The Whispering Shadow

We’d been preparing for the tournament all night. The camera stood on the tripod,

but every couple of minutes it would turn by itself toward the dark corner of the room.

As if something was moving there. I went to adjust it — and noticed the lens was trembling.

Not the camera… the lens, like someone was breathing on the glass from the inside.

I pressed “play” to review the last seconds of the footage. The video showed us standing there…

but next to us was a third silhouette. Tall, thin, its head twisted

to the side. It was whispering something, but the audio was cut,

like it was whispering inside the camera, not in the room. We stopped the recording. The camera clicked.