Day 55 – Hour 016"Exposure"
I didn't run.
That would've been the first mistake.
If you look like you're fleeing, someone follows. If you move too slowly, you seem afraid. And fear has its own scent — one I couldn't afford to wear.
So I walked.
Measured. Calm. Out of view.
Took a left. Then a right. Down the slope that would eventually lead home if I kept going.
But I didn't.
Not yet.
I needed space first.
Not from them — from myself.
I found a small concrete ledge behind an abandoned repair stall and took a seat. The alley around it was quiet, just far enough from the main road to dull the traffic.
I didn't unclip the camera.
Didn't touch the film.
I just sat with the weight of what I'd seen.
Two men, speaking without words.
A meeting that didn't belong in the slums.
A guard pattern I'd only seen around people who expected to be hunted.
And Ero Seline — the man I once knew as Ilin's quiet father, the man who dropped off groceries and nodded politely when we passed on the street — sitting across from someone who moved like a shadow wrapped in authority.
I hadn't realized I was holding my breath until I felt the weight in my chest release.
Ilin.
His name came forward uninvited.
He'd never said much about his parents. He wasn't the kind to overshare. But he also never complained. Not directly.
I remembered the first time I saw him after he moved out — pretending it was his decision. "More space for the little ones," he said.
But that wasn't the reason. Not entirely.
It was in his eyes — the kind of resentment that came with being too much like someone you didn't want to become.
I made a note in my head.
Visit him. Ask nothing. Just observe.
Something about that meeting had changed the way I looked at Ilin's past.
And maybe… at my own place in all of this.
The job wasn't finished yet.
But the camera work was.
And while the film would need development, the real work now was surviving the wait.
I stood again, slowly.
Checked my surroundings.
Didn't see anyone watching.
Didn't feel followed.
Still — I took a long way home. Doubled back twice. Changed elevation, staircases, alleys, rooftop shortcut through a gutted-out building I'd used as a kid.
By the time I made it back to the lower levels of my neighborhood, dusk was setting in.
But I didn't go inside.
Not yet.
I sat on the concrete divider outside the shop I never shopped at. Watched the kids pass by. Watched the sky dull from blue to slate.
I had done the work.
Taken the pictures.
Avoided detection.
And yet… I didn't feel finished.
I felt like I'd pulled a thread that would eventually reach something I couldn't see yet.
That always scared me more than the job itself — the not-knowing.
Marco would be expecting the film.
Not tonight. Maybe not even tomorrow.
But soon.
And when he developed it, he'd see what I saw.
Or more likely — what I missed.
The streetlight next to me flickered once, then caught.
It reminded me to move.
To leave this in-between space and return to something resembling stillness — even if it was temporary.
Even if it was fragile.
I headed home.
Carefully.
Deliberately.
The kind of movement that belongs to someone who understands what it means to be watched — and what it means to be ready.