I steeled myself. Instead of turning around and walking out of the tattoo studio, like I would usually do, I decided to spend some time investigating. The room was clearly recently occupied; the heater was still warm, the reclining chairs had a strong citrus cleaning smell wafting up from them, and I could even hear a faint pop rock playlist playing softly in the background.
I crossed to the nearest tattoo station. A denim jacket was strung over the back of the reclining chair, and next to it, a tattoo needle buzzed with life. Apparently whoever was here had left in a hurry. I knelt on the floor. I was certainly no detective, but even I could see there had been no signs of a struggle.
It was prime tattoo time, at the most popular tattoo shop Brisbane had, and yet it was completely empty? It just didn’t make any sense. I crossed to the opposite wall, hoping that maybe there would be a door that I hadn’t seen earlier, where staff were perhaps waiting in the back room. But no such door existed. The walls were instead lined with framed copies of the artists’ portfolios. Dragons flew before my eyes, flowers bloomed in bunches and faces peered back at me, clearly drawn in painstaking detail by the Japanese tattooist. Brisbane was filled with talented artists, and its best and brightest worked here.
But today it was empty. Maybe the studio was closed, and I had wandered in without realising that somebody had forgotten to lock the door. Maybe I was overstaying my welcome. I turned to leave, disappointment settling in my stomach, when something moved in the corner of my eye. I whipped around. Nothing was there. The store was still empty, and the door was just as closed as I had left it. But there was no way I had imagined that movement. I narrowed my eyes and scanned the room more purposefully. This time, there was no mistaking what I had seen.