The city was already awake when I finally dragged myself out of the cheap boarding room. Traffic hummed like a restless swarm, vendors shouted over the grind of bus brakes, and someone was already frying onions for breakfast in the alley downstairs. My head still buzzed from the night before.
Not the kind of buzz you get from alcohol, but from that damned card.
A 16MB CompactFlash, the kind most thrift stores would throw into a bargain bin beside old floppy disks and scratched CDs. I'd found it weeks ago when buying a second-hand camera from a guy who claimed it had "character." Character was usually code for cracked LCD screens and dust in the lens. I didn't care. The only thing that mattered was that it worked.
And it did. Mostly.
I dropped into the plastic chair by the window, plugged my camera battery into the socket, and watched the indicator light blink red. Normal, boring, slow. No magic in the battery. Just cheap lithium draining itself to nothing after thirty minutes of recording.
The card, though…
I still didn't understand it. Footage didn't delete. No matter how many times I formatted, reset, or even tried transferring files, the videos lingered like ghosts etched into silicon. Once recorded, always recorded. A permanent memory.
The label said 16MB - a laughable amount by today's standards. But I have tested it thoroughly. This wasn't just storage; it was something else entirely. The card felt warm to the touch, and the '16MB' marking seemed almost... decorative. Like a fake license plate on a car that could drive through walls
It should have scared me, but instead it felt like insurance. The world forgets fast. People delete, scrub, and bury their mistakes. But this? This was eternal.
I rubbed my eyes, staring at the smoggy horizon. "Eternal" didn't pay rent, though.
Rent was late again. My landlord had already slipped the warning note under the door. In polite handwriting, of course, the kind that almost made you forget he'd threatened to throw me out twice already. I needed money, fast.
And in this city, money meant clicks. Views. Streams.
That was the real blood running through the streets — not ambition, not dreams, but metrics. The algorithm chewed through lives like a machine, and anyone who fed it well enough got spit out the other end with brand deals and ad revenue.
The problem? I wasn't the one in front of the lens. I was behind it. The invisible hand.
And nobody tips the cameraman.
I glanced at the card again, sitting inside the camera like a heartbeat. Maybe if I kept filming the weird, the raw, the stuff nobody else dared point a lens at… maybe the algorithm would notice.
The last bus rumbled past outside, its exhaust fogging the cracked window glass. I checked the time. If I wanted to scout new locations, I had to move now.
Battery half-charged. Good enough.
I slung the camera bag over my shoulder and headed out.
---
The city wasn't kind to those without a name. Every corner was plastered with neon signs, influencer billboards, and giant LCD panels of faces smiling wider than they had any right to. Nobody cared about the man behind the frame.
That suited me fine. Being unseen was a kind of power.
I walked the familiar stretch toward the riverside — a part of the city that never decided whether it was alive or dead. Condemned buildings leaned against each other like drunks, yet down the block a new café opened every month, each one trendier than the last.
Perfect contrast for a shot.
I powered the camera on and peered through the viewfinder. Grainy, imperfect, but workable. The battery gauge blinked once — already low again. I'd have to ration the shots carefully.
Through the lens, the city looked different. Realer, almost. Like peeling back the polished filter everyone else saw. I caught glimpses of stray dogs slipping between alleys, the way graffiti glowed faintly in the early light, even the shiver of something darker along the river's edge.
I lowered the camera, blinked, and it was gone.
Great. Lack of sleep plus too much instant coffee. My brain was inventing shadows again.
Still… my finger lingered near the record button.
---
By noon, I had three minutes of shaky footage, two accidental shots of my shoes, and a battery that had bled nearly dry. Useless.
I sat on the riverside bench, chewing the inside of my cheek. The card still sat inside the camera, indifferent, eternal. I wanted to test it more — see if it would capture not just light, but whatever the hell those "shadows" were.
Problem was, you can't film ghosts on an empty stomach.
I sighed, shut the camera off, and leaned back. The sun broke through smog clouds for half a heartbeat, enough to sting my eyes.
That's when I heard it.
A laugh.
Not close, but sharp enough to slice through the noise of the city. Feminine, controlled, and amplified in a way that felt practiced. A laugh made for audiences.
I turned my head.
There, on the steps leading toward the river plaza, stood a woman dressed like the city bent around her instead of the other way. Black outfit, sleek lines, posture perfect. One hand held a phone raised high, already mid-broadcast.
An influencer.
I almost groaned. The world didn't need another self-made prophet peddling makeup tricks and lifestyle hacks. But something about her didn't fit.
The air around her seemed… taut. Like static before a storm.
Even through the crowd, I could hear her voice — low, deliberate, laced with confidence. She didn't just speak to her followers. She commanded them.
My camera itched in my hands. Instinct. This was footage worth taking.
But the battery was almost dead. One bar, blinking.
I had a choice: save the last charge for rent-paying work… or risk it on this stranger.
The laugh echoed again.
My finger twitched. I lifted the camera.
Through the lens, she didn't look like an influencer. She looked like something else entirely. The edges of her figure shimmered, faint but unmistakable. Like the city itself bent light to highlight her presence.
And at her feet…
A cat. Black as midnight, eyes catching the sun in impossible ways. It looked straight at me.
No, not at me. At the camera.
And it grinned.
The screen flickered.
The battery gauge, instead of collapsing to zero, held steady. Not charging — just… resisting death for a few extra seconds.
Enough to record. Barely.
I froze.
This wasn't possible.
The card… the card was doing something. Not filling the tank, but stretching the last drops.
The woman turned slightly, as if she'd felt my lens find her. Her gaze was sharp, precise, almost amused.
For the first time all morning, I felt visible.
And I wasn't sure if that was a good thing.
---
The battery finally gave up, the screen snapping black.
The cat blinked once, then turned away, padding after the woman. She continued her broadcast as if nothing had happened, her words carrying across the plaza.
The crowd adored her. Phones lifted, faces lit.
I forced myself to breathe.
Whatever just happened, it wasn't normal. But normal had stopped paying the bills a long time ago.
If this city wanted influencers and ghosts in the same frame, then maybe — just maybe — I'd finally found my chance.
I stood, adjusted the strap across my shoulder, and followed at a distance.
The card hummed faintly in my pocket. Eternal. Waiting.