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Other I | Other II | Other III | Other IV | Other V | Other VI | Other VII

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Other IV

Words are meaningless when anything can be easily misconstrued, and now it seemed a clear path. If he truly desired to know more, there was no way other way to go about it. He would have go to the field that had been locked in the photo and now, his memory.

---

Jirot trotted through the busy shopping quarter of the township, his eyes sweeping over the architecture and grounds keeping, artfully maintained and trim to perfection. He felt apathetic towards the lot of it and avoided the gaze of a passerby who chuckled at what they perceived as his shyness. He ignored the twist in his gut and eyed an empty bench ahead. Striding to it, and finally feeling a little more relaxed, he shifted the bag from his shoulder to his lap. Fidgeting at the zipper opening idly, he finally plunged his hand in, pulling his camera from the bag at last.

He flipped through the photos one by one, expressionless as he scrutinized their content. The immortalized lives of people that moved through crowded streets, and even simple empty roads, lit by the beacons of street lamps, and shimmering from the light rains of the evening. The beauty of the city was locked infinitely within the captures amidst them. The sequential adaptations of time's passage, dotted by numerous quick service centers awaiting people and their hungry swipes of a card.

He had nearly reached the end of the gallery when amid a row of continuous shots, a break in the line flared out to him.

It was a photo of a forest.

His nerves jolted and his feet went cold, the chill trailing up his spine. He swallowed and gazed at the fogged visage of trees, as transparent shapes began dancing in the gray. An ominous feeling welled up within him, and it made the world surrounding him phase into a darker hue of reality.

He would not be deterred, even still, and bumped the zoom control with his thumb; the focus narrowed on a cloud of mist rising between the two of the closest visible tree trunks.

His heartbeat rumbled in his ears and he swallowed a yell building in his throat. The sudden feeling of eyes on him disturbed his attention. He turned the camera off and hurriedly tucked it in his bag, but was stalled by a sudden shout across the sidewalk.

“I know you." The voice haled him from his blackening state of mind.

Jirot hesitated before he raised his eyes and looked that direction. It was an immediate regret.

“You're that weird guy who takes photos of all the obscure things he can find."

Wonderful. This fellow was either interested, sympathetic, or patronizing. Two of those things Jirot could bet money on.

He paused for a second while he eyed him up and down, signal enough that he still listened. A mental scale had begun to tip in favor of disinterest.

The fellow waltzed towards him, a song in his step that was unheard by Jirot. He zipped up his bag and stared forward at the approaching fellow until the other came to a stop in front of him, then decided to speak as the man opened his mouth.

“ 'Weird'." He noted aloud with a lick of his lips. “Not the best conversation opener, especially for someone you don't even know." He emphasized the final words.

The fellow was struck by that, and tried to laugh it off, then promptly apologized.

“Sorry, I just got a little excited." He scratched the back of his neck.

“I think your blog is really interesting. I get kind of enamored by things that are rarely perceived by the human eye. You know, the supernatural." He stuffed his hands in his pockets, drawing back into his space.

“That's fine then." Jirot stood up, a bit surprised that his height outmatched the other man.

“So you've been watching my blog? As a subscriber or a lurker?" He let a smile twitch across his lips as he watched the other's face change into a laugh.

“I'm a lurker." He admitted, then raised a finger. “But I'm named Yadin." His face remained stoic until Jirot smirked and flipped his bag strap back over his shoulder, then Yadin broke into a playful grin.

“Leaving already? I believe you just sat down." Yadin angled both his hands at the bench as if it had been rejected, and Jirot traced their pointed intentions before turning the other way.

“Come get a coffee with me." He walked a few more steps before he continued his sentence. “I'll buy."

Yadin's face lit up and he followed, sufficiently bribed.

---

They both eased into a booth and set their coffee cups on the table. Jirot had gotten a warm regular coffee, and Yadin had gotten an iced one and a slice of blueberry bread. He took a bite of it before he dunked a straw into his cup, sipping it slowly, and eyeing the photographer in front of him in question. He decided to drop another joke to ease what might be a sudden air of tension from Jirot.

“You're not going to drink? Did you spike mine?" He laughed a little, his hindsight relaying how that could not be the best joke to use as an ice breaker. He cleared his throat when Jirot moved at last, and watched him reach into his bag and set a camera on the table.

“One second," Jirot flipped through the gallery on the camera again. The same phantom forest image remained between the photos.

“I'd like you to see you something." He angled the camera toward Yadin, whose eyes glittered at the idea of an elaborate mystery about to burst forth.

“It's a forest." He said blandly, staring at the image at the current distance, then reached over the table, pausing above the camera. “May I?"

Jirot nodded once, allowing Yadin to carefully take the camera, and waited for elaboration.

“Well, it's not doctored is it?" Yadin mumbled aloud after a good minute of scrutiny.

Jirot inwardly sighed in relief. What was supposed to be a still image appeared to be moving for this secondary viewer as well.

“This is just weir-“ Yadin shook his head then continued. “-very odd." Closing his eyes, and leaning his head back, he re-imagined the picture in his mind, then looked back at the camera.

“Where is this?" He couldn't help but ask.

Jirot allowed another short smile echo across his features. If only because his next words would have the effect he expected on Yadin.

“It's a secret." He sipped his coffee, feigning indifference at the other man's reaction.

Yadin made an exasperated noise and chuckled, placing the camera back on the table, close to Jirot's hand.

He sipped more of the coffee before asking, “What do I have to do to get in on this big mystery?"

Jirot's knowledge and previous experiences of the area caused his brain sputtered before he could reply. His surprise was apparent and Yadin paused mid-chew of his blueberry bread at the flash of expression.

Jirot ducked his focus back to the camera and eased it back to his personal space.

“Do I need to sell my soul or something?" Yadin sipped his coffee.

“Something like that. It's a place I've been unable to shake off since first arriving there." Jirot answered almost immediately, and Yadin leaned back, raising an eyebrow in bewilderment.

“The first time I was at the area, a cabin was in that space. The next evening it was as empty as you saw there." He said frankly, and bobbed his leg under the table as he turned his gaze up at Yadin. “But it's not empty. Not at all."

“Quite freaky." Jirot muttered with narrow eyes, before a moment of quiet came between them, and then burst out laughing as Jirot blankly drank more coffee.

“Let's finish these and I'll take you." He raised his glass a bit, then tucked his camera back in the bag and closed it, his attention trained on the food on the table. “If the cabin intrigues you so much that is."

“You've got a deal." Yadin contained his excitement as best he could and hurriedly chomped down on the last of his bread.

---

Driving on the familiar roadway, Jirot's heart was pounding even faster in his chest. The vehicle was surrounded on all sides by a mist, visibility growing more limited the longer they drove down the path.

Jirot broke the silence if only to calm the disquiet of his mind, and the thickening presence around them.

“Tell me about yourself, Yadin." He flicked his eyes at the rearview mirror, then back at the road.

Yadin tilted his head Jirot's direction, then focused on the treeline that blurred past them outside the window.

“My father works as a head honcho at a commercial business and my mother is a nurse. Serious stuff, both investing in life in some way." He folded his hands in his lap. “They care what I do, but that still means I've got plenty of time and money. They want me to be happy, you know?"

Jirot remained unmoved as he listened.

“I think it's why the mysteries of the world became appealing to me. Not everyone has the means to completely dedicate themselves to what they're truly passionate about." He looked back and forth between Jirot, and his camera supplies, then patted the armrest of the aged vehicle.

“It's really something when people are still able to survive like this. I'm lucky I guess."

“And here I bought you coffee and a snack." Jirot brushed off the condescending remark easily.

Yadin chuckled. “Sorry, again. I didn't mean to sound judgmental or anything."

Jirot shrugged and nodded, and Yadin realized he had been baited. He clapped a hand on his leg, and laughed at the fact he'd been caught once again in an apology, feeling fortunate that he was conversing with a laid back fellow. He reached forward slowly and opened the glove compartment. His eyes darted toward Jirot and gauged his reaction. When there was no movement of consequence, he shuffled inside until he located what he'd been searching for.

“This place is eerie enough. Where on the map is this?" Yadin was now staring at an atlas he'd dug out of the glove compartment.

“I've been unable to find it on any maps." Jirot lowered his hands from the wheel. “We're here." He motioned at the GPS, which merely read 'looking for satellite'.

Yadin's head snapped up from the GPS to the map and back again.

“How do you know then?" He whispered and darted his eyes left and right on the road in front of them.

“I would call it...a sort of a living compass." Jirot opened the driver's door before Yadin could ask him to elaborate.

“Wait! No camera?" He asked and ducked to look at Jirot through the door opening.

When the driver's door was closed without reply, Yadin scrambled out the passenger's door and closed it lightly. He quick-stepped around the bumper of the idling vehicle, his senses suddenly on edge.

Jirot was already set at a brisk walk, headed into the forest, and Yadin called for him, the mist growing denser as he ran after him. When Jirot didn't turn back he almost lost him in the next wave of fog before he accidentally slammed into the photographer's back.

“Ack! Sorry man! There's another apology." Yadin rubbed his nose.

Jirot reached back and grabbed Yadin's hand. He had gone ice cold, and Yadin noticed immediately, a hiss of breath through his teeth at the freezing grasp.

Jirot's other hand pointed forward and Yadin followed the gesture, a knot in his throat forming as he stared ahead.

A black, swirling mass was moving across a wide open field miles and miles ahead of them, undulating and twisting, reforming in jagged seconds as if reality were trying to delete it from existence. It was gliding along at a slow pace, and an obscure trail behind it extended into a tree line far beyond their line of sight.

Yadin's mouth went dry, and the chill crawling up his spine stopped in a buzz at the base of his neck. White noise increased in volume in his ears, and sweat trickled down his back. He tried to speak, to ask Jirot if they could leave, but his words were locked tightly behind his lips. When he blinked and the darkness in the field had vanished, he gasped sharply as though he'd been held under water.

Silence settled at the peak where they stood. Jirot stiffened at a brush of air, which skittered across Yadin's skin a moment after. A breeze whirled around them, then elevated to a gust in seconds, until a storm raged around them. They knew their eyes were open, but the reality before them was whiting out completely, becoming a twisting mockery of nature in a fulmination of mute chaos.

Yadin blinked again. He was back in their reality, in Jirot's car.

Jirot was watching him silently, and Yadin cried out and recoiled from him, his eyes were focused over Jirot's shoulder.

Eulythies was standing outside the driver's door by the treeline they had entered mere moments ago.

“Part of the terms and conditions I suppose," Jirot said blankly. “Now you've seen them." He leaned closer to Yadin.

“And now they've seen you."