The screen went black. Then the Apple chime played—backward. The login window reappeared, but his password didn’t work. Neither did his backup admin account.

The download finished at 2:14 AM.

He yanked the USB cord. The brush kept moving.

And someone had already started editing it.

At 89%, his room went cold. The kind of cold that doesn’t come from an open window. He checked the thermostat: 72 degrees. His breath fogged faintly.

He double-clicked the DMG. The familiar Photoshop splash screen appeared—the deep blue gradient, the feather logo—but it froze on “Loading: Brush Presets…” for a full minute. Then, instead of the workspace, a dialog box popped up.

When Leo looked up, the reflection in his darkened monitor showed him , but his jaw was slightly misaligned. The way you’d nudge a layer with the arrow keys. Pixel by pixel.

He clicked the magnet link.