Where am I? Was my first thought upon waking up.

I tried getting up, yet there was no feeling in my hands.

My eyes were open but my view was pitch-black.

No, wait. A blue undertone of light seeped in from the bottom of my sight. That seems to be… the moonlight?

It was illuminating the floor and, subsequently, the dust floating around it. The flooring was made up of soil, which was under a thick layer of dust, and the trails left by insects.

How dirty is this place—!

It wasn’t a moment after that that the thing covering my sight ‘walked’ off my face. It was a gecko, a dark skinned one, who stepped out of my face as if I was a wall, and climbed down the furniture.

Huh…?

Why was a gecko… on my…

I couldn’t take in what had just happened, so, to keep myself sane, I shifted my focus onto something else. The appearance of this place.

Several pieces of furniture, held together only by interlaced spiderwebs, sat decaying in this room.

A few chiseled rocks made up what might have been a sink, judging by the mold and worms. But, whatever it had been, tonight it looked like a graveyard for bugs.

The shine of the moon coming from the right wall was the only source of light, and also my only indicator of where the windows could be in here.

How long have I been here, though?

And where is ‘here’ to be exact? Why am I at this place?

I stood in place, without any feeling to my limbs, and tried to recall what had happened to me, but all that came to mind was that, yesterday, I went to sleep a little earlier than usual.

Kidnapping? I ruled out that thought. Who would kidnap me, I don’t have anyone to pay the ransom.

Maybe an experiment? And another crazy one came up. In a run-down place like this? I can’t really see the whole floor, but this amount of dust wouldn’t help any scientist.

They could be done already.

That was when I realized that my crazy thoughts were rather plausible.

And as I took in the sight of this decrepit space, that unrealistic theory grew in my mind. Am I actually not sitting on a chair, right now?

From the height of my point of view, to the matter with the lizard. While I was not one to believe in whatever a scientific fiction would explain to me, I knew that there is always a hint of truth within a lie.

Did they do something to my body?

Unsure if I was being irrational, but it was a certainty that whatever had happened, it had affected my whole body without my knowledge.

Am I still human?

Time quickly went by as my mind revolved around coming up with unrealistic fears and attempting to logically dismiss the former again, and again.

Certainly it would be better if I had access to a mirror but my sight was not wide enough to display the entirety of my surroundings, only what was ahead. Oh, how I wish I had a wider range of vision instead of this tunnel vision.

[Command accepted. Acquiring “Vision Range Expansion” at the cost of 50RP.]

And, unexpectedly, my wish was granted by the sudden appearance of a woman’s voice.

My sight began to expand into a dome-like vision around me and, as if I was floating above the spot I was a moment ago, it allowed me to see what was in an entire one meter radius around me.

It was like rotating one of those panorama images, I could now see the rock wall behind me; a cluster of dirty, dark mold filled stones along with what seemed to be an entire stalk of plants growing over the walls.

Once my brief excitement died down, I slowly turned around and looked at the floating hologram that had sprouted out of thin air at the same time as the voice.

Wasn’t expecting to be helped out, so what is this about?

The message read exactly as the voice had said. It referred to an unknown currency being spent and seemed to be asking for confirmation after the action as there was an [OK] button below the writing on the screen, flashing from light blue to white.

I can’t move my fingers, though.

Trying to come up with a way to press the button, I slowly became aware that now it might be possible for me to take a look at myself and, finally, dissolve my crazed thoughts.

What the…?

A plastic folding tube holding onto a relatively big lens, a cubic large frame, a ping-pong ball sized shutter button, and it even included two cylindrical holders on both sides. The cream of the crop was the paint job that seemed to represent a long since passed time period, when black and white photographs were revolutionary.

This is exactly what would come to mind if someone asked me about an old portable camera. A chill ran through my back, at least the feeling of one did.

I turned to the white floating screen again. There’s no way this is me, right?

As expected, no response came from it.

Come on, this is a sad state to be in. Even though it’s looking better than the rest of the house, that’s just zero being better than minus one hundred.

After complaining, my stare was aimed towards the [OK] and an idea crossed my mind.

If I pretend to say, okay, will it be pressed?

[Current balance: 50RP]

Oh, it was that simple!

Okay, okay, you can hear my thoughts, because I’m sure I’m not really ‘talking’ here, unless I am a talking camera. I looked at the sorry, dust covered frame on top of a cabinet. I hope I am a talking camera.

But I only had a hundred of that RP to begin with? I don’t have any idea if that’s a lot or too few, though. Can’t you show me more information, like a profile or something like that?

[Command accepted. Displaying profile.]

It immediately responded to my question, and right after revealed a larger window of information.

[Category: (Ancient) Camera]

[Rarity: Relic]

[Level: 1 | F-Rank]

[Features: (Photo Shooting), (Manual Trigger)]

[(Hidden) Functions: (Soul Imprint Lv.MAX), (Short-Distance Focus Range Lv.1), (Vision Range Expansion Lv.1)]

[(Hidden) Rating Points: 50]

[Remaining uses: 10]

Wow.

On the white board floating in front of me, several lines of information that reminded me of some old RPG games appeared.

This is amazing, it’s like a virtual reality game.

The most attractive part of the screen caught my attention right away. I’m graded as a relic, that’s pretty high in games, like a step above the epic rarity items.

There’s also level and rank, they are both low, but it’s better than being high for no reason. I’m sure I’d do something dumb if it was too high.

Then I paid attention to the less appealing parts. Is the ‘ancient’ prefix before the camera just a cool way of calling me old? Also, the features here are just stating the obvious usage of a camera.

I thought about it for a bit. What does manual trigger mean, though?

Camera, take a photo.

Nothing happened. Maybe I have to command it using the feature name? Manual trigger, photoshotting, use manual trigger, shoot a photo…

No matter how many times I tried, nothing I thought worked.

This is a flaw. I was mentally exhausted after so much internal screaming.

It’s one thing to turn me into a camera, an old camera, and it’s another to make it so I can’t take my own photos.

Like, why?! How am I supposed to work as a camera, if I can’t take a photo by myself?

I feel like the one who turned me into a camera just wanted to make me be owned by people. No free will, no rise of the camera hero, and, wait. I only then noticed the maxed function on the screen. I am a soul…?

It was very confusing, knowing the concept of souls from fairy tales and stuff, I couldn’t help but think. Why is my soul imprinted on a camera?

I couldn’t think of any reason why I would be turned into a camera, or have my soul transferred into one. This is curious, but I can’t really ask the screen about it, can I?

Hey, why am I a camera?

Nothing changed on the status screen.

Okay, fine, so why are there hidden—

And right as I was about to question the ‘hidden’ prefixes, a smaller piece of information that looked very crucial caught my eye. What do you mean by ten uses left!?

I read it again just to make sure I wasn’t mistaken. And I wasn’t.

You can’t be serious. If this actually means that I can only take ten photos, then I’m done.

So I took my time, which was a lot, to inspect every single part of the profile.

Until…

Yeah, I’m done for. I (internally) blurted that out.

The next screen that I unlocked, appeared when my thoughts openly questioned the uses of rating points, formerly mentioned as RP. And I couldn’t help but feel like I had wasted my last paycheck on candy once I saw it.

[Available Upgrades: (Model Upgrade 200RP)]

[Available Features: (Flash Trigger 150RP)]

[Available Functions: (Lens Augmentation 75RP), (Decrease Weight 75RP), (Increase Short-Distance Focus Speed 50RP), (Long-Distance Focus Range 50RP), (Vision Range Expansion Lv.2 30RP), (Short-Distance Focus Range Lv.2 25RP)]

[Available Services: (Replenish Ten Uses 50RP), (Repairs 50RP)]

Look at those prices! I would’ve held my head in shock if I could. I am so dumb for spending points on a small range expansion, aren’t I?

Now if someone picks me up and spends all of my uses, or destroys me, I will have only one more chance before I become a useless piece of scrap.

And I don’t even know how to gain more points. I stopped for a moment to look at my new body. Though, I’m guessing, it must be related to taking pictures.

Other than that—

My thoughts were abruptly interrupted by a sense of foreboding.

Something that I had never felt before but instinctively knew that I wouldn’t like to go through even once, was what my non-existent guts warned me about.

Once the perpetrator was within my range of view, I knew, subconsciously and probably consciously as well, exactly what was about to happen, and also that I had no way of stopping it. And by it, I meant that vile creature of six legs and not-so-blue shell that held no remorse in crawling towards an honest and clean camera. Something that vigorously reminded me of the one that terrorizes modern houses to this day, the roach.

Please don’t. Go back to the wall or something, but not the camera. I beg you. I would even prostate myself towards it right now if I could.

Someone, save me!

Then out of nowhere a lizard jumped in and caught that blue roach with its mouth. It was the dark skinned gecko from earlier, who was now cruelly eating the prey it caught with haste. But because it was focused on eating, it didn’t notice a dark green worm-like creature squirming towards it.

The worm bit into the gecko’s back like a blood leech and didn’t let go until it stopped moving.

What kind of miniature jungle is this!? I would be trembling like an earthquake if I could move right now. Wait, is it just my imagination or am I actually shaking?

It was the cabinet that had started shaking, as the biggest of the creatures appeared, by climbing up the bookshelf, as if to join the strife that was occurring here. A doubt that was confirmed right after.

It was slightly bigger than me, chubby, and had a bristly brown fur, not really something that one would expect to be confident enough to hold onto the worm right away with its small but dexterous paws, however it didn’t show an ounce of hesitation in doing so.

I had never seen a rat like this one. Worse yet, I had never heard of animals like any of those. And while the gecko was the most normal looking one, that thing still had a row of razor-like teeth to show off.

The inclusion of the big rat turned their struggle into a one sided beating, or maybe into a feast if it so desired. I couldn’t do anything but watch as a rat trampled over the back of the gecko, bit off the head of the dark green worm and then caught whatever remained of the blue-shelled roach. And then just sat down behind me to eat at its own pace.

Oh, the sun is rising. I tried to distract myself by looking at the floor and watching as the moonlight vanished and the rays of sunshine started to peek into the room.

But that was just the beginning.

I spent another twelve sunrises in this hut, without being able to sleep, blink or breathe, while still retaining my sense of touch. And only after going through all of that, did something happen that changed the status quo.

The door was opened.