Camera Shy -

Lena touched her face. Her reflection in a nearby game booth mirror confirmed it: her irises had faded from warm brown to a pale, watery grey. And behind her navel, where the cold hollow had lived for fifteen years, something pulsed. Warm. Whole.

Lena smirked at the cheesy horror-movie tagline. But the man behind the booth made her pause. He was old, with skin like crumpled parchment and eyes the color of tarnished silver. He didn’t smile. He just looked at her Pentax and said, “You understand the cost of images, don’t you?”

“You feel it,” he said, tapping his own chest. “The little rip. The tiny loss. Most people are too numb to notice. But you’re… camera shy .” Camera Shy

“No.” She clutched her Pentax like a crucifix. “I don’t get my picture taken.”

Her family called it a quirk. Friends called it annoying. Lena called it survival. Lena touched her face

The old man ducked under a black cloth behind the camera. “Smile,” he murmured. “Or don’t. It doesn’t matter.”

A blinding flash—not white, but silver , like lightning frozen in mercury—slammed into her. Lena felt the familiar hook, but this time it didn’t pull out . It plunged in . Deep. Twisting. She opened her mouth to scream, but no sound came. The world dissolved into negative space. But the man behind the booth made her pause

She’d been leaving them behind, one flash at a time.