Captured Memories

The first photo Gavin Sakar ever took with his grandfather’s silver DSLR camera was of his high school girlfriend, and it nearly got him killed. When he first got the camera that was left for him in his grandfather’s will, it had come with a letter instructing him to carefully read over the camera’s manual before using it. After skimming through half of the pages, Gavin decided that he didn’t need to read the rest. He felt like he knew how to operate the device well enough and intended to bring it with him to his high school’s prom. When the date of the prom came a week later, he took his first picture at his girlfriend’s apartment after going there to pick her up. It was a lovely photo of his girlfriend wearing a sparkling blue dress that she had bought just for the occasion, her short brown hair and simplistic makeup complementing it very well. All in all, it was a lovely photo, but it brought about unexpected consequences. She had collapsed suddenly as soon as the flash lit up her face, Gavin’s reflexes being the only thing stopping her from hitting her head on the wooden floor. When she had woken again a few moments later, she could barely walk and Gavin was able to convince her to stay home and to let him take care of her. He tried to take her to the hospital, but she refused; saying she’d be fine as long as she rested. Although she was able to walk again after an hour or two, Gavin couldn’t shake the feeling that there was something wrong with her. She seemed snappier than normal, but he dismissed it thinking that it was because she wasn’t feeling well. What really worried him, however, was the fact that her heavy Ecrium accent was gone. When he brought it up, she asked him what he was talking about, faking her once natural accent. After he was sure that she had fallen asleep, Gavin went to his car and retrieved the instruction manual he had thrown into his glove compartment, taking it back to her apartment with him. He sat down on the small brown sofa and started reading carefully through it, unlike how he’d handled it previously. There was nothing useful in the majority of the book, but as he reached the last few pages, the instructions changed from the standard Times New Roman text to his grandfather’s handwriting. It was when he read his grandfather’s addition to the manual that everything started to make sense. He quickly grabbed the silver camera and pressed the small black button just under the lens indicated on the rough diagram, letting his girlfriend out of the prison he had unwittingly trapped her in. As soon as he did so, the picture was erased from the memory card, as if it never existed. When he made his way to her bedroom, the spirit possessing his girlfriend’s body attacked him from behind, attempting to stab him with a dull kitchen knife. After a moment of struggling, resulting in a lock of his shoulder length black hair being cut off, Gavin managed to get away from her long enough to take her picture again; the blurred image being nowhere near as beautiful as the first photo. He was able to catch her limp body easily the second time, due to him expecting it, and when she stirred again he was relieved to see that his girlfriend had returned safely to her body. Understandably, she broke up with him after that night, but Gavin had little time to mourn over their lost relationship. His grandfather had given him a silver DSLR camera that had the power to capture spirits, and he knew exactly what he had intended him to use it for. He was to continue his grandfather’s work.