The fog came every 20 years. Not that anyone really noticed. It was just there. For the first few days, it rolled in, thick and unyielding, until it covered the world. People stayed inside, closed their windows, and shut their doors.
It wasn't dangerous—not really. It was just... unsettling. And, for a week, no one could go outside, not if they wanted to stay, well, remembered.
Elise had learned about it when she was young, too young to truly understand the consequences. She didn't know the history, or the rules, or the count that tracked the lost. But she learned quickly.
As a child, the fog had scared her. Her parents would pull her closer whenever it started to creep over the horizon. She'd heard the stories—the rumors of people disappearing, vanishing, never to be seen again.
It was told in half-joking tones, as if the fog was merely a bad joke, a nuisance to be tolerated until it passed. They always returned after the fog, but there was always that nagging question: why did they never seem to leave their homes during the fog?
Elise grew up knowing the rules: never go outside. Never walk into it. Those who did... they just weren't remembered. And the people who loved them, the ones they left behind, forgot them.
The world had grown used to the fog's return. It became a ritual, the countdown to the next one, the moments leading up to it.
People did their best to prepare—securing themselves for the time when they would be forced to stay inside. Some people even set alarms, reminders for when it would end. They had it timed down to the hour, the minute, the second.
Elise never thought it would happen to her. Not to her.
When it came this time, the fog was heavier than she had ever seen. It was suffocating, like it was pressing in from every side. The air smelled damp, and the silence was suffocating. It wasn't the usual calm that came with the fog. This felt different, unnatural. The fog felt hungry.
Elise had just finished her dinner when the countdown started. She glanced out the window, the streetlights struggling to push through the dense cloud. It was nearly here.
She heard the quiet hum of her mother in the next room, moving about, preparing for the days ahead. No one talked much about it anymore. It was just something to be endured.
But something was wrong. Elise couldn't shake the feeling that this time, it was different.
She saw it in the way her mother moved, in the slight twitch of her father's hands. They knew, too. They had seen the signs.
The fog wrapped around the house like a hand, tugging at the edges of the windows, its fingers slipping under the doorframe. Elise heard the creaking sound it made as it moved, settling in like an old friend. She pressed her hand to the window, but the glass felt cold, colder than it should have been.
The countdown was over.
She took a breath and turned to her parents. "I'm going out," she said. It was a whisper, barely above the silence of the house. But it was enough to freeze the air in the room.
Her mother froze, her eyes widening. "No. No, Elise, you know what happens."
But Elise wasn't listening. She wasn't afraid. Not anymore.
She didn't care if she was forgotten.
Her father tried to stand, but his legs wouldn't cooperate, his hands trembling in that same way they always did when the fog came. Elise didn't need to look at him to know the fear in his eyes. She didn't need to hear the panic in his voice as he begged her to stay.
She didn't care.
She opened the door and stepped out.
At first, it was quiet. Too quiet. The streets were empty, and the fog pressed down on everything, twisting it all into shapes that didn't make sense. The silence was oppressive. It pushed against her, weighed on her chest. But she kept walking.
She couldn't remember why she went out that night. Was it defiance? Curiosity? A desire for something more, something outside the life she had been told to live? It didn't matter. She had made her choice.
She walked through the streets, but they felt wrong. The houses that lined the road looked strange, their windows empty.
Her shoes slapped against the wet pavement, the only sound she could hear. She looked back once, but the door was already shut. The world felt distant, almost like it was fading behind her.
The fog kept pressing in, creeping closer, crawling over her skin, wrapping around her like a blanket. She couldn't see anything anymore, couldn't even see her own hands in front of her.
She was lost. But it didn't matter. She had stepped outside. She had already begun to fade.
------
Back at home, her parents sat in the dark. Her mother stared at the door, the same one Elise had walked out of just moments before. Her father's hands clenched into fists, eyes never leaving the doorframe, as if waiting for a sign that things would be okay.
But there was nothing.
In the morning, they would wake to an empty house. Her bed would be untouched. Her room, silent. Her name, erased.
But they wouldn't know.
No one would.
The count would continue. Another number added to the list. The numbers grew, one by one, until it reached a point where no one could remember who was missing anymore.
Elise wasn't the first. She wouldn't be the last.
------
Hours passed, or maybe days, Elise wasn't sure. The fog had swallowed everything. She couldn't see, couldn't breathe without tasting the dampness in the air. She walked, but every step felt as though she were walking in place, as though the world was folding in on itself, swallowing her whole.
The fog didn't move around her. It seemed to shift, closing in, trapping her in its embrace.
She called out, but the sound didn't carry. It was swallowed by the fog, just like everything else.
"Elise." Her name, but not hers. She spun around, but there was nothing. The fog closed tighter around her, shifting, twisting. Something was there.
The numbers. The count.
They had always been there, quietly tallying the lost, but now... now they weren't just a number. They weren't just a concept. They were real.
The fog swallowed her voice. The world around her collapsed.
------
Days later, maybe weeks, her parents would find her name erased.
They wouldn't understand. They couldn't. The fog had done its job, as it always did. Elise was lost to the count, no longer a person, no longer a memory. The fog had taken her. It always did.
And no one would ever remember her. No one ever could.
It wasn't the fog that killed her, really. It wasn't the loss. It was the fact that no one ever knew she had existed.
No one.
------
The count ticked upwards somewhere in the distance. Another number. Another name. Forgotten.
------
The fog hadn't just taken Elise's memory—it had taken the reality she had existed in. Everything she had done, every breath she had taken, every word she had spoken, was now gone. Forgotten. There were no pictures, no recollections, no whispers of her. No one could even recall her name.
Her parents woke one morning, and there was an emptiness to their home. They hadn't realized it at first, not fully. Their lives were filled with everything else—the routine of the fog, the chores, the days before the countdown began again. But when they walked past her room, when they felt the unoccupied space at the dinner table, when her name never came up in conversation... they didn't know what had happened. The fog had erased everything.
They would go on as if nothing had ever been wrong, as if she had never existed. And the world would forget her, too.
Somewhere, somehow, a number ticked upward on an invisible count, noting her absence.