We watch the fog continuing to roll in. At first, it curls under the hedge and pools around our knees. But it thickens as we walk, crowding out the dark and swallowing the glow of my sword until the world is a numb, colorless blur. My skin prickles, cold and hot at the same time. The air suddenly doesn’t taste clean any longer. It tastes sharp, like eating snow or biting a metal spoon.
Ashton whispers, “This can’t possibly be just normal, safe fog, can it?”
I sigh. “I don’t think we’re that lucky.”
“What should we do?”
“We could try running for it,” I say.
“It’ll eventually catch us. Probably better to face it head-on and see what happens.”
That’s probably the brave thing to do. I’m not sure I’m that brave though, so I watch the fog growing with an increasing feeling of dread. My legs itch to start running.
Ashton keeps his hand in mine, but his grip gets tighter, then weaker. He stumbles and catches himself. He laughs like he means to sound brave, but it comes out strangled. “Shit. I can’t feel my face,” he says, and the words vibrate in my skull, echoing weirdly off the mist.
I try to reply, but the fog crawls up my throat and makes my voice vanish. My legs are heavy, every step a slow drag.
We keep moving, because there’s nowhere else to go. The fog climbs quickly, reaching my waist, chest, neck. The silver in the air pulses with every heartbeat.
Ashton coughs, then lets go of my hand to press his palm to his mouth. “Alette,” he says, and even though it’s only my name, it sounds like a warning, or maybe an apology.
I look at him. His eyes are huge, pupils blown out. “Breathe shallow,” I manage, though it hurts to speak, like there’s glass in my lungs. “It’s stealing the air.”
“Air!” he says softly.
Reaching out with his hands, I feel a sudden rush of air hit us so hard it nearly rips me off my feet. It slams into my chest, sharp and cold, filling my lungs for half a heartbeat before it’s gone again, ripped away as if something unseen is dragging it from us. The pressure shifts violently. My ears pop, and the world narrows to the frantic need to breathe.
And yet, the fog doesn’t move. Doesn’t change. It just hangs there, thick and heavy, pressing in from all sides. It feels wrong against my skin like it’s not made of air at all, but something heavier. Something alive.
He tries again. A swirling tornado of air suddenly begins to circle all around it. Leaves tear off the hedges, caught in the violent spin, whipping my face and tangling in my hair. The wind howls, strong enough to tear branches loose, to drag dirt from the ground?—
But the fog remains.
Unmoved.
Untouched.
It clings to the space like it belongs there, swallowing the air Ashton calls, devouring it the second it forms. Each breath grows thinner, weaker, like we’re trying to breathe through water, through cloth, through something that refuses to let us live.
Still, the fog doesn’t move. Doesn’t thin.
“It’s not working!” I shout.
He nods, and we keep walking, trying to get through it. But after three more steps, he sinks to his knees. “Sorry,” he rasps. “Just—just need a second.”
I drop beside him, my head light, sword in my lap, and try to remember how to think. I know what this is. Some old memory is clawing at my spine. This is what it’s like to suffocate in a snowdrift. I saw it once. There was a boy from my village lost in a whiteout. They found him dead, his face perfectly calm, like he’d just fallen asleep. This air… it’s going to keep stealing our air until we’re gone too.
Ashton sways, tries to get up, can’t. “Sorry,” he says again. “Sorry, sorry, sorry?—”
I stand up as tall as I can, swaying on my feet, but the fog is everywhere. Just like smoke.Only smoke doesn’t stay close to the ground.Taking a chance, I drop down low and discover that it’s actually easier to breathe. Just like smoke. Which means, there’s a way to survive this.Okay, we can do this.
“Down,” I gasp, and push his head until it’s level with my own. The fog is thickest from my waist up, but around my knees… my knees are cold but clear. The ground is safe. I lay flat, face pressed to the dirt, and take the first real breath I’ve had in minutes. It hurts, but less.
I reach for Ashton, drag him down next to me. He fights me, but he’s too weak to really stop me. I plant my arm across his chest and pin him down onto the ground, hard.
“Stop,” he wheezes. “Let go—can’t?—”
“Shut up,” I say, or maybe just think it. “It’s better here. Trust me.”
