Editing Setting:InfiniCon/Lore (section)

==Ghost==
''Anonymous''

My name's Peter. Kinda awkward considering what I do. I'm a photographer. I work for the only official city newspaper in Infinity City, and let me tell you, I have seen some serious shit.

I've always had this knack for being in the right place at the right to snap a picture of an awesome mock duel by Jedi-Sith cosplayers, or a massive parade of the Spartans, or a chick with a particularly cute... yeah I tend to keep those pictures to myself.

But all rumours and gossip aside, I'm probably one of the few people who *know* that there is actually something... magical about Infinity City. Like I've said before, I've always had this knack for getting those shots that no one else can. And for the first time in my life, I can actually claim that to be a total truth.

It was a Friday night sometime about two years back when I first realized it. Cons are always going on in I.C., but that night was the premier of a brand new anime produced and written purely by Infinity City citizens about Infinity City. According to the critics it was supposed to be a massive overcharacterization of a group of people who suddenly developed super powers. I remember catching the first episode when it went got picked up by national television, it was almost painfully funny like that Big Bang show. The parody was almost too much for my tastes.

I was roaming the theatre floor, snapping shots of the cosplayers hired to dress as the characters from the anime. The night went alright and I got a lot of good stuff to send in for the morning paper. I even got some great shots of the lead producer and the head storyboard editor. When they learned who I was, they invited me to take a tour of their studio next week which I gladly accepted. It was the first complete anime studio to ever be built in Infinity City, a 'scoop' that I couldn't resist.

I left the premier that night and got a late night snack at The Apron. It's this Infinty City take on the French sidewalk cafe, except all the wait staff are 10's. But that's only part of the reason I go there. Their coffee cake is the best I have ever tasted and their prime seating is on a terrace that overlooks the very heart of the city. It's called Infinity Plaza, clearly the most inspired of names, right? Despite the city's naming conventions they clearly got everything right when they designed this work of art. The entire thing is over 100,000 square feet of open space. Lights set into the sandstone walkways throw up a majestic glow and dozens of fountains add to the regal feeling the place inspires.

Most of the time I just come here to sit and watch the people pass by. I'm not a fan in the slightest of some of the people who live here, but most of them are all right. And things definitely changed for the better when they instituted a formal dress code, some infractions are actually punishable by permab&s, which I laughed at. One of my co-workers maintains a blog that features a daily Worst Dressed. Some of the fashion faux pas she finds are now famous in the web.

Tonight felt different. I had that buzz in my feet, the itch where I've gotta get out and walk. The kind of feeling where I know that I'm not gonna go to sleep before dawn. I hate these nights, especially because it means that my boss has to officially write me a warning but he's mostly cool with it because he knows that I.C. sleeps less than New York City and I do my best work at night. I had an entire set of night shots that got featured on F-Stop.com, and that set came from a night exactly like this one.

So I set about the process I call 'walking,' I know another inspired name. I didn't care where I went, and I snapped every shot that inspired any tiny feeling inside of me, including the hatred I harbor for weeaboos. But hey, different strokes I guess. That's the other cool thing about being a photographer. 99% of people don't mess with you at all. In fact, most of them just wanna see the picture themselves. It's this self-vindication thing I think. People wanna know they look good doing what they love.

After about three hours of solid walking, I found myself on the top of this apartment complex called Broken Wings, probably named after some horrible animu I'd never heard of. I was in the lobby snapping shots of some cosplayers and then just kinda found my way up there. I have no clue how.

So I'm standing there thinking how awesome the view was when I saw this chick in a weird lolita dress flying through the air. I snapped the Camera up so fast to take the shot that I whacked my cheekbone against the casing. It looked like she was chasing... something, I couldn't tell what it was, it was moving too fast for me to follow. All of a sudden, I found myself running across the rooftop of another building, camera still trained on the girl and the thing as they ran from rooftop to rooftop. I was too caught up in capturing the whole thing that I had no clue where I was going or where I was.

The two of them stopped on a rooftop and I saw them clashing. The lolita girl was wielding some sort of staff that would elongate and retract. The thing she was fighting I realized was a guy in strange rags. As I snapped pics I realized that under all the rags and torn outer clothing he was wearing protective body armor and carried a serrated combat knife. The two didn't even seem to notice I was there.

There was a lot of shouting, mostly the girl wanting the rag-man to give back something he apparently stole, to which he never replied, just kept trying to stab her. Eventually, he got through her guard and jammed the knife deep into her sternum. The girl collapsed and he bolted for the edge of the roof, leaped off and disappeared from sight.

I was pretty fucking shocked. I've always heard about people getting killed in Infinity City over pretty stupid shit, but this was pretty hardcore. I was so dumbstruck that I walked out from behind the vent I had been sniping pics from and just sorta half-walked, half-stumbled over to her. She looked up at me and laughed this weird laugh. She said she knew who I was, she'd seen my picture in the newspaper attached to some of my work. She said I was an urban legend in the city, this ghost who appeared and disappeared, who captured the most amazing pictures of the people, all of the people, of Infinity City. I didn't play favorites or bash people, I was a good man who understood that everyone had a purpose and a worth.

And then she died.

Or at least I think she did. She kinda stopped talking and her eyes went blank. I've never seen a dead person, but I guess that's what it looks like. It was fucking creepy. I don't know how long I stood there, but the next minute I wasn't. I was standing back on the rooftop of Broken Wings looking down at a picture of her dead body on my viewscreen.

I punched a wall so hard I think I broke a knuckle or two. I cried for a little while. The things she said about me kept bouncing around my head, her voice just wouldn't shut the fuck up. My whole life, ever since I was 5, I'd always wanted to be a photographer. I'd never been real important, sure I'd gotten noticed by a few people who realized that I had what they called a "talent," a "gift," but at least to myself I had always just been some dude with a camera. My dad once told me that humility was the greatest quality any human being can have. I watched a kung-fu movie one time about a guy who was able to defeat opponents just because he was so nice and humble. And now I was apparently some fucking legend, and I had found this out from a girl that I watched die in front of me. Or maybe not, I have no clue.

I never saw that girl again, at least not physically or from any other news source. It's like she never really existed. I still have the photos. Once a year I pull them out and look at them. I don't know why I do it, I can't even tell you the date, I just do it instinctively.

I don't sleep much anymore. I saw a doctor a few months back, he said I must've developed insomnia as a response to some sort of stress, probably from working too much. I almost cried when he said it, but I laughed and made the appropriate jokes about sleeping when you're dead. He said I could seek some sort of medication or therapy that might cure the insomnia, and I'd said that I would have to think about it.

To tell the truth, I kind of like it. Insomnia has a few benefits, the most prominent one is all of the Walking that I get to do now. Whenever I go out, especially at night, it's like I have this selective invisibility cloak. I can disappear in plain sight until I interact with people. And there's this sort of weird teleportation thing that happens. I can just suddenly be somewhere. I can get into a lot of cool places with my newfound powers. My boss is ecstatic. He's added an entire section to the newspaper to showcase my work. But there are some photos I just can't show him. Stuff that the public can't know about. There's a certain side to Infinity City, a side where your worst nightmares are real. A place where heroes actually fight for all things good. It's a strange place and I, like the fly on the wall, can only watch and record what goes on. Maybe one day I'll publish all the shit that I've collected.

Then again, maybe I won't. Ever since that one incident, I haven't had anymore chase sequences. Maybe I will one day, but I sincerely hope that I don't. I've decided that I like life too much to watch someone get hurt over anything. It's actually kind of painful to watch anyone die now, even if it's a movie or in a book. I go back to that night and see that girl, such a pretty girl. Prime of her life, whole world of possibilities, and it was all taken away from her. And for what? I've asked myself that so many times. I've tried to find the rag-man who killed her, but that's never gone anywhere. He's disappeared just like that girl. Then again, Infinity City is pretty large.

I have a friend who directs some of the mock combat shows that go on in I.C. and I've been doing some practice of my own with a knife. One of these nights I'm gonna find that bastard, and when I do...