RELAY — THE WARNING
Original short / first production cut / local review

A home telephone rings. A man listens to a warning on the handset. Someone is coming. Whatever he says, do not let him in. Use the service door.
A single knock. He checks the door on its security chain. An anonymous wrist at the gap: charcoal cuff, a little triangular tear, pale threads. He closes the door.
At the service exit his sleeve catches the damaged latch. A small rip. He checks his phone: 23:15.
He walks the plain service passage. A hard transition, no glowing portal. The landing is familiar. Phone: 23:14.
His mobile calls HOME, the separate telephone inside. He repeats the warning from memory. We hear the EXACT same recorded performance, now with his own mouth visible.
Only after the call: his right wrist. The torn cuff. The earlier image returns for a fraction of a second.
He knocks once to stop the person inside. His own earlier face looks out. WAIT. IT IS ME.
The door closes against him. The warning has created the person he feared.

Loop rule: the service passage returns his body sixty seconds earlier. The telephone is not a second temporal portal. The warning completes before the first knock. One phone performance reused at both ends; no second caller speaking while he is at the door.

No explainer end card. The repeated sound, torn cuff, reversed minute and two versions in the final gap carry the reveal.
