Page 2 of Heresy
My feet move without permission. A chain-link fence topped with rusted barbed wire guards the approach. A faded sign hangs like a dead thing: NO TRESPASSING. Near the foundation, a gap has been peeled back like skin from a wound, dark and inviting. I slip the camera strap over my head, settling the Nikon's weight against my chest.
I have to get the shot. The words repeat like a prayer. This is how you resurrect yourself. One frame at a time.
The momentI slip through the wound in the fence, the air transforms. Colder, thicker, charged with secrets. The quiet I found peaceful moments ago becomes a watchful silence. I am not a photographer anymore. I am prey.
I use a line of shipping containers as cover, moving like a shadow. My hypervigilance becomes a tactical advantage, every nerve ending mapping the environment. A crumbling loading dock offers a clear sightline. I settle into position like a sniper.The building dominates my vision: rust-stained brick bleeding in the dying light, windows like dead eyes.
My finger hovers over the shutter release. Everything aligns?—
A sound rips through the harbor's hum like tearing fabric.
A scream.
Short, guttural, swallowed by brick walls that keep secrets. It bypasses thought and speaks directly to the lizard brain. Run. Now.
But my feet are rooted to the concrete. The photographer in me wars with the survivor who knows curiosity kills. What was that? This building isn't just ruins. It's active. Occupied.
Document or die. Choose.
I move, dropping into a tactical crouch, circling the perimeter. There. A high window on the ground floor, a single pane of grimy glass someone forgot to seal. I hoist myself onto a stack of weathered pallets, wood creaking in protest. I raise the camera, the telephoto lens a telescope into a nightmare.
Through the dirty glass, I see them: big men in leather cuts, their patches proclaiming allegiances I don't recognize. They form a circle, a primitive ritual. My hands shake as I adjust the focus.
A man is strapped to a steel chair in the center of their circle. Bloody but conscious, his eyes wide with a terror that knows what's coming. Another figure, impossibly large, holds something in steel tongs—metal that glows a sick orange, pulsing with heat. A brand.
Don't, the survivor whispers. This isn't documentation. This is suicide. Walk away.
But my finger has divorced itself from rational thought. I am a witness. This is what I do. The artist wins. She always does.
My finger depresses the shutter release.
Click.
In the charged silence, the mechanical snap explodes like gunfire. It ricochets off concrete and steel, the audible moment the observer becomes a participant.
Inside, a head turns with predatory precision. Then another. Eyes like winter find mine through the grime-streaked glass—cold, dead, the kind of gaze that has looked at too many people who stopped existing shortly afterward.
I have been seen.
There is no thought. Only a single, silent scream in my mind: Run.
I launch myself from the pallets, hitting the ground in a roll that sends sharp gravel biting through my jeans. The camera bounces against my chest like a stone heart, each impact a reminder of the choice that doomed me.
Behind me, the warehouse erupts. Shouts—not of panic, but coordination. They move with the efficiency of predators.
They're herding you.
The realization hits like ice water. This isn't a chase—it's an orchestration. My lungs burn as I careen between shipping containers, each turn anticipated, calculated, controlled.
There—a gap between containers ahead. It yawns like salvation. My last chance. I pour every molecule of adrenaline into my legs, launching myself toward the narrow passage. The gap grows larger—sanctuary, escape, survival. Almost there. Almost?—
My boots hit not open pavement, but solid, unmoving steel.
The impact reverberates through my skeleton. A wall of corrugated metal rises before me, rusted and absolute as a gravestone. The gap was a deception.
The alley is a coffin made of steel, and I have just sealed myself inside.
Panic floods my system, cold and suffocating. I whip around, back pressing against frigid metal, chest heaving. They planned this. They knew exactly where I'd run.
