~~~
‘Zade…’ screamed Cha Cha, trying to escape Wu Dog Yan’s grip.
‘Don’t…’
‘Get him back…’
‘He’s gone, Cha Cha.’
‘Nuut…’
‘He’s gone.’
‘We can’t…’
‘He is gone.’
Wu Dog Yan covered Cha Cha’s eyes and looked back down at the mist. It was starting to creep slowly up the steps towards them. Despite its current murder to time of existence ratio [3 in 3 minutes], there was no laughter or evil noises, just muted swirling and drifting purple smoke. Like it was all just work on the factory line.
Then there was a noise…
A growl…
The mist swirled violently, forming an oval shape, and then, from the middle of that shape, there emerged a hole, and from that hole leapt a crazed-looking tiger with a hamster between his teeth.
‘I don’t fucking believe it,’ said Wu Dog Yan, releasing her grip on Cha Cha’s sleeve.
‘Zade…’ shouted Cha Cha, voice breaking halfway through.
The tiger landed with a bump and tumbled forward, rolling over a few times but somehow managing to keep hold of Luco, who didn’t seem to have much damage to his body at all.
Cha Cha rushed down and tried to flip Zade over. She got him about half a centimetre off the ground before he came to his senses and turned over himself.
‘Are you hurt?’ asked Cha Cha, scanning his fur manically.
‘I’m okay,’ replied Luco, letting out a long breath.
‘Not you, idiot. Zade.’
Zade made an ‘argh’ sound and slowly tilted his neck so he could check his body. Half his fur was charred like a grilled tuna. ‘I’m not dead,’ he said, with a strange tone.
‘You will be if you don’t get up and start moving,’ said Wu Dog Yan pointing at the mist, which had stopped swirling and was now advancing smoothly, relentlessly toward them again.
Zade stumbled back onto his feet and grabbed Luco by the jacket, then headed quickly to the steps. They all made it to the cave room with the huge table and checked back on the mist. Unsurprisingly, it was coming up the steps, as well as rising through the air towards the cave window, or the hole that functioned as a window analog.
‘It’s not giving up…’ said Cha Cha, poking her head out.
This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.
‘Doesn’t matter, we’ve still got plenty of path ahead of us.’ Wu Dog Yan pointed everyone towards the tunnel that led back to the castle. ‘All we need to do is get outside and…’
‘And what?’
‘Nuut kaata. The mist will dissipate…’
‘You think so?’
‘Nuut kaata, Cha Cha. I’m not the Professor of Mist.’
‘I say we go back down and punch right through it.’
‘Quiet, Luco.’
‘I’m serious. It was a bit confusing at first, but once you know the way through to the water, then it’s okay.’
‘You didn’t make it to the water,’ said Zade, wiping some of the accumulated ash off his fur.
‘I did, almost, but then someone grabbed me away.’
‘You were lying on your back, not moving.’
‘Nuut, I was by the water.’
‘Not moving.’
‘Nuut. Crouching, actually.’
‘Wah, you are truly unbelievable…’
‘I know. Maybe hamsters have a special resistance to whatever that mist is…or maybe it’s my own individual powers.’ He froze, looking like he’d just seen one of the seven gods. ‘Maybe I’m supernatural? Sent from the Universe to…here.’
‘Or maybe it was saving you for later,’ countered Wu Dog Yan, checking the steps again. ‘A tiny midnight snack.’
‘It must be. The cat was totally eaten up, yet I was fine. Luco the Supernatural. Sent from above to…to do what? Save everyone? There must be a purpose for me, something I haven’t realised yet, something…’ He paused, squinting at the dog idol. ‘Did you just say tiny snack?’
Wu Dog Yan made a gesture to Zade, who nodded and put his paw over Luco’s mouth. She was about to say thank you when she noticed small trails of mist creeping over the top of the steps and into the cave room.
‘Everybody, move.’
No one needed to be told twice, nor did they need to check to see what she was talking about. The mist was after them and it was ravenous, and implacable, and unbeatable, and skilled at drifting fast, and there were no more morally vacant cats to use as shields, no vacuum cleaners to suck up its particles, no industrial size fans to blow it away, no negotiation methods to reason with it, no female mist in a short dress to distract it, no way to say sorry for assuming its gender, no rocket launchers, no magic spells, no horse shit to smear on their skin to be inedible, no choice but to keep moving, so that’s what they did, all the way through the tunnel with the purple scratch marks on its walls.
~~~
It didn’t take long to get back to the main hall of the castle - being pursued by killer mist will motivate even the laziest of animals - but when they did get back they had a decision to make.
Head out the front door or go back through the dungeons.
‘Front door would be faster.’
‘And unfamiliar.’
‘Wait, is it even open?’
Cha Cha ran past the pillars and stopped next to what she believed was the front door. It looked like a front door. There was a keyhole and rough grains in thick wood. It wasn’t balsa. She reached for the handle and turned it. Nothing happened.
‘Maybe it opens in a different way,’ she said back to the others, but it was too late, they were already running over to the dungeons. ‘Wait, we’re not even gonna try?’
‘The mist, Cha Cha,’ shouted Zade, vaguely pointing backwards into the depths of the hall.
Cha Cha looked over at the fireplace, at the secret entrance to the cave. It was impossible, the mist was already coming through, even though they’d closed the entrance behind them. And even worse, it seemed to be growing, expanding, possibly crashing into the air and transforming it into purple particles that could rip the flesh off a wicked cat.
‘Stop gawping like a turtle and run,’ shouted Wu Dog Yan, standing by the door to the dungeons.
Cha Cha ran as fast as her little legs would carry her, beating the mist to the door by not much more than a second[1]. Wu Dog Yan grabbed her sleeve and pulled her in then slammed the door behind them. She didn’t wait to see if the mist would seep through or not - it would, it had before - she just turned and ran.
The first room they passed was the dungeon with the hole in the middle, where they’d seen a brainwashed dog kill itself two hours earlier, but that was completely absent from their thoughts now.
The only thing they could think of, each one of them, was: help, I’m gonna die, that mist is insane.
With this terror in mind, they kept running.
~~~
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[1] This is a lie, it was more like 7 seconds