The night was unnaturally silent.
Lukas lay in bed, staring at the wooden ceiling, listening to the faint creaks of the house settling. The knocking at the door earlier had left him with a feeling that refused to fade—a whisper of unease curling around his thoughts like smoke.
His mother had said nothing. Eliza had noticed nothing.
But Lukas had.
The house was quiet now, his mother asleep in her room, Eliza breathing softly in the next. The dim glow of a lantern flickered against the walls, casting jagged shadows across the old furniture.
Yet, despite the warmth of the blankets around him, he felt cold.
The town was wrong. The people were avoiding something. His own memories were fractured, refusing to fully align with the world around him.
And there was the fog.
His body tensed as he thought about it. During the day, it was a mere presence, creeping along the edges of the town, an unspoken warning. But at night?
It moved.
Rolling in waves that didn't quite behave like mist should. Lukas had felt its weight in the air, heavy, pressing down, like an unseen force watching.
And then, there was the way it had whispered.
Not in words. Not in voices. But in the way it made the world feel smaller, like everything outside its reach was being… consumed.
Lukas exhaled. He wouldn't sleep. Not tonight.
He swung his legs over the edge of the bed and stood, his movements careful as he grabbed his coat. If his mother wouldn't tell him the truth, he'd find it himself.
The town held answers. And he intended to take them.
---
The cold air hit him as he stepped outside.
The fog had thickened since earlier, weaving through the streets like an endless sea of shifting gray. It wrapped around the buildings, clinging to doorframes, curling through alleyways like searching fingers.
The street lanterns flickered weakly, their light barely piercing the mist. The cobblestones beneath his boots were slick with moisture, and every step Lukas took seemed to echo just a little too much in the emptiness.
There was no wind.
No distant sound of animals, no shifting leaves.
Nothing.
As if the town was holding its breath.
Lukas adjusted his coat and started walking.
He didn't know exactly what he was looking for, but he knew he'd find something.
The whispers of the town during the day—people vanishing, no one speaking of it, a creeping fear in every hushed conversation—they all pointed to something lurking beneath the surface.
And he was done ignoring it.
His path took him past darkened shopfronts, their wooden signs swaying slightly, creaking against the eerie stillness. A butcher's shop. A bakery with loaves of bread still sitting behind the glass, untouched. An old bookstore, its windows dusted over, as if it had been forgotten by time itself.
Lukas slowed his steps.
Something felt off.
The deeper into the town he walked, the more he noticed it—subtle things that sent a shiver down his spine.
The lanterns behind him had dimmed, their light shrinking, as though the fog was swallowing them whole.
The houses on either side of the street looked… wrong.
The bricks, the wooden shutters, the ivy creeping up their walls—it was all the same, too much the same. Like a repetition of a single image, copied over and over again.
Lukas narrowed his eyes.
Was it always like this?
A flicker of memory surfaced. The town before the fog.
But—
Nothing came.
No memory of bright streets. No laughter of market-goers. No warm sunlight spilling between buildings.
Just gray skies. Fog. Silence.
His breath hitched.
He had lived here for years. Hadn't he?
Another step forward.
And then, he heard it.
A whisper.
Not like before. Not imagined.
Real.
Lukas whipped around, his heart pounding.
The fog had shifted, parting slightly at the end of the street.
And from the shadows, a figure emerged.
---
Lukas's instincts screamed at him to run.
But he didn't.
He stood his ground as the figure stepped into the dim light of a street lantern.
Tall. Slender. Dressed in a dark, tailored coat that swayed with his movements. His golden-brown hair, slightly tousled, caught the weak glow of the lanterns, the strands shifting between warm amber and cool honey tones as he moved.
His face was sharp, angular—refined yet effortlessly arrogant. A narrow nose, high cheekbones, and a strong jawline gave him an aristocratic air, but there was a roughness to him that hinted at something beneath the polish.
His most striking feature, however, was his eyes.
A piercing, glacial blue.
The kind of eyes that didn't belong in a place like this—too keen, too knowing. They carried an unreadable depth, like the surface of a frozen lake that concealed something far more treacherous beneath.
Lukas recognized him immediately.
Felix Albright.
The man he had nearly collided with earlier that day.
Felix tilted his head slightly, his expression unreadable.
"You shouldn't be out here," he said, his voice smooth, measured, carrying the weight of someone who spoke only when necessary.
Lukas didn't move. "Neither should you."
Felix chuckled softly, but there was no amusement in it.
"I'm not like you, Lukas." His eyes flickered toward the fog, then back to him. "I know what I'm walking into."
Lukas stiffened.
There it was again. That subtle knowledge, the way Felix spoke like he understood things Lukas did not.
He exhaled sharply, his breath visible in the cold. "Then tell me. What's happening here?"
Felix regarded him for a long moment. Then, almost lazily, he took a step closer.
"You've felt it, haven't you?"
Lukas's fingers twitched. "...Felt what?"
Felix smirked slightly. "The way this place isn't quite real."
Lukas's stomach dropped.
Felix turned, walking a few steps down the alley before pausing, his back half-turned.
"Walk with me," he said. "And I'll show you."
Lukas hesitated only for a second before falling into step beside him.