Day 031 Hour 07: Marked Hours
The light outside hadn't fully bloomed yet. That kind of greyish-pale that touches everything before the sun decides whether to rise angry or tired. The kind of light that makes the streets feel slower. Duller. But not safer.
I was already dressed.
Didn't sleep much. Not because I was nervous. That would be too generous a word. I didn't sleep because my mind had started to tick like a clock. A countdown. Each number carved behind my eyes, matching the locations I'd memorized from the ledger.
Five places. Five moments.
The first was in less than two hours.
Vasco Alley & Third. Behind the wall with the 'SHEPARD'S TEETH' graffiti.08:45.
It wasn't far. Just a long loop through the residential slats, then down the busted staircase with the broken handrail. Walk too fast and you'd be there too early. Walk too slow and you'd miss your window.
I packed light.
Phone. Pouch. Water bottle filled halfway. I tucked the ledger under a cracked ceramic tile in the floor — not because I thought someone might steal it, but because I didn't want to carry it. The map remained untouched under the futon. The markers hadn't moved since I placed them down.
I looked at the second $100 bill.
Still pristine. Still folded neatly.
I left it where it was.
The mission wasn't about money now.
It was about timing.
I slipped out of the apartment, locked the door behind me, and took the stairs as quietly as I could. The hallway smelled like mildew and cigarettes again. Comforting, in a way. Nothing had changed — except me.
Down the street, the slums moved in slow motion. Vendors setting up early. Bottles clinking from crates being stacked. The hiss of oil warming in makeshift kitchens. I passed by without comment, without recognition. No one asked where I was headed. I didn't volunteer it.
Everyone here knew how to mind their own time.
As I approached the first turn, I checked the phone.
07:12.
Still early. But not too early.
I had time to walk slow. To pace myself. To arrive just before the clock struck its mark. There was no mention of what I'd see. No requirement for what the photo had to contain. Just be there. Just take it.
It wasn't the task that made me sweat.
It was the silence behind the instructions.
What were they measuring?
The framing? The punctuality? The choice of what to capture?
Was it even about the photo?
I walked with careful steps now, more deliberate, more aware of every storefront, every rusted gate and splintered wall. This wasn't my neighborhood anymore — not in the same way.
Today, everything I passed was potential evidence.
And I was no longer just a person in it.
I was a piece being moved through it.
On purpose.
Day 031 Hour 08:30: The Wall with Teeth
I reached the end of Third Street fifteen minutes ahead of schedule.
Deliberate.
It would have been easier to arrive just-in-time, like an obedient courier completing a transaction. But obedience gets you seen. Gets you predictable. I wasn't here to impress them. I was here to see what they might have missed.
If anything.
Vasco Alley was the kind of place that only existed because two buildings got tired of holding their ground. Narrow, sun-starved, and just wide enough for a motorcycle to scrape by if you angled it right. It dead-ended at a wall plastered with layers of old posters and newer graffiti. SHAPARD'S TEETH was still there — half-faded in red paint, the kind that flakes like blood on concrete. No one knew what it meant. No one ever cared to ask.
I stepped in slow.
The pavement was broken in familiar ways. A crumbling curb. A run of drainage pipe rusted in the shape of a question mark. I recognized them, even if I hadn't seen them in months. I'd passed through here maybe five times in my life — three of them before I was tall enough to see over the trash bins.
Not recent enough to be familiar.
Not rare enough to be unfamiliar.
Just... forgotten.
Like most things in this part of town.
I scanned the space.
The graffiti hadn't changed much. A few new layers on the surrounding walls, but the SHAPARD'S TEETH tag still owned the end wall. The windows above were all shuttered or boarded, like eyes that had long since stopped caring what passed below.
There was a pile of scrap in the corner — twisted shopping cart, broken broom, an old monitor with its screen kicked in. Could've been there a week or a month. I took note of the things that didn't belong, or at least seemed like they were trying not to be noticed.
A torn piece of denim near the corner. Two cigarette butts in an old bottle cap. The scent of vinegar and wet plaster.
I wasn't a cop. Not a spy. But when you've grown up where people hide things they don't want found, your brain starts making lists whether you mean to or not.
Could I say for sure that nothing was out of place?
No.
But nothing called out to me either.
No movement.
No watchers.
No sense of being watched.
Still... the stillness itself felt orchestrated.
Like someone had vacuumed the chaos out just for me.
I leaned back against the wall opposite the graffiti, phone in hand, screen off, thumb resting near the side button.
I waited.
Not because I had nothing to do.
But because that's what the mission required.
Wait.
Be still.
Then act.
BZZZT.
The phone vibrated in my hand — a short, dry buzz. No ringtone. No message.
Just the trigger.
08:45 had arrived.