Mitchell needed release.
A week of mundane photography and artificial smiles had worn him down. Family portraits, corporate headshots and a wedding where everyone behaved as though happiness could be arranged by height had left him exhausted.
Smile.
Chin down.
Pretend you love each other.
He was good at it. The camera never objected to lies. It accepted whatever stood before it and preserved the performance perfectly.
The soundscape in his ear wasn’t helping either—mundane clicks and casual chatter from another woman’s apartment. A cupboard opened. A glass met a benchtop. Water ran briefly. No threat. No secrecy. Just ordinary life concealing something darker.
He listened, hoping the pattern would change.
It didn’t.
Mitchell closed the feed.
Silence settled over the office. The absence of sound irritated him more than the domestic noises had. Every click, footstep and breath had promised that something might happen.
Nothing did.
He opened an old folder: photographs of “her.”
Not Sam.
The other one.
Mitchell felt the familiar tightening behind his ribs. He had not opened the folder for months. Knowing it remained there had usually been enough.
He clicked through the images—black and white, grainy, moody. The photographs told a story through shadow and withheld detail. Her eyes were vacant but powerful. There was defiance in her stillness, something unspoken and unresolved. She wasn’t conventionally beautiful, but she was unforgettable.
One image filled the screen.
Her face was turned slightly away, yet her eyes held the lens. They seemed to look through the camera, reaching the man behind it. Mitchell remembered the room, the light and the silence between each release of the shutter.
He could not remember what she had said.
That bothered him.
Mitchell enlarged the photograph until her skin dissolved into grey grain.
Her eyes remained.
The photograph refused to let her disappear. It held her at the exact distance Mitchell preferred: close enough to possess, yet silent enough to prevent her from challenging his version of the past.
She haunted him.
He should delete the folder. He knew that.
The thought arrived every time he opened it, performed its duty and left. Deleting the images would not remove her. It would merely take away the place where he could visit without explaining himself.
Sam had nearly found the folder once while searching for tax documents.
“Old client files,” he had said.
The lie came quickly. Sam accepted it and never asked again. That was the advantage of being dependable: trust became a door nobody thought to lock.
Mitchell closed the image.
The dark screen showed his reflection where hers had been. The resemblance was not physical. It was something in the eyes—an absence, perhaps, or the effort required to conceal what waited behind them.
Later, he sat opposite Sam during a late dinner. She spoke about her day while he nodded at suitable intervals. He smiled when she smiled and asked a question when the silence grew long.
He was still working.
This was another portrait session, except the camera faced him.
Smiling.
Pretending.
Sam cleared the plates. Their domestic system worked well. Tasks balanced. Bills were paid. Appointments appeared on the calendar and were attended.
From outside, nothing was missing.
Upstairs, Sam reached for his hand beneath the covers. Her fingers found his and closed gently around them.
Mitchell hesitated.
It was the kind of touch he had once wanted—warm and given without obligation. Now it felt late. Worse, it felt innocent.
He loosened his hand and changed his breathing.
Slow.
Heavy.
Asleep.
Sam released him and turned onto her side, taking the warmth of her hand with her.
The truth was, he didn’t want her touch.
His passion lived elsewhere—deep in shadows, in grainy photographs and whispered sounds. Sam’s affection belonged to the safe, illuminated part of his life. It expected something recognisable in return.
The darkness asked only for his attention.
When Sam’s breathing settled, Mitchell opened his eyes. A stripe of streetlight crossed the wall, separating his side from hers.
He waited, then slipped on his Bluetooth earpiece and reopened the audio feed.
At first, there was only static and the low electrical hum he had learned to ignore.
Then something moved on the other end.
A footstep.
Another.
He held his breath.
New sounds came through.
Unfamiliar ones.
A man’s voice, low and indistinct. The woman answered. Mitchell could not make out the words, but he heard the difference in her tone. She was quieter, cautious in a way she had not been alone.
Tension returned, and so did his pulse. His senses sharpened.
He raised the volume. Bedsprings shifted beside him as Sam moved, and Mitchell froze. She sighed, settled and became still again.
The unfamiliar voice continued.
Something had changed on the other end.
Routine had fractured. A new person had entered the pattern, bringing questions, risks and possibilities. The feed was no longer a collection of household noises.
It was useful again.
Mitchell smiled in the dark.
–Michael (Dark Fiction. Author of SEETHINGS (the first book), free for a limited time)
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SEETHINGS II follows the return of the Storm Killer as a body on a secluded beach in Moreton Bay, igniting fear and denial. While police dismiss the link, the media doesn’t. Mitchell Felding forms a dangerous bond with a man who understands his darkest impulses. When Natasha enters his life, carrying love letters from her murdered mother, intimacy deepens, and truth closes in. Some futures are inherited. Some have escaped.
SEETHINGS (first in the series) is downloadable and free for a limited time here.
Discover more from Michael Forman – Author of Dark Fiction & Drama
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