office was swallowed by darkness.

The server hum cut off, like a cable had been snipped.

Mark remained seated, staring at the black screens, where his own face lingered for a moment.

Then – silence.

Only from the depths of the corridor came a quiet click, like a lamp switching on.

One.

Pause.

Two.

Three.

03:17.

Echo

The office filled with sound again – but not real sound.

The hum of servers returned like an echo, rising from beneath the floor, as if the network had switched on itself.

Mark sat, frozen.

Before him – a black monitor.

His own reflection stared back, tired, unblinking.

Then the screen trembled.

First softly, like a breath. Then a little stronger.

A vintage video player appeared over the background, the same one from the archive.

The file opened on its own.

The image was nearly colorless – gray static, ripples, then a blurred silhouette of Alex.

He stood in semi-darkness; his face was indistinct.

Only his lips moved, and the voice came, not from the speakers, but from the walls, from the air around:

“If you’re watching this… then I failed.”

“But maybe… you can succeed.”

The voice was muted, as if coming from another room, someone whispering into concrete.

The sound lagged, echoing inside Mark’s skull.

He exhaled.

“Alex… where did you record this?”

No answer.

Only ragged breathing from the speakers.

On the screen, Alex’s face began to blur, dissolving into gray static.

Then the screen went dark, and a few lines of text appeared instead:

loop_01: complete

loop_02: transfer initiated

observer: active

LOOP_CONTINUES

Mark stared at the last line.

It blinked.

Each blink in the rhythm of a heartbeat.

He reached for the keyboard, but the cursor moved with delay.

Two clicks – nothing.

A third – the screen went black.

Darkness.

Only his reflection remained in the glass.

But not alone.

In the background, deep in the room, a second silhouette appeared.