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[Frozen Smoke]

The footage was grainy as the camera tried to cut through the murky haze that was cast over the cellar from the meager light that trickled down the now-exposed stairs, leaving it a muddle of muted, almost sepia colours. The shattered chunks of the bookcase that sprawled across its view was barely recognisable as such, visible only as a jumbled mess of brown shapes, interspersed with flashes of colour from the once neatly stacked books that now lay in disarray on the sodden floor. Their already sun-bleached, faded covers further dulled by the damp, whilst a few lay open to reveal the warped and bloated pages within.

Spider webs, once wispy and delicate, now gleamed with moisture, casting a ghostly grey veil over the piles of debris yet to be disturbed. Mosquitoes whined as they flew through the space, their long, thin legs searching for a place to land, but finding little suitable prey. A lone ptarmigan lingered on the edge of the frame as a white and black splotch, perched atop the stack of barrels, pecking curiously at the half-rotted wood.

The colony of rats in the cellar were the true victors, little blurs of grey motion accompanied by incessant squeaking and chittering that filled the camera’s microphone, their paws leaving 5-pointed burgundy smudges behind them as they tracked the now tacky blood throughout the room. A number of them were pulling at the edges of the tan fabric of Angelo’s pack, sharp teeth burrowing through the layers of material that separated them from the prize of bread and crackers they could smell within. Others scurried to and fro with scraps of paper or blue cloth in their mouths, no doubt using the newly available materials to make nests.

The flies which once buzzed around Angelo’s corpse had been gone for days, replaced by a wave of sickly yellow-white maggots and metallic blue-green beetles which crawled across his deathly pale skin. The pool of once bright red blood that outlined his crumpled form was now mostly black from oxidation, hints of its former colour only visible where it had lain the thickest around his skull, forming a congealed slurry as it mixed with the slowly re-settling dust. Occasionally, his form would shudder as a rat tugged on part of his flesh or clothing, giving for just the briefest moment the illusion that he was merely about to rouse from a particularly deep slumber - the corpse facing away from the camera and curled up in such a way that the wounds he’d sustained were barely visible.

Without warning, the scene burst into a frantic cacophony of noise and motion, the ptarmigan flapping its wings rapidly and squawking loudly as it took flight from the cellar. The rats equally scattered, squeaks and hisses echoing off the wet stone walls, as they scurried into holes in the ramshackle carpentry or hid atop the stacks of barrels. Soon after, the source of the commotion becomes apparent as an arctic fox slinks into view, a more distinct white form tipped with a pink nose that swung from side to side as it took in the environment. A pensive silence fell upon the room, the only noise picked up by the camera being the slow pitter-patter of water droplets splashing against the floor as the creature advanced.

It caught the scent of death and decay, and its eyes locked onto the body sprawled at the bottom of the stairwell. Its paws rested on his hip briefly as it sniffed around the carcass, ears pinned back against its skull, before pulling away and taking a few steps back - black eyes glinting in the dim light as it sized up the situation. A twitch of its ears later, as it heard something too faint for the camera to pick up, and it darted away to some other part of the building, leaving only the faint sound of its claws scraping against floorboards in its wake and leaving the room in - for the first time in days - complete stillness.

The click of a mouse turned the screen to a simple black, only disrupted by a small white spinning wheel directly in the centre of it as the next camera loaded.