It's three hours past midnight and I snap out of my dreams.  Awake.  I spend a few minutes, breathing quietly as gusts of wind flow through my open window, before realizing that it's too late to fall asleep again and too early to get up.  I sigh, pulling the covers up to my chin and shivering.  A whirling distortion of sounds and senses clouds my fatigue.

I've opened my eyes to the sound of pounding gunfire, a distressed cry.  I'm not surprised.  I sit up in bed and the flashing of cameras blur my eyes, a mantra of familiar bursts and colors.  My head is spinning.  I hear the expected police sirens down the street.  The sounds are almost addicting, the way they echo in my ears before I actually hear them.  The room is still, but the universe is struck by thunder, and lightning.

I feel sick, a sensation I haven't captured for a long time.  I feel like this is punishment, for spending so many days thinking that all was going well. But now I'm drunk, intoxicated--by the sights and sounds I knew were always there.

It's so dark but the explosion of the dead and dying is so loud.  I shut out the world but the only thing I can't erase is the flickering of Jongin's figure behind my eyelids.

__

To the bus stop by six-thirty and I'm standing again.  The sun is rising, and the seats are crowded.  As always the half-mile walk to the studio is long, with my camera tucked under my arm.  There's nothing new today.

Lunch at noon is the same bland meat and cured dairy slapped between a universe of whole wheat.  Stale.  I chew with a tired jaw, deliberating if all artists eat the same wretched meals I do.  I sweep the crumbs away with the side of my hand, buying time before I have to return to work.

I call myself a photographer, but I feel like the way I see things, observe things, manipulate things, is just an excuse to avoid what I really want to look for.  Maybe wealth, happiness, or something to fill the emptiness that claws in my head when I'm asleep at night.  Maybe my passion is just an illusion, with the potential to disappear any day.  The potential to disassociate into thin air while I'm stuck back in time, drawing dead inspiration from the same things over and over.  Time and time again.

So I ask what is my inspiration.

The usual up-down, one-sided romance that everyone seems to relate to.  Ruby-to-diamond relationships, man-to-man, man-to-woman.  Music, love quotes.  Songs that are inspired by love quotes and love quotes that are inspired by songs.  I despise those the most.

I can touch each of these once, but using them as inspiration for the second time, third time, fourth time--doesn't seem to make my heart beat as quickly as the first time.  

And why is that?

The question is, what happens to inspiration once it's used up?  Tucked away in the back of the mind?  Sometimes forgotten, sometimes despised.  If a perfect rose is in full bloom today, will it have withered, by tomorrow?  Wrung dry of vision and brilliance?

If I love something today, will I love it tomorrow?

I crave for a something, or rather, a someone; an object to excite the eyes of my camera again.  Something to bring back the fire that burned the tips of my fingers when I first found passion in this occupation called photography.  Something to hurt me, bother me, or shake me up until I can't focus on anything but the shadows.  Something that will change me.

Is there a way to I find this? 

A/N: Thank you for sticking with me even through these short and sporadic updates, lovely readers. School is quite the responsibility, and lately I've been feeling that the stuff I write isn't what I want it to be, and I only want to publish what I know is my best work (jealous of those people out there who can write like it's nothing). I hope this chapter was enjoyable. :D Thank you for reading!

Oh yeah, and that sandwich that Kyungsoo described was "inspired" by something I may or may not have eaten today.  Go figure xD