The Cursed Camera

She sat there, lifeless in the chair. It had happened overnight. Someone used the camera to take the soul of Elizabeth, and Finn was asleep for the whole thing. Finn wished he was a light sleeper so he could have heard something, maybe he could have done something before she was gone. So now he was determined to save her after the fact. He knew the curse of the camera by heart, he had studied it for years, and he knew that he had seven days to find the camera. And he dreaded what he had to do after he found it, but he would do anything to save Elizabeth.

He took one last look at her and the house that they shared before leaving, not knowing how long he would be gone searching for the camera. Whoever had done this to Elizabeth had someone that they had wanted to save, and they used her to do it. People tend to ditch the camera as far away from whoever they care about as they can after they take the two pictures that they have to, and Finn felt like that was valid, but it would make finding it hard. Unless, of course, he was lucky, and the person lived across the town from where Finn and Elizabeth did.

Except he walked outside and down the street, and there was the camera, haphazardly discarded in someone’s yard. He guessed that the person did live across town after all. Finn didn’t think he would ever get this lucky again. Now time for the next step, the one he didn’t dread. He rushed back to the house and snapped a picture of Elizabeth with the camera. Now came the part he dreaded, he had to find someone else to take a picture of, so the camera would release Elizabeth’s soul. If he took the picture within the seven days, the camera would release the soul of the person with two pictures taken back-to-back, which he made sure was Elizabeth by taking the picture of her.

Finn figured that the best place to find someone that society wouldn’t miss and would put an end to the curse of the camera in the process, was the Prison. No one that was locked up there ever came back out, and if one of the prisoners lost their soul, no one would bat an eye. The reason that no one does that is because they don’t have the time to figure out how to break into the Prison. But Finn had seven days, and he was going to put an end to this once and for all, in one night at that.

Now the hard part wasn’t going to be breaking into the Prison for Finn but rather hoping no one recognized him as one of the employees there. He was one of the best employees that the Prison had, but he couldn’t have this messing up his reputation. Which meant that he had to get in and out undetected like he was breaking in, because no one but employees and the prisoners were allowed in the Prison. And he had to be neither of those for the night.

Finn wasn’t going to allow himself to think about which prisoner he was going to use the camera on; he was just going to do the first one he saw, no matter who it was. Did it really matter which of the worst of society he killed anyway? But he refused to think about what he was doing as he sat outside the Prison, waiting for the change of guards that always happened at 11:45pm. Once that happened, he would go in, snap the picture, and leave. He planned to leave the camera behind too, which is why he’s worn gloves the entire time that he’s touched it, so that no one realizes it was him that did this if they were to take fingerprints off the camera. Not that anyone is going to care enough to investigate it.

He heard the guards talking to each other as they left for the night, which gave him his very small window of opportunity to do what had to be done. He grabbed the door right before it closed and slipped into the building. He picked a random floor as he walked on the stairs. Finn wandered until he found the first awake prisoner, who recognized him the second he approached, but that didn’t matter.

“You switch shifts?” The prisoner asked right as Finn held up the camera and snapped the picture. He saw the immediate drain of life and watched as the prisoner crumpled to the ground. Finn ditched the camera and ran, fleeing out of the Prison as he tried to ignore that he just killed a man. A man who killed at least ten people by eating them alive while in the shape of a monster, but a man, nonetheless. Finn felt like he was going to be sick to his stomach. But he didn’t have the time for that.

He slipped out the door as the guards opened it and no one saw him, somehow. It felt like luck he didn’t deserve that no one noticed him. He snuck around the side of the building and ensured that all of the guards were inside before he took off down the road. He ran all the way to his house, ready to be reunited with the love of his life.

He walked through the door, all smiles despite what he had done, but stopped dead in his tracks. The smile fell off his face as he took in the sight before him. There was Elizabeth, still lifeless in the chair.

“I don’t understand.” Finn said out loud. “I did what I was supposed to. Why is she still dead?” Finn dropped to his knees in front of her and just started sobbing. And then the thought occurred to him, that maybe it didn’t work, because he was a ghost, and the curse could only be broken by living beings.