"Son! We are going to be late!" a man in his late 40's shouted at the top of his lungs. He was standing at the door of a old style brick house in casual clothes.

At his call a teenager ran out of the house in full speed. He was carrying a camera in one hand and a sandwich in another.

The teenager was a slim 15 or 16 year old boy with black hair and green eyes. On his back was a young girl around 4 to 5 years old who was pulling at the youth's hair as if riding a horse. Dangling in front of his chest was a camera.

The youth not paying attention to the girl on his back came and stood in front of his dad.

"Leoral, don't irritate Eric."

"hai hai Mr. Sergeant!" the girl shouted while clumsily saluting the middle aged man.

Haa~ the man sighed at his daughter's antics and started walking towards a group of people standing far away on the road.

A lady standing amongst the group waved her hands at the approaching trio and started smiling.

"Eric! You took good care of your sister right?"

"yes mom!" the boy immediately answered like a well trained soldier.

The lady looked towards the middle aged man and smiled while saying.

"you know Mr. Sergeant? You have trained our boy well"

"You too darling?" The man looked towards his wife with a hurt look on his face.

She chuckled and not saying anything else took her daughter from Eric's back onto her own.

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"You didn't really have to take us for a picnic the first day of your retirement , You could have given your old bones some rest after retiring cause of old age" She said with a smirk on her face.

"I am not old! They retired me because of my slowly worsening eyesight! Even if my retirement was really because of age it doesn't really matter cause the military can't really expect middle aged men go around fighting young blood"

As they were arguing Eric slowly distanced himself from them in order to not get swept in their argument, if this could be called one.

"Mom! Big blother is sneaking off again" 'This little rascal'

"Eric!" 'Did I accidentally voiced my thoughts?'

"Don't wander off too far!" 'Phew! Thank god'

Eric started ignoring his parents talking and started paying more attention to his surroundings. They lived in a suburban area full of gardens and forests, approx 5 km down this road was a mountain range where they were going to camp with a few family friends.

The path was filled with all sorts of weeds, flowers and birds. He would click a photo or 2 for inspiration while writing characters.

Soon they reached the camp site, there were 4 green tents in a row in a clearing and in front was a small circle traced out with stones. For a bonfire most probably, Eric and family were not the first to arrive as a family of 3 was already here. While his mom and the lady of the house in the family up front were chatting. Eric, being the oldest child here was tasked to gather firewood.

He was given a bag for holding the firewood and a metal stick for safety. There were no wild animals here as any and all such animals had long been hunted either for sport or food but what could he say when his mom was adamant about him taking it.

And off he went into the woods. He went around collecting firewood and then, he saw the thing that would change his life forever, a man with his back turned to him floating in the woods. First he was shocked beyond compare, then the shock changed into a compulsion to click a photo of this miracle.

And that's what he did, the moment he clicked the shutter the world around him froze, one moment the man had his back towards him and the next he was facing him.

The man's face was not visible, as if he was too lowly of an existence to view the man's face. And just as fast as when he had turned to face him the man vanished.

Eric's camera was an old model that took 3 to 4 seconds to fully capture the details of anything and when the camera printed out a photo all that was visible was a black silhouette floating in the sky.