S o l i t u d e

✧1: the camera✧

Pitter patter, pitter patter, pitter patter, pitter patter...

It was late at night, and the only light in your house came from your bedroom and computer. The rhythmic sound of raindrops pelting against the roof filled your room as you stared at your drawing tablet, the blank base for a body staring right back at you with cold, lifeless eyes. Sighing, you push back from your desk and place your head in your hands as a loud groan emits from you. "Of course, now would be the perfect time for me to have art block. Come on brain, give me something to work with here!" You tap your forehead with a finger as if that would do anything. You needed to draw out this illustration and the deadline was coming up, with only a few days left before your client started getting messaging you.

After a not-so-successful attempt at trying to find your brain's on switch, you decide to just swivel your chair around to look outside. Leaning back, you stare out the window as raindrops ran down it in streaks. Some sped by while others lagged behind, collecting other drops as they went. Your eyes followed each one as they hit the glass and slid down to the bottom. To you, it was like a tiny race, or discs falling down a plinko board. The only difference here is the prize wouldn't be a load of cash but you wasting time and scolding yourself later.

You had been sitting there for hours hoping an idea would come to mind, and so far you were getting nowhere with that plan. You get up from your chair, stretching a bit while cracking your knuckles. Letting out a yawn, you head out of your bedroom going over to the attic trapdoor. Since you can't come up with something, why not do some digging around up there? You've only ever been up into your attic once, maybe twice, and never really explored it. And besides that drawing, you didn't really have much else to do. Who knows, maybe something up there would help get the creative juices flowing a bit.

You pull down the cord and watch as the ladder unfolds down to your feet. You climb up into the attic, hoisting your body up into the room once at the top. Feeling around the wall for a second, you flick up the light switch. The light bulb overhead turns on, and you see various boxes laying around. Most of them are from when you moved in, with various labels scrawled on them in black marker. You really needed to unpack those sometime. The rest sat farther in the back, and you could see some with a fine layer of dust over the tops. Curious, you look over at them. You didn't remember those being there the last time you came up here.

You walk over to the boxes and wipe off the tops, leaving your hands a pale grey. 'Ick. How long has it been since these have been touched?' Once you finish dusting your hands off, you flip back the flaps on each box and start digging. Most of the things in them were just things like old toys and weird trinkets. You got to the bottom of each box quickly with nothing catching your eye, and soon you reached the last box. It wasn't all that different from the others until finally, you saw something.

A digital camera with a bunch of scratches on the body, and next to it was a small journal. You picked up the camera and pressed its power button to turn it on, wanting to see if you could find any interesting photos. The screen flashed to life, the LCD light illuminating your face slightly. Going through the pictures on it you could see that most of them were of a woman in various places, some of which you recognized. Some were just random objects, and the others were unreachable.

You don't recognize the lady, and you definitely didn't remember this being here or it belonging to you.

You picked up the journal as well, wanting to see what it said. Opening it just revealed lines upon lines of text, the handwriting messy. As you flipped through the pages some fell out, and you scrambled to pick them up. As you shuffled the pages back into the book, you saw that one page that you picked up looked different from the others. It looked to be a set of instructions, the handwriting different(and thankfully readable)from the journal.

Position desired item in front of lens

Take picture

Wait for retrieval completion

'Retrieval...must mean the picture processing. Weird wording for it though.' You put the page back into the journal before putting it back into the box and put the camera strap around your neck. After putting the boxes back, you then headed down the attic ladder to head back to your room, where you messed around with the camera some more. It couldn't hurt to take a picture or two, right? You pressed buttons until you figured out the basics, and once you did you took some pictures around your room. Posters, figurines, and other things. You were pleased with just how clear they managed to turn out despite the camera glitching out every once in a while. You had always liked taking photos, a little hobby that made you just as happy as making art. You just never wanted to be in one. Though, it would be better if you actually had people to share this stuff with. It gets tiring monologuing to yourself sometimes.

You let out a sigh as you take a picture of your plush pile. "I need more friends."

Once you had finished with your little photo spree, you placed the camera on your dresser and looked over at your computer clock. Seeing you had stayed up much longer than planned and still couldn't come up with anything for that drawing, you decided to go to bed. You needed the rest. You flop onto your bed with an 'oof', not bothering to change into any nightwear as you pull your covers over you. You close your eyes, and you rest your head on your pillow as you drift off to sleep.

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