The trees were gold this time of year, their leaves drifting down in slow, quiet spirals, brushing her shoulders like half-formed thoughts. The wind stirred the branches in low, patient sighs. The air was thick with the sweet-sour scent of sap and the musk of rot. Each step gave a soft crunch against damp leaves and spongy, moss-padded earth, loud in the hush. Mushrooms bloomed in the shadows like forgotten secrets. A squirrel darted past - sharp motion in a world gone still - and startled her heart into racing.
Today, Sophie decided to wander deeper than usual, drawn by nothing she could particularly name. Her boots slipped on slick, mossy stones and twisting roots that jutted from the soil like bones. It felt as if the forest had begun coughing up its dead. Light slanted through the trees at an odd angle, everything grainy - like a film reel aged and warped. Her hands stayed buried in her hoodie pockets, fingers curled against the cold. Each breath left a ghost in the air. The silence felt loaded. Expectant. Even the wind held its breath.
That's when she saw it.
A camera.
Old and slightly weathered. It hung from a low branch like it had been placed there intentionally. The lens pointed down, blind and waiting, its glint faint in the dim light. The strap was made from old leather. It was cracked and spotted with a dark substance. Mold, or maybe blood. She wasn't quite sure she even wanted to question it. Dust gathered in the crevices. A cobweb stretched from the base to the branch above, trembling in the still air, like it remembered touch.
She hesitated. This wasn't something a hiker just dropped or lost. She reached up and grabbed it. The leather was stiff, the texture gritty and cool, cold as stone. The camera fell loose from the branch with a small tug, and she was surprised to find it was heavier than it looked. She wiped the viewfinder clean. Her reflection flickered in the glass, warped. She opened the back.
Inside: a roll of film. Intact. Still sealed. Still waiting. Her pulse jumped, and goosebumps spread across her body. She didn't know why. Maybe it was the oddity of such a find. Or the way the air froze around her, like the forest had gone quiet, waiting to see what she would do next.
That night, Sophie didn't sleep.
The photo lay on her nightstand, half-covered by a book, but she could feel it watching her. Every time she closed her eyes, she saw the image: the clearing, the bench, the girl in the red scarf. Her face. Not smiling. Not frowning. Just waiting. Her posture was wrong - stiff, almost sculpted. Like someone had arranged her without fully understanding people.
At 2:17 a.m., she got up and checked the locks. Not because she felt unsafe. Because she felt watched. The kind of pressure you feel when someone stands too close behind you in the dark. The house was quiet. Too quiet. Not just still, but hollow. The photo still lay there. Still watching.
The next day, Sophie decided to return to the forest. The sky was overcast, the sun a pale smear behind cloud. The light was flat, colorless. The gold had drained from the leaves overnight; now they looked bruised. Trees leaned at off angles. Shadows stretched in directions that didn't make sense. It was the same trail. But slightly? off. Like a memory retold badly.
She moved on autopilot, the photo a weight in her pocket. Her boots followed the path. The forest pressed closer. Branches brushed her shoulders like fingers. The air was damp and cold, full of a green, fungal smell. No birds. No insects. Even her steps sounded wrong - muffled, swallowed.
The clearing came into view, slowly, like it had crept closer while she wasn't looking.
She stopped at the edge. One foot in the underbrush, the other hovering over moss.
The bench was there.
So was the scarf.
Draped across the backrest. Limp. Untouched. As if it had never moved. As if it had been waiting. Her chest tightened. She hadn't told anyone about the photo. No one knew about the scarf. She hadn't brought it back. But it was hers. Frayed on the edge of her bike. A blotch on one corner from that fall behind the school gym. Still folded the way she used to wrap it. She swore she could smell the ghost of her perfume - warm musk, cinnamon, a curl of smoked wood.
She stepped forward. The ground yielded with a soft squish, spongy underfoot.
The forest didn't stir. It watched.
She reached out. Her fingers brushed the scarf - cool. Damp.
A click.
A camera shutter. Sharp. Too close. Like it had gone off just behind her.
She turned, fast. Nothing.
And then her hoodie pocket felt warm and heavy. She hadn't brought the camera. She was sure. She reached in. Leather. Cold glass. Heavy. Familiar. It clung to her. She pulled it free. The viewfinder flickered, then steadied.
A screen.
Live.
The clearing.
The bench.
The scarf.
And her.
Not now, but frozen. Standing still. Holding the scarf.
Then the reflection blinked. Sophie did not. Her breath caught. Her hands trembled. The real bench was empty. But on the screen, her double sat down. Slowly. Deliberately. Still holding the scarf. Still smiling.
She stepped back. The camera whirred - a sick churn, wet and mechanical, a sound like something winding itself up from the inside.
She dropped it. It landed with a low, soft thud - no metal clatter. Just a sick, pliant weight. Like meat wrapped in skin.
She stumbled back. Leaves crunched beneath her boots - dry and brittle, like bones. From the trees behind the bench, something moved. Not fast. Not loud. Just a shift. A wrongness in the air, as if the world had blinked and reopened with something new in it.
It was too tall. Too thin. Limbs unnaturally long, bent at angles that made her stomach twist. Its surface gleamed like bark slicked in oil, glinting wet in the dim light. Its head was narrow, smooth - shaped by something that had only heard of faces in passing dreams. It didn't walk. It folded forward, unfolding and collapsing with each step. The sound it made was soft and awful: wet wood cracking under slow pressure.
The camera's screen flickered. Twice. Then it showed two figures on the bench. Her double sat where she had stood, still, posed, scarf in hand. And beside her, the tall shadow had taken a seat. Almost touching. Almost smiling. She ran. Branches tore at her hoodie. Roots rose like hands to trip her. The forest no longer stayed still; it twisted and turned, trapping her in loops. Every trail led back. Every breath felt borrowed.
Then came absence.
Not silence. Something deeper. The scraped-out void where sound had once lived.
She turned.
No bench. No scarf. No camera. Just a tree - wide, hollow, and black as pitch. In the center of the hollow, her reflection stared back. Pale. Calm. Watching. The bark around it pulsed, slow and slick, like lungs stretching toward a scream.
She stepped closer. Her own face, staring out like smoke behind glass. No emotion. No fear. Just waiting. She reached out, and something gripped her wrist.
It was not hers..
Weeks later, a boy walking his dog found something dangling from a low branch like spoiled fruit. A camera - old, boxy, the leather strap cracked like dried skin.
Curious, he lifted it to his eye. The viewfinder flickered - grainy, unsteady - as if the image were still settling.
A girl in a red scarf sat on a bench, smiling faintly. Beside her, half-swallowed by shadow, something loomed - tall, wrong, almost unseen.
He blinked. It was gone. Just the girl now. Just the bench. The dog whimpered and backed away, but the boy didn't notice. He smiled. And took it down.
As he turned to go, the shutter clicked.
He froze. Lifted the camera again.
The girl was gone. The scarf lay folded in her place.
In the far corner of the frame, something new had appeared.
A figure. Blurred. Stepping forward.
Not toward the bench.
Toward him.
The boy didn't move.
The shutter clicked again.
This time, the figure was closer.
