The forgotten frame

The cool night air bit at Lysandra Cole’s skin as she stepped out of her car, her camera bag slung over her shoulder. The distant hum of city traffic faded into the eerie stillness of the forest clearing. Police tape fluttered in the breeze, cordoning off the scene like a grim warning. Another murder. Another sleepless night.

Her hand trembled slightly as she closed the car door behind her, the familiar weight of her camera bag grounding her. She hated the nights like this—too much quiet, too much isolation. And tonight, the air felt thicker, like something was about to happen, something she couldn't control. But control was something Lysandra had lost years ago, and she had learned to let go.

“Cole, over here!” Detective Mallory’s gruff voice broke the silence, beckoning her toward the center of the chaos. Lysandra adjusted her camera strap and approached, weaving between uniformed officers and forensics techs. All of them were focused, but not one was paying her any attention.

“Do I even want to look?” she asked, her voice barely above a whisper, but Mallory had heard her. He grunted in response.

“Probably not. But it’s your job, so…”

Lysandra stepped into the crime scene, the hairs on her neck rising as she saw the victim's body sprawled out before her. The first thing she noticed was the unnatural stillness. The body was grotesque, torn apart as if something had used its claws instead of a weapon. The victim’s chest was shredded, deep gashes crisscrossing their torso, a grotesque mirror of nature’s raw violence. Blood soaked the earth, pooling in irregular shapes, as though it had splattered and dried under the cold moonlight.

Her stomach churned. She was used to death in her line of work—used to the macabre, the strange, the ugly—but this felt different. Something primal hung in the air, thick and suffocating, as if nature had turned on its own.

But what drew her attention wasn’t just the body. It was the markings—unnatural, too deliberate.

Large claw marks, jagged and cruel, scored the ground around the body. They spiraled outward, creating a circle that almost seemed to form a protective barrier around the victim. Too precise. Too unnatural. As Lysandra crouched down, her breath caught in her throat.

"Wolves don’t leave marks like this," she muttered under her breath, more to herself than anyone else.

"Exactly," Mallory said, his tone uneasy. "We’ve ruled out bears, big cats—hell, even people. No one we know could’ve done this. Not without… tools or something." He glanced over at her, his expression guarded.

Lysandra nodded but didn’t reply. She wasn’t sure why she had spoken out loud—it was just the scene that unsettled her, gnawing at her instincts. She pulled her camera from her bag, the familiar weight grounding her, the click of the lens providing a sense of calm.

Click.

The flash illuminated the grotesque scene, capturing every detail—the twisted limbs, the unnatural angle of the body, the dark, spreading blood. She adjusted her lens, focusing on the claw marks. There was something almost hypnotic about how they seemed to grow from the earth itself as if they had always been there.

Click.

But then something shifted in the air. Lysandra froze. A shadow flickered in the distance, just beyond the trees, as if something had moved too quickly for her to catch it with her eyes. She swung her camera in that direction instinctively, snapping another shot, but there was nothing. Nothing but the empty forest, still and silent. Her heart raced. Perhaps it was just the adrenaline from the scene, or she was simply tired—she had been working non-stop lately. Lately, she had been having dreams—no, nightmares—that blurred the lines between waking and sleeping. There were shadows, the sensation of running, the engulfing darkness, and the feeling of being watched.

“Did anyone else see that?” she asked, straightening, glancing at Mallory.

“See what?” Mallory’s brows furrowed, his eyes scanning the treeline. He was too late to catch whatever had flashed in the background, and she could feel the skepticism in his gaze.

“Nothing,” Lysandra muttered, lowering the camera, her fingers lingering on the shutter. She felt something stir deep inside her, a chill that had nothing to do with the night air. Was it just her? Was her mind playing tricks on her again?

Back to work.

Her thoughts were foggy as she shifted her focus back to the body. She knelt, adjusting her lens to get a clearer shot of the claw marks. The dizziness started to come again, the same one that had been creeping up on her more often in recent weeks. She gripped the camera tighter, trying to steady herself. The blackouts—when time seemed to slip through her fingers, when everything went dark—had been happening more and more. She tried to fight it off, but the blackness crept in, threatening to swallow her whole.

Her grip on the camera faltered, and she stumbled but caught herself just in time. Her pulse hammered in her ears, and she forced herself to take a deep breath. No. Not now.

“Are you okay?” Mallory asked, his voice softer now, his concern cutting through the tension in the air.

“I’m fine,” she lied, her voice shaking ever so slightly as she snapped another photo.

But she wasn't fine. Not really. Her head was spinning, but she recognized that this dizziness wasn’t something she could easily dismiss. It was getting worse. She glanced down at the screen of her camera, trying to focus on the task at hand, but everything appeared blurry. Her vision wasn't quite right. Her heart pounded in her chest, and she gripped the camera tighter, attempting to steady her shaking hands.

The scene seemed to shift in the corner of her eye again, but she was too tired to chase it. Maybe Mallory was right—perhaps she was just exhausted.

She exhaled a breath., closing her eyes for just a moment to clear her head. When she opened them again, something caught her eye—something in the background. A shift in the shadows?

It wasn’t until much later, when she was back in her darkroom, that things started to fall apart. The quiet hum of her apartment felt like a distant memory now, far removed from the madness she had left behind. The photos from that night had already been uploaded to her computer. Lysandra sat in front of her screen, reviewing the images with an increasing sense of unease.

Each photo was eerily clear—the blood, the torn body, the unnatural claw marks. But then, as she examined the images more closely, something strange caught her attention. In one of the shots—taken just before her blackout—she noticed a figure. Faint but unmistakable. It was a shadow, lingering at the edge of the clearing, near the treeline.

Lysandra's breath caught in her throat. She zoomed in, trying to clarify the figure. But it didn’t make sense. The figure was vague—shadowy and indistinct—but its presence was undeniable. She had seen it, or at least sensed it, earlier.

And that wasn’t the only thing that unsettled her.

The next photo—taken just moments later—revealed something impossible. The claw marks, once random and chaotic, seemed to form a symbol. It was faint, almost too faint to notice, but Lysandra’s trained eyes couldn’t miss it. The pattern was deliberate, and geometric, like a symbol carved into the earth with an intention she couldn’t comprehend.

Her pulse quickened as she zoomed in on the image. The lines were precise, and they formed something almost ancient. A warning? A map? She couldn’t tell. She hadn't noticed it at the scene, yet it was, clear as day on her screen.

Lysandra grabbed her phone and snapped a picture of the screen, intending to send it to Mallory. Her fingers trembled as she began typing the message, but before she could finish, the lights in her apartment flickered and went out.

The hum of her computer died.

The room was plunged into darkness.

Her heart pounded as she strained to hear any sound beyond the silence.

And then, from the hallway outside her door, a faint scraping sound reached her ears.

Claws against wood.

She froze, her breath hitching in her chest. The noise, sharp and deliberate, sent a shiver down her spine. Her body tensed, every nerve alert to the suffocating silence that followed. She waited. The sound stopped, but the darkness lingered, oppressive and thick. She fumbled for her phone again, her fingers trembling, but the screen glowed only a faint, eerie light. No calls. No messages.

The stillness settled around her like a heavy blanket. What had she heard? Was it real?