𝙊𝙁𝙁 𝙏𝙃𝙀 𝘾𝙊𝘼𝙎𝙏𝙇𝙄𝙉𝙀 𝙠. 𝙖𝙠𝙖𝙗𝙖𝙣𝙚

𝘪𝘪𝘪. 𝘳𝘰𝘤𝘬𝘺 𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘳𝘵

[name] had never been so relieved. After the last encounter with the creature, she had finally gotten her camera back. She remembered leaving almost immediately after retrieving her device.

At the moment, she was just getting her water-damaged camera back from the technology repair store. Luckily, all her photos were saved and everything could be easily replaced for a small fee. Well, it was a small fee in the employee's words, but a big fee to the college student. Already drowning in student debt and here she was throwing more money away. She should've stuck with one of those recyclable cameras.

"Thank you!" [name] chimed before leaving the small shop, camera in hand.

She knew the photos were there, but she wanted to make sure nothing was missing. Turning it on, [name] felt happy that she was able to at least get it back. But she was confused. Why would it give something back? Maybe it found that it had no use for it and ditched it? But it's odd that the creature returned the camera back to her specifically since it belonged to her.

Shaking her head, [name] shuffled through the pictures as she walked down the sidewalk. But she soon came to a frozen halt when she clicked through her most recent photos. Photos that she didn't take.

All seven of them were blurry, yet she was able to make out most of the base features in them, the same three three colors of that creature. Her grip tightened, knowing that Kaede couldn't call her crazy anymore due to her having photo evidence to the existence of this thing.

But... Does it even matter? Who cares if people believed her or not. There's no point in bothering to try and get people to understand something that would only be understood by a small population who would actually believe in that stuff.

All she wanted to do was figure out just what the hell that thing was.

—🐚—

[name] jogged towards the dock, a small bag filled with various snacks clutched in her dominant hand. She figured the best way to lure the creature out was to bribe it with food. Because, who doesn't love food?

Finally, she had gotten to the deck.

With tides high at the time of day, [name] didn't need to climb down any rocks to get to the bottom luckily. Panting, [name] dropped her bag onto the damp boards before plopping herself down on the edge of the dock.

With a large sigh, she kicked her sandaled feet into the water. Hopefully, this thing showed up like the last two times. It would be a waste of food if it didn't.

And there she sat, waiting... And waiting.

"Are you kidding me?" She checked her watch, seeing a half-hour had passed by. "You'll come every time I don't want to see you—"

A small tug on her foot caught her attention. It seems she spoke to soon.

"My sandal!" [name] yelped as she pulled her feet out to find her right sandal to be missing. "You little jerk! Give that back!" She leaned over the deck to see a swish of red and white.