The third photo was a selfie from her bathroom mirror, taken two days ago.

The software didn’t speak for a long time. Then: “You are being watched through your phone’s camera. Not by a hacker. By someone who knows your heartbeat. Look at the window behind you in this image.”

The next morning, her apartment was clean. The SD cards were gone. The ramen cups were recycled. On her kitchen table sat a single printed photo—the Kyoto lantern shot. A post-it note on the back read: “He wrote: ‘For my unborn daughter, find the crooked pine.’”

Her father had died when she was three. He’d visited Kyoto in his twenties. She had no way to verify the claim—but the certainty in the software’s voice made her stomach drop.