I always thought job interviews were supposed to happen in coffee shops, with resumes and handshakes. Not on a cracked stone bridge, at midnight, under a sky so heavy with mist it looked like the world had been swallowed whole.
But there she was—Seraphine Vale.
Even when half hidden in fog, the witch radiated the kind of presence you only ever see in movie stars. Her coat shimmered like dark silk, hair a cascade of raven black, eyes reflecting light that wasn't there. If she had said "kneel," I'm pretty sure my knees would have hit the pavement before my brain caught up.
Instead, she said:
"You're the one with the camera."
I held up the battered DSLR hanging around my neck. Bought second-hand from a pawn shop two towns back, the thing creaked when I opened the battery latch. Half the buttons didn't work. It ate batteries like a starving wolf. The only reason I kept it was because of the 16MB memory card jammed inside—a relic I couldn't eject if I tried. And somehow… it had never filled up. Hours of footage, still space left.
I coughed. "Yeah. That's me. Ethan, cameraman, freelancer, uh—sometimes wedding parties, sometimes… funerals."
"Good," she said, eyes narrowing with something between appraisal and amusement. "I need a cameraman. Someone disposable."
"…Disposable?"
Nyx, her cat, leapt onto the bridge rail, tail flicking. He stared at me with the judgment only a cat can deliver, as if already calculating how quickly I'd die.
Seraphine's lips curved, like she'd just found a particularly interesting pawn. "You point the camera. You keep it steady. You don't interfere, no matter what you see. In return, you get paid. Enough to keep you alive."
I laughed nervously. "Alive sounds like a fair perk, yeah."
She leaned closer. Her perfume smelled like midnight rain and smoke. "And Ethan… don't drop the stream. Ever."
---
The "job" began the very next night. We stood outside a decaying house on the edge of town. The kind with broken shutters, grass grown to waist height, a mailbox that hadn't seen a letter since dial-up internet.
The chat was already alive the moment I turned the stream on:
HexHunter: omg witch stream is back let's go
CorpseEmoji: cameraguy looks new, bet he dies in 5 minutes
MoonRituals: I hear screams in the background already??
"Introduce yourself," Seraphine whispered, not to me, but to the audience. Her tone slid like velvet over knives.
I lifted the camera, adjusting the strap nervously. "Uh—hi everyone. I'm Ethan. I'll be your cameraman tonight. Please don't bet on my death. Bad for morale."
The chat spammed laughing emojis.
Nyx yawned dramatically and stalked ahead.
Seraphine raised her hand, tracing runes in the air. Light bled from her fingertips, painting sigils against the dark. The house creaked like it knew we'd arrived.
I swallowed. This wasn't exactly my usual gig. My last job was filming a quinceañera. Now I was pointing a lens at a witch about to exorcise something that probably wanted to chew my face off.
---
Inside smelled of mildew and iron. The kind of smell you know means bad history. Wallpaper peeled like old skin. Every step groaned.
I kept the camera steady. Seraphine didn't even glance at me—just trusted I'd keep her framed as she moved, her coat trailing like smoke.
That's when it happened.
A shadow darted across the hall. Too fast for the lens to catch fully—just a smear of static across my viewfinder. I swung instinctively. The camera beeped, battery warning flashing red.
Something cold scraped my neck.
I flinched, jerking back—and at that exact moment, a rotten beam above snapped loose and crashed down where I'd been standing.
The shadow hissed, distorted, like static feedback. It lunged again—straight at me.
"Holy—!" I yelped, stumbling. My foot caught on a broken tile. I went down hard. The camera swung, lens smashing against the wall—and somehow, somehow, the strap caught on a nail, halting me just short of a jagged shard of glass.
The shadow passed straight through where my head had been, shrieking.
Chat exploded:
BloodHymn: LMAOO cameraguy almost got decapitated
EternalSimp: wait did that thing MISS him??
Lucky777: HE'S INVINCIBLE WTF
My hands shook, knuckles white around the camera. "H-holy hell! That—That thing just tried to—! I almost died! Almost died! Did you see that?!"
Seraphine didn't even flinch. She glanced back, lips curving like she already knew the outcome. "Stay steady, Ethan. Shadows can't kill what's already claimed."
"What the hell does that mean?!"
"Keep filming."
---
She stepped into the living room, the air thick with pressure. Candles lit themselves in corners I swear were empty seconds ago. Runes crawled across the floorboards, glowing faintly.
The shadow roared, recoiling from her. Nyx arched his back, fur bristling, then darted straight through the thing like it was smoke. His eyes glowed green for a moment.
Seraphine's voice cut through the chaos. Words that weren't words. A chant older than language.
The house trembled.
I panned the camera—steadier now despite my thundering heart—catching the moment she raised her hand and drew the shadow into a circle of light. It thrashed, screamed, but every frame I caught made it look smaller, thinner, like it was being erased.
Then silence.
Only the faint hiss of the stream's audio.
The chat flooded with stunned lines:
Watcher: …did we just see a real ghost get deleted??
LuckTheory: cameraman is LITERALLY unkillable lol
Rituals4Days: hire him forever pls
Seraphine lowered her hand, brushing dust off her coat. She didn't even look winded.
"Good," she murmured. "The audience will eat this alive."
I was still shaking, trying to steady my breathing. "Yeah, sure, let's ignore the part where a shadow monster tried to rearrange my organs."
She finally turned to me, eyes gleaming like knives catching light. "And yet, here you stand. Still breathing. You'll do."
---
When the stream ended, I slumped against the wall, sliding down until I hit the floor. My arms ached from holding the camera. My battery meter was flashing near empty, yet somehow the thing hadn't died mid-shoot. The card clicked faintly inside, as if humming.
Seraphine walked past me, Nyx on her heels. She paused at the door, glancing back with a smirk.
"Get used to it, Ethan. Shadows will always reach for you. But you? You're a cameraman. And cameramen don't die."
The words lodged in my skull like a curse. Or a prophecy.
And deep down, I wasn't sure which terrified me more.