The Perfect Shot

The sounds of the city are muted: the hum-rattle-roar of trains, the steady drone of traffic and the high-pitched wheedling of stall owners seem to come from a more distant, dirtier world.

And best of all, the temple’s deserted.

She clutches her camera as she picks her way through the rubble. She’s always searching for that perfect shot and always coming up just a little short. But not this time, she promises herself.

Behind her, a dog starts barking. Strange. She hadn’t noticed any dogs. Or any life at all, really.

Then the barking multiplies.

Instinctively, she steps backwards and realizes that she’s walking through the rubble rather than over it.

Her mouth works soundlessly – part in shock and part in horror – when the pack rounds the corner. Their vivid coats stand out against the muted temple mortar and even as they are charging her down, she instinctively lifts her camera. Thinking, perhaps, that they’re like the rock and stone from another world and they’ll go right through her too.

It’s not until she’s sent flying to the ground in a whirlwind of pain and teeth and blood that she realizes just how wrong she is.



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