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353. Shadows in the Fog
🕑 Added 2025-04-04 14:00:15 +0000 UTCMag ran up to Ike and Wisp and walked beside them. His whole body was stiff, but he kept a poker face, as if nothing was wrong at all. Ike and Wisp raised their brows at one another. It would’ve been less obvious if he’d announced that something was wrong.
“What’s wrong, buddy?” Ike asked at last.
Mag glanced at him. He shook his head. “There’s someone behind us.”
“Who?” Ike glanced over his shoulder, but there was nothing but a distant wall of fog, too distant to pose a serious threat to them. He extended his senses backward, but sensed nothing between them and the fog. The fog was less dense with energy after all that he’d done to tear it apart, and he could sense a small distance into it, but sensed nothing.
He looked at Wisp. She shrugged at him, and he shrugged back. She didn’t sense anything either, then.
“It’s real. I saw it. It spoke to me!” Mag hissed, insistent.
“I believe you,” Ike said, and he mostly meant it. There were absolutely beings that could hide from his detection, and the fog was a heavy veil between him and anything behind it. He hadn’t seen anything, but Mag wasn’t a liar. Excitable, sure, a bit too high-strung at times, but not a liar.
Wisp furrowed her brows. “It?”
“I don’t know what it is. A beast, a person… a female, a male. But I know it was there. Behind me. Whispering to me.”
Ike raised his brows. Okay, now it’s starting to sound crazy. Maybe this was just Mag being too excitable. “Mag, are you okay? Do we need to take a break?”
“I’m fine. You’re the one who needs to take a break so you can see the obvious things I can see,” Mag grumbled, the back half mumbled under his breath.
“Uh huh.” Ike rested a hand on the Hungry Sword. It twitched, then bit his hand. He lifted his hand away and shook it. Honestly, that was on him. Why does everything around me want to bite me? Wisp, my sword… He glanced at Mag. Shockingly, the bird was the only one who hadn’t put his mouth on him yet, when birds usually used their mouths as the equivalent to a hand.
He lifted his eyes, focusing on what laid ahead, rather than the fog behind. The lands ahead were cloaked in a low mist that clung to every tree and collected in every hollow. Damp air wrapped around them in a perpetual hug, cool and wet. Compared to the barren, dry lands behind them, it was a shocking difference in humidity.
The land rolled before him, a gentle series of dips and rises, soft and round. Thick moss accumulated over the earth. Layers of it piled on soft-edged boulders and wrapped around the roots of trees, like a heavy blanket. Peeking out from the mist, small snowdrops and violets bloomed in the dim light. The sky was perpetually overcast, to match the mist below. It was as though the air here was different, as much water as air, not certain whether to become either, and so caught in between the two.
Ike wiped his forehead, wiping away the damp. It wasn’t sweat, but an accumulation of fog. “Man, it’s wet.”
“That’s what he said,” Wisp agreed. She paused. “In your dreams, anyways.”
Ike just stared at her.
“What? I know you’ve never gotten a woman wet. That’s too powerful a technique for you. You can’t comprehend it yet,” Wisp said.
“What the hell are you babbling on about?” He’d gotten women wet. Nothing advanced about it. All that required was a stream and a bucket.
“Doooon’t worry about it! Hey, this is way prettier than the previous puppet deadland. And there’s none of those bullshit puppets around, either.”
Ike nodded. He had to agree that this lush, mossy vale was far preferable to the dusty, dry, empty land strewn with creepy puppets. It was a bit spooky, with all the mist and fog around, but it was a beautiful kind of spooky. The trees were thick with leaves, and the moss was bouncy underfoot. Rounded stones peeked out from under the moss, providing a gray counterpoint to the green. Here and there, little puddles of clear dew formed in the moss, almost shimmering with clarity. The moist air lit with grayish rainbows here and there, faint and nigh-imperceptible thanks to the diffuse light. He walked into the valley, the others close behind him.
There was something about the light and the mist. Something shapeless and twitchy. It didn’t take long before Ike was glancing over his shoulders and flinching at every shifting leaf. The mist swirled endlessly, the leaves shivered, the flowers danced. It was as though a gentle breeze blew in the vale, but no wind stirred Ike’s hair. The damp air clung close, and everything moved, but nothing caused it to move.
A voice whispered in his ear. It was feminine, and sickly sweet. “I see you’ve come. I’ve been expecting you.”
Ike whirled, slapping his ear as if to kill a bug. There was nothing behind him. Nothing save the fog, which once more pressed close. It crept along behind them, silently eating the land they crossed to leave only a wall of gray behind them.
Ike licked his lips. That wasn’t a good sign. He didn’t like that whisper at all.
Mag looked at him, his eyes wide. “You heard it, too, didn’t you?”
“Yeah. I heard it, alright,” Ike said, nodding.
“What? How come it’s only talking to you two? No fair,” Wisp complained.
“I don’t think you want this,” Ike muttered, rubbing his ear. It was more than a little uncomfortable, having an invisible woman whisper sweet nothings directly into his ear. Maybe there was someone in this world who could enjoy such a thing, but it sure wasn’t Ike. There wasn’t a single tingly feeling in his heart, except for a mixture of disgust and fear.
A second later, Mag jumped. She shuddered all over, retching to herself. “Yuck, ick, yuck! You were right. That sucked.”
“Yeah. No kidding.” He turned and stared at the fog. Activating his steel hands, he drew his sword and pointed it at the fog. “Whoever you are, come out! We aren’t here to fight, but if you keep this up, I’ll have no option!”
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