Captured Moments.

Ch.9 ~ Missing Link.

I remember when I was about 13 years old and I got a camera for my birthday. I had never used one much before, apart for taking the occasional photo for friends and family. It didn't take long for me to become obsessed. I suppose it was easy to fall in love with something so personal when you're a misfitted teenage girl. The summer came by quick enough and Xavier found my love for photography hilarious. I took photo's of him quite a lot, I always liked the look of his smile on camera.

"Ooh look at me, I'm Tenley Harrison! Snap snap snap! Oh Xavier you look stunning on film!" He'd tease me constantly but I know it was because he was jealous that I wouldn't let him touch my camera. My thoughts were confirmed when he got a camera for Christmas that year.

We couldn't get enough of capturing these images, we were able to freeze life in a snapshot and hold it forever. We could be apart and take photos and share them so we felt together again. My passion easily became his. The summer I died we took photos of almost everything, never wanting to forget our memories. But all we wanted to do by the end of that summer was forget, it was a whole lot easier doing that dead rather than alive.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Did you ever keep your photos Ten?" Xavier and I were browsing around his old room that hadn't changed a bit, no wonder he thought he was still alive.

"Yeah, I would never erase your smile" He laughed and blushed at my compliment.

"I was just thinking that we should've made a scrapbook." I turned around and looked at him with an 'oh' face.

"We still could, I'm sure all of my photos would still be at our place and I'm sure there would be a spare book lying around somewhere." Sure we were dead but we still liked to think we were alive.

We gathered all of our photo's and spare bits and bobs and placed ourselves on Xaviers bed in his old room. He was arranging a few random photos around on a blank page when a thought struck me. His room has stayed the same as it was before he died. His parents haven't moved anything.

"Xav, I'm just going to use the bathroom." He mumbled somewhat of an "Okay" being lost in his thoughts. Ghost don't pee so he was obviously zoned out.

I wandered throughout the small house that was only meant to be a holiday home, his family ended up moving here full time after a while because they loved it so much. The house was clattered and smelt musky. Photographs littered the walls, there was a mixture of family photos and photos taken by Xavier. The place didn't look like it belonged to the Lucas family. Chris and Sierra wouldn't let their house be so clattered. There were books scattered across the floor that I had never seen before, dirty dishes left on any steady surface, and the floor looked as if it hadn't been vacuumed in a decade.

As I walked into the living room I saw Xaviers Dad past out in an armchair, it was late but I still smelt alcohol on his breath knowing that he had drunk himself to sleep. The television was still on screening late night sitcoms that Chris would never have watched unless Xavier did. He missed him.

I walked into his parents bedroom and saw Sierra In the messy bed. She appeared to be asleep and just as I was turning to leave the room I heard a whimper. I made my way over to the bed and sat with my back against the side close by her head. She was crying, clearly not asleep, with her eyes wide open. The blinds were pulled open allowing the moonlight to shine into the room. Xaviers family never lived like this.

I heard her draw in a breath and sigh. "Why did you have to leave me my baby. Look what happened to us. We used to be so happy. But now you're gone, oh Xavier! Please come back my baby, please, I need you." She started to cry louder now. She was always the strongest person I knew but now she seemed to be broken. She needs to know her son is okay, she needs to.

I ran back through to Xaviers bedroom to see him snap a picture of me racing through the door. "Picture number 83 in counting." He scrambled over to his laptop and printed the image to glue into the scrapbook.

"Xavier, could I borrow the camera for a moment please?" He seemed to notice the uneasy tone in my voice.

"Of course, is everything okay?" I nodded quickly plastering a smile across my face to assure him. He seemed convinced and handed me the camera. I sat on his knee and snapped and image of the both of us adding a "smile for the photo" in too. We printed our images and took them to the scrapbook, labeling each image with a pencil underneath. I pasted the image of the two of us I wrote 'Xavier and Tenley - 18.11.14"

Once all of the images were glued into place in the scrapbook we put everything away and placed the booked filled with our photos on the bedside table. "Are you ready to go Ten?" I shot my head around to look at Xavier pointing to the window.

"Go where?" I asked he chuckled like I was stupid.

"To the between." I made an 'oh' face and stood straight.

"Um, I actually thought we could stay here tonight." His eyes lit up but he tried to keep his happiness concealed.

"Sure, anything you want." We lay down next to each other, finally beginning to feel normal, to feel alive. I almost thought I could feel Xaviers heartbeat in rhythm with mine.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Soon enough Xavier was asleep. I slowly pried his arms off of me, trying my hardest not to wake him. I tip toed out of his room, snatching the scrapbook in the process. I crept my way around the house seeing his father was still asleep in the arm chair. I stealthily moved past his sleeping figure to the sliding door leading outside.

I made my way down to the bank that ran along the lake and sat on the edge with my feet in the water. I looked out at the eerie fog covered lake. It never used to look that awful, I used to find it alluring and fascinating, a lot of my photos were of this lake. I shook my head to rid the thoughts of the history I had with this lake.

I opened the cover of the little note book and began to look through our collection of photos. They all looked normal and I almost laughed at a few of them, they were all comforting, they'd be perfect for Sierra to look at.

I slowly flicked through the book looking at each page intently. As I ventured through further into the book, the closer to my death I was getting. There were photos of the day by the lake where we kissed and were even some that I took in the woods after I ran off. Most of those ones were of my feet or the odd forest floor, but some were of the trees and I even managed to get a few of the wild life around me, mostly birds.

There was one photo that caught my attention the most though. It was a photo of the trees straight in front of me, I remember I liked those ones the most because they had yellow leaves that stood out among the green ones. But it wasn't the beautiful trees that caught my attention, it was the man standing in the distance. I flicked quickly through the other random images taken building up to my death and in each and every one, there was that same man standing in the distance.

These photo confirmed the fact that I was being followed leading up to my death. No, my murder. This was the evidence I needed to catch my killer. I couldn't give this to Xaviers mother for comfort.

I raced back inside not worrying to wake anybody, they wouldn't hear me anyway. I barged into Xaviers room and shook him awake. His eyes shot open quickly and I rushed to explain what I had just found.

"Xavier, I- I was just looking at the photos be- because I was going to give the book to your mother and I- I- I saw..." By now I was crying, I don't know why, I should be happy, I found evidence that could solve my lost murder investigation.

"Ten, hush. Just take a breath and calm down. You have to stop and take a breather." I listened to his calm but authoritative words. He held me in his arms and rocked me back in forth trying to calm me down. When I had stopped crying he wiped the tears from my face and sat me up against the headboard above his bed.

"Now tell me about what you found okay."