Far Cry 5 One-Shot Collection

Concept/Title: Viewfinder

Pairing(s): Joseph Seed x Reader? / Undecided
Word Count: 3,187
Warning(s): Supernatural elements, horror elements, mentioned gore, death/ghosts, bad language/swearing.
A/N(s): Another piece I posted months ago before posting here; oops ^^' (formatting feels so odd here wha-)

-/-/-

"Holy shit..."

It wasn't anything new. Really, you shouldn't be surprised; not with all you've heard about them. Not with the things you've seen...

But it's the volume that catches your breath, makes shaky words tumble loose in a wispy exhale despite your aim for covertness.

You shouldn't be here. Perched precariously across a high branch, you never should have come here. You can't even remember why you'd decided on such recklessness in the first place, far removed from your typical cautious nature.

It was likely curiosity, the damned thing. What with this local war, once a whispered rumour with the tension brewing in the county, now in full swing.

You were unaligned, vehemently against the needless bloodshed on both sides. Had seen too much death in the calm of a spring evening to ever want to see it in the wrath of an actual war.

Without your camera, an old heirloom passed down to those with your 'talents' in the family, you could only catch glimpses. The unnatural glint of luna's light in the corner of your eye, reflecting off the impression of a form that isn't there in your periphery.

With the camera however... Well, fact is oftentimes stranger than fiction and seeing the evidence of some of the ways people have died is...

It was terrifying as a child; it's still terrifying as a young adult.

God, you've always wanted to throw this fucking camera away. Put your foot to it so you would never have to see the horrors that lurk behind its lens again. Save any future members of your bloodline from the trauma it will surely lash upon them.

But you can't.

It's like a compulsion; morbid curiosity in full unrelenting force. You can't bring yourself to destroy it. The not knowing, the paranoia should you ever lose – even just misplace it keeps it close.

Hardly a comfort, but always better the devil you know.

And you would always rather know than not when they are looking at you.

But this... this is unprecedented.

They're not looking at you – fuck, thank god – but they are looking at him; at them.

Fucking hell, there's so many...

It's sickening. Seeing one is bad enough, having one follow you is worse, but this... this man has a whole fucking army of ghosts around him. All surrounding him, all circled close along with the living but still maintaining a certain respectable distance from him.

Are they all his followers, devoted in death as they were in life? Or have some inadvertently latched on to him, tethered themselves to him from the fear or rage he caused them in their final moments? It's hard to tell. The toils and muck of conflict stains them all, makes them indistinguishable from one another.

You suppose death never has been a biassed prick.

The sight is beyond unsettling all the same, though.

Can he feel them? You know you can, if they get close to you. Still not figured out if they can hurt you though; never given them the chance, never been brave enough to try. Only ever turned tail or shot them with your camera in a reactive bid to startle them away. Sometimes they come back, other times they don't. Sometimes they appear to want to show you something, other times... other times you don't know.