Philip fumbled with the camera, fingers trembling with haste. At 640x480, the image didn't show enough fine detail. 800x600 was not much better – the flecks of darker blue in Amy's eyes blended into the lighter overall colour. 1024x768, he didn't have time for this. One decent picture would do. Philip dialled the camera's resolution as high as it would go, focussed carefully on his girlfriend's face. He wouldn't get a second chance at this.

He uploaded the photograph to his computer, using an enhancement program to catch every speck of colour, every nuance of tone. You could see someone's soul in their eyes, if you looked hard enough. There – amid the pixels of darker blue, a solitary spot of blackness. A bug in the program? He zeroed in on the area, enlarged it, re-ran the enhancement. The dark blob took on form as he worked, zooming and re-enhancing. At first, Philip thought he was only imagining the face emerging from the blot. One more layer and he had it – his own face grinned back at him from the screen. Not Amy's soul at all, merely the photographer's own reflection. Perhaps he had not been quick enough, after all.
He could just make out a few pixels of darker colour in one of his reflection's grey eyes. What was it? He enlarged his own reflected eye, enhanced the image yet further, pushing the program to its limits, watching another shape resolve.

The police found Amy's body cooling on the floor, with Philip's fingerprints on a knife nearby. Philip lay where he had fallen from the desk chair, not a mark on him, save for the expression of sheer terror on his face.