The light in his room didn't change, but on the screen, he saw a hand—rendered in perfect, terrifying detail—reach out from the edge of the monitor toward the "Elias" on the screen.
In the simulator, the "camera" was standing directly behind him.
The readme was a single line of broken English: “Do not look at the sun in the glass.” Real pic simulator 1.1 by polabuac12
On the screen, the camera moved into a small, cluttered office. He saw a desk covered in hard drives. He saw a glowing monitor. And he saw the back of a man’s head, illuminated by the blue light of the screen, wearing the same frayed hoodie Elias was wearing right now.
He moved his mouse. The camera in the "simulator" panned left. It wasn't a pre-rendered environment; the physics of the dust motes dancing in the light were perfect. He clicked a cabinet, and it swung open with a sound that didn't come from his speakers, but seemed to vibrate through his desk. The light in his room didn't change, but
Elias didn't close the program. He couldn't. The cursor was gone, and the glass of the monitor felt suddenly, impossibly cold.
Then he noticed the clock on the kitchen wall. It matched his own. 03:14 AM. He saw a desk covered in hard drives
Elias typed into the small terminal at the bottom of the screen: /location? The console blinked and spat back: LAT: 30.4213, LONG: -87.2169 .