The mist didn't roll in like a morning fog or drift like river steam. It seeped. It bled from the horizon like a bruise spreading across the sky, touching the ruined earth first, then climbing, swallowing the skeletons of trees and the jagged remains of bombed-out farmhouses. Private Lê Thị Mai had been watching it for six hours, her hands numb around the cold, damp metal of her rifle.
This wasn't natural mist. They called it the Grey Silence, the Shroud of Hư Vô. It wasn't just water vapour; it carried a subtle, creeping wrongness. The air within it tasted of dust and something metallic, like old blood. Sounds didn't carry – they were muffled, distorted, sometimes twisting into chilling approximations of whispers or cries that made the hairs on the back of your neck stand on end. Animals fled from it. Even the hardy mountain rats gave the edges a wide berth.
Mai huddled deeper into the remains of a crumbling brick wall, the mortar gritty against her cheek. Beside her, Corporal Nguyễn Văn Toàn, a man whose face seemed permanently etched with exhaustion despite only being in his late twenties, spat into the mud.
"Anything?" Toàn's voice was a low rasp.
Mai shook her head. "Still spreading. Slow. And... quiet."
"Always quiet," Toàn muttered, pulling his threadbare blanket tighter around his shoulders. "That's the worst of it. You expect screaming, roaring. Not... this." He gestured vaguely towards the leading edge of the mist, about a hundred yards out, where the last visible tree stump was slowly being consumed. It wasn't just disappearing; it seemed to be dissolving, its bark turning a sickly grey, its shape blurring.
They were part of the forward screen, a thin, ragged line of Đại Việt Quốc soldiers tasked with watching the Hư Vô's advance near what used to be the village of Bến Đoạn. There wasn't much left of Bến Đoạn but rubble and ghosts. Most civilians had fled months ago, though some hadn't been fast enough. The stories the survivors told... Mai tried not to think about them. Twisted limbs, faces contorted in silent screams, things that looked human but moved with disjointed, unnatural jerks. That was Hư Vô's work.
The war against the Hư Vô wasn't glorious. It was a grind. A slow, desperate retreat punctuated by futile stands and sudden, brutal encounters with whatever horrors the Grey Silence spawned or corrupted. They were short on everything – food, clean water, ammunition, hope. Orders from the high command, miles away in the relative safety of the capital, felt increasingly detached from the grim reality on the ground. Whispers circulated about political infighting, lords hoarding resources, and the Emperor's advisors being more concerned with courtly intrigue than the encroaching doom. (Political hint).
A sudden, sharp crack split the oppressive air. Both Mai and Toàn flinched, rifles snapping up. It wasn't a gunshot. It was a twig snapping within the mist, a sound that shouldn't have carried, and it sounded unnervingly close.
Their eyes locked onto the swirling grey wall. Nothing. Just the silent, relentless advance. But the silence felt heavier now, thicker.
"Did you hear that?" Mai whispered, her heart hammering against her ribs.
Toàn nodded, his eyes wide. "Yeah. Too close. And... wrong."
Another sound. A low, guttural dragging noise, like something heavy being pulled over broken ground. It came from a different direction within the mist. Then another snap, closer still. It was as if something was moving just beyond the veil, circling them, playing a morbid game.
Mai licked her dry lips. The chill wasn't just from the damp air anymore. It was a primal, bone-deep dread. This wasn't just war. This was... wrong. Ancient. A violation of the natural order. (Mythic hint).
Suddenly, a shape coalesced within the mist, directly ahead of them. It wasn't clear, just a darker patch in the grey, but it had form. Too tall to be a man, too narrow to be a beast. It seemed to shimmer, like heat haze, except it was the cold, damp mist.
Then, a sound drifted from it. Not a whisper this time. A low, mournful humming. It was a tune Mai vaguely recognized, a lullaby her mother used to sing. But it was distorted, stretched thin, hitting notes that didn't exist in any melody she knew, ending in a wet, choking sound.
Toàn scrambled back, pressing himself flat against the wall. "By the Ancestors... what is that?"
The shape in the mist stopped humming. It seemed to turn, facing their position. Mai could feel its unseen gaze through the thick grey, a cold, probing pressure in her mind.
The twig snapped again, closer this time, right at the edge of the mist, just yards away. And then, a footstep. Heavy, wet, squelching in the mud that the Grey Silence had somehow created even on dry ground.
Mai raised her rifle, her finger trembling on the trigger. The Grey Silence had brought something with it this time. Something that hummed lullabies and dragged itself through the ruins. And it was no longer content to just wait in the mist.
The footstep was followed by another. Then another. Slow. Deliberate. Coming closer. Out of the Grey Silence.