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Aesop Carl was used to being observed. He had felt the heavy weight of people’s stares all his life—whether for his unnerving calm or the chilling precision of his embalming skills. But this—the attention of Joseph Desaulniers—was different. It was a gaze that lingered too long, that unsettled him in ways he couldn’t describe.
Today was no different. The Red Church’s chilling fog surrounded him as he knelt by the cipher machine, his fingers gliding over the keys with practiced ease. Yet, even with the fog concealing most of the world, Aesop could feel it. That cold, focused presence. He had learned to recognize it.
Joseph was watching him again.
“Aesop, we’re behind schedule,” Eli’s voice interrupted his thoughts, the Seer’s owl perched silently nearby, its eyes scanning the fog. “He’s used his camera.”
Aesop nodded silently, aware that they had already been pulled into Joseph’s “photo world.” He tightened his grip on the cipher machine, feeling the weight of Joseph’s presence settle on him like a blanket of cold mist.
“He’s coming for us, isn’t he?” Patricia asked quietly, her voice betraying the nervous energy she tried to hide.
“He’s always close when he does this,” Aesop muttered. It was true. Joseph had an eerie way of always knowing where Aesop was, as if he could feel him even in this twisted mirror of reality. Every time Joseph used his camera, Aesop felt a chill deeper than the typical fear of being hunted. It felt personal.
A soft click echoed through the fog.
Aesop froze. He knew that sound well. Joseph had taken another photograph. For a brief second, the photo world shimmered, the fog thickening around them.
Eli’s owl flapped its wings in agitation, and Aesop stood, scanning the hazy surroundings. He had to keep moving. Being still only made him more vulnerable.
Then, out of the corner of his eye, he saw him.
Joseph stood a few yards away, his posture elegant, his pale eyes fixed on Aesop with a gaze that made his heart stutter. The hunter’s long coat fluttered gently as he raised his camera, positioning it just so. The sight of that camera—an instrument that could trap them in a snapshot of time—should have sent Aesop running.
But instead, he hesitated.
Joseph didn’t move to attack. He just watched, his piercing gaze locked on Aesop as if waiting for something. The camera remained poised, the shutter not yet pressed. Aesop felt the air around him thicken with unspoken tension, and for a brief moment, the world felt still.
“Aesop…” Joseph’s voice was soft, barely more than a whisper, but it cut through the fog with unsettling clarity. “Why do you always run from me?”
Aesop’s breath caught in his throat. It wasn’t the words themselves that stopped him—it was the way Joseph said them, with a kind of quiet frustration that Aesop couldn’t understand. He wasn’t supposed to hear something like that in a match. Hunters didn’t speak like that.
He didn’t know how to respond, so he didn’t. Instead, he turned on his heel and bolted toward the church, leaving the unfinished cipher and the strange moment
The inside of the Red Church felt suffocating, the fog curling around the broken pews and shattered windows. Aesop leaned against the cold stone wall, catching his breath. He had to focus. Eli and Patricia were counting on him to help finish the ciphers, and yet…
The way Joseph looked at him lingered in his mind.
A soft shuffle of footsteps reached his ears, and Aesop stiffened. Before he could react, a familiar click echoed through the stone walls, and the air shimmered again. He was back in the photo world, surrounded by distorted light and shadows.
And then there was Joseph.
The Photographer materialized before him, silent and elegant as ever. His gaze never wavered as he stepped closer, camera dangling at his side. Aesop’s instincts screamed at him to move, to run, but his body refused to obey.
Joseph stopped just a few feet away, his pale eyes softening. There was no malice in his expression—no sign of the cold, calculating hunter Aesop had come to expect. Instead, there was something else in his gaze, something that unsettled him even more than danger.
“Aesop,” Joseph murmured, tilting his head slightly, “why do you hide from me?” His voice was almost gentle, far too intimate for a match.
Aesop felt his pulse quicken, but it wasn’t out of fear. “What do you want from me?” he managed to ask, his voice barely above a whisper. His breath was uneven, his heartbeat echoing in his ears.
Joseph didn’t answer immediately. Instead, he raised his hand, brushing his fingers over the camera’s lens as if contemplating it. Then, with a soft sigh, he looked at Aesop, his expression unreadable.
“I want to capture you,” Joseph said quietly, but there was no threat in his words—only something that felt like longing. “Not just in the photographs.”
Aesop’s chest tightened at the intensity in Joseph’s voice. There was a quiet tension between them, a thread connecting them that Aesop had been trying to ignore but couldn’t anymore.
“I don’t understand,” Aesop admitted, but he didn’t move. He couldn’t bring himself to run.
Joseph’s lips curved into the faintest of smiles, a rare expression that softened the sharpness of his features. “You will, in time.”
With that, Joseph lifted his camera slowly, deliberately, as if giving Aesop the chance to stop him. And for some reason, Aesop didn’t move. The shutter clicked, and the world shifted around them once more, pulling them back into the normal realm.
Aesop blinked, finding himself alone again in the Red Church, Joseph’s figure already gone—disappearing into the fog like a ghost.
But the weight of the moment lingered.
Aesop couldn’t shake the feeling that something had changed. Joseph wasn’t hunting him the way a hunter was supposed to—there was something else at play. And now, with every match, Aesop found himself questioning if he really wanted to keep running from the photographers