The mist

Here I am, with my wife, a dove of my youth.

We had found happiness at one point in our lives, but it was lost like our sense of direction, into this mist. It had been a suggestion made by my relatives, what better way to mend bridges then by going on a very special holiday? So, it had begun, walking through a landscape woven of stone and mortar, with the breeze from the coast like a shower of snowflakes drifting over my shoulders.

Her voice shook me from the cold, sharp and fierce, “Where are we going, Samuel?”

I try to keep my voice level, not trying to provoke any reaction. Not adding any more wood or fuel to the fire, “I heard there was this cave, a place of joy.”

She huffs, “A place of bats and insects? Really, that’s what you had in mind?”

The tour guide saves me, “Along the way, we’ll be heading to a magical castle, I’m sure.”

With the tension, leaving like an exasperated sigh from a balloon. We all settle into the monotony of finding this cave.

“Are you sure it’s even out here?”

“It should be.”

As if by our breathes, the mist parts like a sea divided by a stone wall, spilling outwardly like waves falling over the sand. A single dark-spot appears, with the faint speckles of light seen by our flashlights, “Here it is, now, I’ll let the two of you head inside.”

The tour guide steps to the side, with my cousin, Adler, our free historian.

“It’s nice, isn’t it?”

It took a while for Harley to answer, I could almost taste her response, that rich, snide bite of hers, a fusion of sarcasm and mental irritability. Her reply shook me thoroughly, “I love this, thank you so much for bringing me hear.”

She continues, and I try to detect any signs of the winds changing, “Please, join me.”

At with that we sat together, finding peace in each other, until Adler walks in with his camera and notebook in hand, “Come on, you two, we still got ourselves a castle to see.”

“Be with me, my dove,” she extends her hand to me.

I don’t hesitate, feeling her warm hand curl around my fingers, “Yeah, absolutely.”

We left that cave behind, walking back into the natural world, or at least what I could see of it.

I ask the tour guide, “Where to now?”

He smiles easily, “Wherever the path takes us.”

As we follow the path to its conclusion, it isn’t long before we begin to stray.

I could feel the leaves crackling beneath my feet, the icy rain pressing down through my clothes. A cold and miserable storm that had us seeking cover, what remains of the sky is mist, at least that's what I assume it is. It coils around the horizon, like a serpent wrapping around a nest of eggs to eat. These eggs are hills that we went over minutes ago, the way back is lost. It’s a dull, lifeless gray, yet it moves with what I could call purpose. Why? Why is it everywhere?

I continue to move forwards, but I can still feel the coldness, even when the rain stops. 

The outline of trees is all that remains, brown and black spires that are slowly fading.

A second later, the tour guide says, “The tower, it’s just ahead of us.”

I blink rapidly, “Is it?”

Harley whispers a reply, “Yes.”

I still can't see the tower. The tour guide assures me that it's there, just hidden by the fog. That it will become visible in a moment, if only we make it a little farther. He's sweating, or maybe damp with mist, and it gives him a slightly manic appearance. He hasn't looked at the map since we first left camp. Does he know the trail that well? Can he see better than we can? Or was the destination itself never real?

He looks up with a smile, tasting the rain. “Looks like it’s going to rain, we better hurry.”

Taking a deep breath, I ran after him, watching the withering roots of the trees disappear, the sound of leaves continuing for a moment longer, “What is this place?”

This thing, the mist gave nothing, no gap for the sun to shine through. It needs to break, why isn’t it breaking? This is nothing but a case of rain. What could’ve been the tower rose. Though it was hard to tell if anything human had been built here, the mist was unnatural, uneven, and ever reaching. Its windows were a yawning gulf of darkness, as if any light that made its way through the mist was being taken as energy by the tower. The tour guide shakes his head at the sight, and I find the words to say, “What is this place?”

The guide finally responds, “I don’t know. I don’t know.”

Adler, the local expert on everything historical, pulls out his phone, holding it up like his own personal antenna. “Can’t get anything out here. No signal.”

We looked out onto a desert of snow, all ghost trees and dead grass. I look upon the scene before me, this thing that twists and turns with every passing second. My friends look not the tiniest bit unnerved; they sense adventure and were willing to part from the rain and the howling winds, away from the ordinary curve of the hills, and the creaking branches of the trees.

Harley, with her floral dress, is the only still-bright thing in this field of endless white. She turns and looks down the dark hallway. "What if we climb those stairs? Surely, we’d be able to see something up there.”

Her words are deafening, alien, as though nothing has ever been spoken here before. No words belong in these winding halls. The stairs led up and down from this room, with a will of their own. Twisting away from view, sending my mind into a vortex. I could see no further than two steps. I turn to the others, who are so calm, so impassive. Harley is smiling. Adler has that look he always gets when something undiscovered is unlocked before him: thrill, relief, smugness. Can neither of them sense the strangeness in the air?

I turn, then, to the tour guide. His face is closed to me. Even if he were afraid, I wouldn't know it.

Adjusting his glasses, I look as long into the darkness as I dare to, but I'm quick to blink. If something's in there, I don't really want to see it, “I say we go to a mountain; I don’t like this place.”

Harley cannot resist, “C’mon Samuel are you scared of the dark?”

I try to talk back, but the words do little to convince them. “That’s not it at all.”

Adler smiles cheekily, joining in on the game, “Afraid that the boogie-man will jump out and get you.”

How I wished that it was. How long I have begged and prayed that it was so. At least then, I could feel relief. But there was nothing, we were alone in the mist. I could feel it, fear settling into my voice, causing it to falter. “This place isn’t connected to anything, Harley, no internet, no road, nothing but that.”

The mist seems to spread, impossibility thick and stretching to consume everything that was once man-made, as if growing tired of our reluctance, “Fine, get out the sleeping bags, then.”

I spread out my sleeping bag on the floor, feeling the cold leach through my gloves. My bright sleeping bag, a vibrant yellow, was fading away, I blink rapidly, seeing it dance over my eyes.

As I turn, both have vanished.

I cry out, “Guys! Guys, get back here!”

I take off at a run, no longer caring about decency, trying to keep my voice conversational, “Get back here.”

Their laughter echoes down the tunnel, to a hallway of stone built upon stone. It was cold, as if the bellowing winds from outside were tearing into my soul. I turn left, right, left, into the darkness. Where are the lights, they’re here, surely, they are, has this place not conscious of the modern day. Has it been left to a fate of reproach, where nothing human can stay.

It's lifeless, hideously simple, gray as human bones, with no color to stop the mist from infecting everything. It covers everything, so that everything appears to double before my eyes. The coldness gives me purpose, I can sense this doubling world, the separate images stabilising into one complete picture.

Is that laughter, is it a scream? Where are they? It pulls at my mind it seems to separate, as if there are more than two laughing at my confusion. As above, as it is below, how many are here? How many are waiting for me in the dark? None more than two, I tell you, my friends are here, I am certain of it: this place twists and contorts, but my mind is resolute, it will not falter, nor shall it lose the knife-like sharpness it possesses.

I ran through it, down these endless hallways until I found them, their eyes shining in the dark. I press on, looking for those smiles woven of white.

I can feel my heart throb, an unsteadiness rises quickly, “Why did you run off like that?”

“Come on, it’s only a game,” Harley laughs, wagging her finger at me.

Adler agrees coolly, his eyes sure and confident. But something else flickers through them, it is him in nature, but why does it feel so wrong? I have seen everything that there is to know about Adler, but this is new, different.

He laughs, “Only a game, only a game.”

We return to our place, feeling like puppets made to move by the mist. I am not fooled by it, I am not mad, someone driven mad could hardly think so clearly. Harley laughs, her eyes joyful and her movements subtle, “Yeah, just a game, just a game. How about we start again?”

I could feel their joy, and yet the nervous energy returned. How could they smile at me?

Those words haunt me to this day, I knew there was more to this misty land. They point their fingers at me, saying I was ruining their fun, but they are wrong, I saw Harley and Adler and their shadows, their replicas. I had no choice, I say, I am not mad, very far from mad, I am honest, that is what lies beneath the pale mist, they are alive and well, I say. I am sure of it.

You see, they are still here. She may be lost, but just like a dove returning to its nest, it will return with my heart.