ScareS 5, (pairing), no particular fandom (accompanying the previous story) (Part 1)
Companion piece to the previous story, but can stand alone. How Sasha looks and your relationship to them is completely up to you. Enjoy!
Everyone calls it the 'Misty Forest' and looking down on the large patch of white fog surrounded by an irregularly formed ring of normal trees, hiding who knows how many other trees in itself, you definitely know, where this old name comes from. The fog never lifts, not during storms, not during downpours. The seasons and weather could be completely nonexistent from how little they influence the fog.
As if the eerie looks aren't enough already, there are lots of creepy stories about it going around. Most of them have a very simple, very repeating pattern – people went in the fog and simply disappeared to never be heard of again. Some say, that they had gotten lost and fallen down a sinkhole or a hill or something like that, dying instantly or starving to death slowly. Others claim, that they just used it as an excuse to start a new life somewhere with the fog conveniently tying up the loose ends.
Personally, you don't care about the truth. All you care about is the person it took away from you.
Sasha, your best friend. The sweetest, most innocent thing you can imagine, who some bullies chased yesterday into the forest for their own wicked sense of humor. They had been punished severely for their doings, but how did that help Sasha?
Ever since your poor friend had broken through the fog's layers like a chased deer, you hadn't heard a word of them. Not one.
A troop of men trained for rescues in natural surroundings had gone in there after Sasha's family had reported their youngest member missing and they have yet to return. And to report in. And to...give any indication, that they are still alive.
You know, that it's madness. That going into unknown terrain with zero visibility is crazier than anything you can do, but...it is Sasha. Your best friend since you were born. Your everything.
Thus, you had waited, until your parents had gone to bed, then stood up, sneaked downstairs, grabbed your previously packed backpack from its hiding place and finally left your house, marched to the edge of the valley looking down on the Misty Forest, where you stand now.
It is still dark outside with some cicadas playing their song, but the moonlight makes navigating easily. Just in case, you had grabbed a flashlight, too.
Cautiously, you make your way down the large natural valley, around that your village had been built. It would have been so much easier to build at least part of it down there, but for some reason, all buildings, that are started there, even measly monuments to use some of the space in a helpful matter, are always broken down overnight. Even the makeshift forts the children crafted at the edge of this particular forest were always destroyed. Elsewhere, they stay undisturbed.
As if something – or someone – is against the slightest disturbance of the forest's balance.
Stopping next to the first sturdy looking tree at the edge of the forest, you linger a moment to glare at the calmly floating about fog you see sometimes peak out from between the next row of trees.
"You won't beat me. I'm coming for Sasha and I won't leave without my friend.," you hiss at it to try and calm your nerves.
From up close, it looks...menacing. And there's an odd feeling of dread curling in your stomach, as if warning you of impending danger. It's probably just, because you don't know, what to expect. Would there be wild predators, used to the limited visibility?
Would there be things you had never seen before? Some of the kids like it to imagine dragon caves or space colonies there, but the truth is unknown to them all.
Steeling your nerves once more, you pull a long rope made for mountain climbing out of your backpack, wind one end twice around the tree next to you, making a tight knot. You tug a few times at the rope to make sure it wouldn't unwind again and find the tree and rope strong enough for your purpose.
With practiced movements, you tie the other end of the rope around your own hips. This way, you will always be able to find your way out of the fog, when you have found...something. Or Sasha. Or need to flee.
Just in case, you have two more coils of rope in your pack to tie them to the first one should you need more length.
Feeling – more or less – prepared for everything, you dare to go closer to the fog. Just before it, you just have to stop.
The first wisps of it caress you and they are...arctic. Ice cold tendrils, reaching out for you. For some reason, you have the feeling, that this is the last chance to turn away. As if you stand before the very gates of Hell.
But...Sasha...
Your resolves strengthens at once. You won't back away from a weather phenomenon! With that thought in mind, you plunge through the cold, wet whiteness – to freeze immediately in your steps again, feeling an inexplicable fear grab your insides.
The sounds of the cicadas, the soothing music you had unconsciously used as quiet reassurance to not being this alone after all, is gone.
Not the slightest sound reaches your ears besides your ragged breathing you desperately try to control, although you could still hear it milliseconds before!
With panic grabbing hold of you now, you turn right around and rush through the fog again – just to find yourself in an unfamiliar environment with large trees, that tower high above you, dwarfing you.
But...you had just taken one step into this fog! Trying to stay calm, you quickly reach behind you, along the rope around your hips – to find only a stub, where your life line was supposed to be.
Your stomach plummets to your ankles, while you shakily loosen the knot and bring the ripped off end closer to your face.
Your heart does a hard beat. The rope hadn't ripped. It had been cut. Cleanly, like with a knife. But you haven't felt anything. As if...as if a guillotine had cut it off right at the outer layer of this fog. But... you haven't heard or felt anything! How is this possible? And where are you now?
Feeling more and more panicked, you turn around again and break though the fog once more, just to stumble over something and fall face first into the rotten leaves and old twigs. Catching your breath, you pull yourself up on your elbows – and find yourself face to face with a body lying across from you.
With a gasp, you push yourself up and recoil, just to bump into something, that doesn't feel like something out of the forest. Shakily, you turn around and see another body, against that you lean.
But not any body. You recognize the bright orange uniform of the rescue squad sent in after Sasha.
Looking around, you see the entire squad sprawled out around you. All the men and women lie around you on the ground. Not breathing, pale as sheets. Their eyes wide open, as are their mouths, an expression of surprise or horror forever etched on their faces. Swallowing some bile you feel accumulating in your mouth, you access the bodies with your eyes only and find...no explanation for their deaths.
There are no signs for a fight, for an animal attacking them, for a human attacking them. No bite wounds, no stab or bullet wounds, no marks whatsoever. As if they just fell over and died. At the same time, in the same place. Just what is going on here?
Maybe...some kind of gas? The bodies you had bumped in had been cold, so maybe any kind of poisonous gas had been diluted in the air already...?
Shaking your head, you pull yourself together. You need to find Sasha and then get out of here, before you become a victim of this stuff, too! Something inside you, however, gnaws at you, telling you, that there is no 'out of here'. That you are trapped, mere meter away from your own home.
Holding onto what confidence you have, you carefully sidestep the bodies, thanking them quietly for their courage and determination to help your friend and their family, which is literally everything you can do for them.
You get out your flashlight, although the moon and the fog reflecting its light illuminate the area well enough. Should there be some kind of attacker – because gas couldn't cut ropes –, then bright lights would hopefully scare them off.
Although you would love it to hurry, you simply can't convince your body to loosen its tight muscles. Each sound, be it a breaking twig or an ominous rustle around you, has you flinching and all but hug your flashlight like a precious teddy bear.
You just can't shake off the feeling of being watched, but whenever you turn in the direction of the ominous stare, you see virtually nothing. Just the fog, that keeps a steady radius around you. It makes you feel like you're being isolated, kept in a bubble. But why? If there was someone outside, who could kill fully grown men in seconds, why should they spare you?
The night goes on as you wander aimlessly around the Misty Forest. You're too afraid and definitely too cold by now to call for Sasha, so you just move on, hoping to find...anything. Really, you would do with anything right now. The cicadas, your village's normal, boring sounds. Sasha's cries for help or one of their songs, even if it was a sad song as of now. Heck, you'd take an owl! Anything to get rid of this terrifying silence, that only your steps interrupt. And even those sounds don't seem to reach your ears anymore, just a background noise. But you don't dare to stop and interrupt it. If it did, you would completely lose it, you just know it.
And then, suddenly, the sun rises. And shows you the outlines of houses, just behind the fog's next wall. Choking back a sob of pure relief, you run towards the shadows – to land in a place you have never seen before.
It is definitely a village, yet none you would know of. But here it is, with houses and barns and living cattle and sheep and people and you can hear roosters waking them and there are people. Real, alive people, just starting their days and although their clothes and tools look, as if they have missed the change of times from the Middle Ages to modern times, they are a more welcome sight than you would have imagined.
Hesitantly, you move closer, already thinking about ways to explain yourself, when you hear your name being called by a voice you had begun to think you would never hear again.
You whip in the direction of the call and there is Sasha, racing towards you and all but jumping on you.
By some miracle, you don't fall over as you embrace each other, but when you look to take in Sasha's uninjured state to calm yourself more, you feel something freeze inside you upon seeing those normally sparkling eyes dull and hopeless with shadows under them.
"I didn't mean for you to be trapped here, too.," comes a quiet whisper, just under both your breaths.
It doesn't take you long to understand, what Sasha had meant. The people here were insane, to say the least. When you ask them, how you can leave this place, they all ask the same in return: 'Why would you want to leave?'.
No argument seems to reach them. Not, that you have families waiting for you, not, that you don't belong here.
According to every single villager, you and Sasha had been 'chosen by the fog' to live with the rest of them. Forever.
As if it was alive. A person or creature with a mind or soul. And while you freely admit, that it's no normal fog, you don't go as far as worshiping it like some kind of god. Who could decide over where you lived.
The only positive thing is, that, while they all claim, that you 'will understand eventually' and other creepy things, nobody has touched you or Sasha so far to 'convince you'.
Quite the contrary, they leave you alone and even have a couple of huts just for their 'guests', so they wouldn't 'infect everyone' in case they are diseased. Whatever that means.
Unwilling to give up, just because those lunatics don't want to help you, you and Sasha use the privacy of your hut to scheme escape plans.
Admittedly, there isn't much you can do. Ropes apparently don't work here and you have already noticed, that something in the fog can manipulate the space inside of it.
That's the only explanation you have as to why you needed the whole night to find the village, while Sasha had reached it after maybe fifteen minutes of running with both of you vowing to have only moved forwards without taking any turns apart from dodging around trees and too thick bushes.
You had packed a compass before going out, but it simply doesn't work in this fog. Even in this village, it simply keeps spinning around itself in endless circles, making it useless. It's even worse in the fog.
Still, you just have to try and so, after having recuperated a bit from your ordeals, you and Sasha head out into the fog.
It's reassuring and unsettling all the same, that some of the elder villagers watch you, but instead of stopping or warning you, just grin and snicker, as if the two of you are some stupid children trying to do something foolish, but otherwise harmless, from that you would learn yourself, that it had been stupid all along to even try.
Although you now have each other to keep you company and you make sure to talk about just everything springing to your minds – even sing a song or two in a duet, when you run out of topics for the moment – to ward off the pressuring silence, you still feel wary.
The fog moves like some kind of curtain around you, sometimes closer and sometimes farther away. As if wanting to let you know, that it controls the amount of freedom it gave you. It doesn't help, that the trees you mark with a carving knife, seem to appear before you shortly after you have left them behind with the marks much shallower than you had made them, as if they heal in fast forward.
The worst, however, is it to find the rescue team again – now, nothing but skeletons lying in the exact same way you had found them hours prior. You can't fault Sasha for throwing up at the sight, you join them soon after.
"Why?," Sasha eventually asks, wheezing, a hand going over their mouth. "Why did this fog spare us?"
You want to contradict, to say, that it wasn't 'the' fog, that it was something inside of it, but all you can answer is, "I don't know. I really don't."