Captured

• Julia De Vries, Grade 10, Ferny Grove State High School
• Short Story
• 2016

Excellence Award in the 'Top Secret 2016' competition

It was her.

Undoubtedly.

The girl in the picture was smiling, but not at the camera. Her arm was looped around the neck of another girl, their hair mixing together, the vibrant red and chocolate brown flowing down their backs as one. Camille shuddered as she flipped through the photographs, one after the other.

Photographs of her. Photographs she’d never taken.

There she was, sun-baking at the beach during a school camp, a blurry image of her playing tennis, taken from across the school oval. There were a lot of photos taken from behind her, the camera capturing almost every moment of her life.

She had to get out of the house. She’d always known something wasn’t right about him, but she’d always passed his ever-lingering presence off to coincidence, never suspected anything like… this. Goose-bumps lined her arms and legs, a cold shudder running through her body like an icy wind.

Frantically, she bundled up all the photo’s she’d found and rushed out of the room into the corridor. She whipped her head to and fro, desperately hoping that he wouldn’t have come back yet.

She was so panicked she never noticed the red light that flashed above the doorway.

When she stumbled out of the apartment onto the cobbled street the rain decided to bucket down upon her. She cursed under her breath and yanked an umbrella out of her handbag. She shook it as it stubbornly refused to open up, but gave up and chucked it onto the footpath and hailed a taxi instead.

She sat in silence in the car as the rain pelted onto the windows. The driver shot her a concerned look but she was too deep in thought to notice. She gave him a $20 note, and didn’t ask for the change as she staggered out of the taxi and ran to her apartment, trying as hard as she could not to get completely soaked.

She’d never been so relieved to get into the little, floral-lined lobby. She burst through the front door, getting a dirty look from the lady at the front desk. Then she headed down the hallway to her room.

Her hands were shaking as she turned the key in the lock. The photographs lay in her handbag like a weight threatening to crush her. She’d never been so frightened in her entire life.

When she stepped inside the apartment, something felt wrong. She closed the door behind her, dumped her bag in the coffee table, and went into the kitchen to find something to eat and drink. She needed something to keep her nerves under control.

Then she screamed, a blood-curdling shriek that rattled the window panes.

He was leaning against the kitchen counter, a glass of red liquid held in his hand, a gun in the other. His mouth was curled into an amused smirk, his dark brown eyes looking almost black as he studied her reaction.

“Camille. So nice of you to join me.”