Gabrielle ran. She ran until she couldn’t feel her legs anymore, until her breath was ragged, warm and raspy. She ran until all signs of civilization around her had disappeared, until the forest grew thick and dark.

Until the Fog had consumed it all.

At her 25 years of age, the armoured girl had rarely known exhaustion like that night. Her body was already used to working until she dropped, without pauses beyond when she needed to eat, drink or relieve herself, and even then she did so sparingly. But that night it was different; that night she couldn’t bear looking back. Even as her legs wobbled and faltered, and her lungs burned like pieces of red hot coal, Gabrielle would not stop until she could no longer hear the voices calling her back.

When silence had overtaken all, only then did she allow herself to fall on the moist, muddy ground… and she cried, frustration tensing every nerve in her body, forcing her hands into fists.

She didn’t even think of where she was. Not for a second did she consider the danger she had put herself into, venturing into the lands overtaken by the Fog. Whatever it claimed, the Fog never returned. This was known by all. Darkness and creatures of ill intent and savage inclination roamed within it, beasts hungry for the hearts of man. Each breath that Gabi took could draw them closer…

But she didn’t care right then. She didn’t even consider it.

She could only think of the disaster at the Church of Saint Francis. The flames rising, the screams from the Hells exploding every window, the lamentations of those unfortunate enough to be inside the once beautiful building. Gabrielle was a woman of subdued emotions, of action rather than introspection… but that afternoon, as she helplessly stared from outside the burning church, Gabrielle knew fear for the first time in years.

She should have gone for water. She should have jumped into that inferno. She should have done something, anything.

Yet her body was petrified, and her mind was overwhelmed with voices that screamed orders, all at once.

“RUN!”

“SAVE HER!”

“HURRY HURRY!”

“JUMP IN!”

She knew she had to act and yet, she couldn’t move a muscle. By the time the other members of the Company arrived with buckets of water to fight off the fires, only then did Gabrielle gain enough strength to slowly walk into the wreckage.

The bodies. Their moans of pain, the sound of their bones cracking and their skins charring…

Gabrielle had seen people dying before, many times, some of those times by her own hand. It never struck her as too surprising, or hard to look at… but this whole situation, this disaster… she could feel the guilt squeezing her chest tightly. She couldn’t distance herself from this whole ordeal.

This was her fault.

Under piles of broken, burning rubble, Gabi heard the cry of a familiar voice. Or at least, what was left of it after the burning smoke had ruined it. No longer caring about burning herself, she pulled pieces of broken wood, stone and rubble out of her way. Underneath it all, Gabrielle found Her.

Esperanza de Aragón, the Saint of Jericho, her Captain, laid broken on the ground. Her once beautiful visage was ruined by the flames, her face was unrecognizable, her black hair burned to a crisp, her skin wounded beyond all repair.

Fear struck Gabrielle again. She stared at the saint, trembling, forcing herself to keep moving and pick her hero in her arms, feeling her the woman’s now frail body squirm in pain at the slightest contact. Gabi tried not to look at the Saint as she stood up once more, walking out of the Church while the rest of the Company took care of the many other wounded..

In hindsight, she felt selfish. She didn’t even think of the other victims of the disaster… right then, she could only carry Esperanza to the chirurgeon.

And then…

Gabrielle’s mind returned to her current reality. She heard something around her, in the dark forest. As her overwhelming emotions faded, at least for the moment, the woman slowly got up and, for the first time, she was aware of the cold air flowing through her armour. Iron plate and chainmail can be great for stopping an incoming knife, but they did nothing against the elements.

“...Timothy, is that you?”

She spoke up to the darkness. No answer. Only slow motions within the forest, something trying to pass unnoticed. Or perhaps the wind. One could probably, easily just assume it was the wind and be done with it outside the Fog, but in here? It would be foolish.

Gabrielle wasn’t exactly wise, but she wasn’t stupid. She knew when she was being stalked. And if this person didn’t come out when she called for them, clearly, it wasn’t anyone she knew.

She slowly pulled her sword out, her unblinking eyes narrowing as she sniffled and got into a wide stance, her weapon pointing straight up towards the throat of her imaginary enemy. The voice of her instructor came back to her.

“Fighting is like dancing, you just need to learn the rhythm. Like a pendulum, swinging from side to side: you need to know when it’s on your side, so it is your turn to attack.”

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The girl wasn’t very sure if that logic stuck, but that’s the way she had learned to fight and she wouldn’t start questioning it now.

As she prepared, the pesky voices of her thoughts began pestering again.

“We’re dead. This is it. No one returns from the Fog.”

“Why did we come here, of all places!? Why do we have to be so stupid!?”

“Run. Run!”

Snarling and showing teeth like a rabid animal, Gabi took a few steps back. The figure in the woods moved as well.

“Stand back!” Barked the girl, raising her sword. Always point to the neck, the instructor had said. That’s how you stop someone from approaching.

But it didn’t seem to deter this figure.

Gabrielle continued backing off, and the figure continued advancing, until it fully revealed itself: It was a shadow, her own shadow, standing up and mimicking her every move. The girl opened her eyes widely, a shaky breath escaped her lips… and the shadow breathed in, sucking away her very essence and becoming much more solid in the process.

She had heard the tales from those who managed to run from the Fog. People who entered and reappeared months or even years later, who claimed to see their worst fears and their very sins made flesh within the saints forsaken mist.

Was this what they meant?

The shadow began to ripple and shift, its limbs moving erratically, swinging and swaying, cracking as it expanded. The girl held her sword more tightly, as the shadow suddenly gained colour, skin and hair. It was a reflection, a crude caricature of herself at first; then, it changed again! Flames burst from its body, and a hellish scream echoed from its melting throat.

On its face, like the echoes of a million people screaming, begging, pleading for help, Gabrielle could see the reflection of all those she left behind in the church. A reminder of her failure.

She hesitated before, but not anymore. The girl stepped onwards, raising her sword before slashing down, cutting through the shadow’s body. She expected blood to splatter, or feel the resistance of bone, but encountered none of that: it was like this creature was flesh and nothing more. Flesh, and black ichor.

The apparition fell backwards, sliced in twain, writhing and shaking before slowly dissolving back into the floor… and Gabrielle sighed. Luckily, things still felt distant and manageable for her.

Things always felt distant in her mind. Life was like watching herself doing things, feeling echoes of pain from time to time. Emotions very rarely managed to cross the distance between her body and her heart, probably dying out on the way… and that’s why most people simply called her ‘Heartless’.

More movements came from the darkness, and soon more shadows began to walk out of the forest, taking a few steps before flames burned from their bodies. As Gabi’s eyes adjusted to the sudden bursts of light, she could see more bodies burning yonder, three… then five… then ten…

A horde of charred bodies, advancing slowly towards her.

The redheaded girl took a few more steps back, snarling like a cornered wild animal as her blade pointed at these creatures, changing targets from side to side, getting ready for a fight she wasn’t sure she could win.

It didn’t matter.

Right now, with nothing to lose or to cling to, she wasn’t afraid to die. But she wouldn’t go down without biting back.

As she charged the horde, and all the while her battle cry rasped her hoarse throat, Gabrielle remembered the words of her old instructor.

A woman made out of stone once said:

“If you are to die, do it like a nail in someone’s coffin. No matter how you die, why you die, you will regret it anyways. So might as well go all in, right?”

As she cut through the body of another shadow, Gabrielle realized how those words never had ringed as true as right now, with adrenaline pumping through her entire body, and the wind blowing on her back as she madly swung her sword.

She kicked a body out of her way, while the others began crawling and gathering around her, arms stretched towards her, pained groans coming out of their malformed throats. The redheaded swordswoman spun in place, her blade swishing all around her as she cut her way through the creatures.

They weren’t attacking just yet, just reaching for her… she wasn’t really questioning why, being too busy keeping a circular area around herself clear of those burning wretches. So far, things were going well! But she knew, deep inside, that it was just a matter of time until her body grew sluggish and her senses dulled. A hand managed to grasp at her hair, she felt it squeeze and pull, its touch burning and disgusting. Another slice, and that hand was separated from its arm.

Cutting through creatures without bone was surprisingly easy.

Voices kept ringing in her mind. Two voices that demanded her whole attention.

“Always do the right thing, Gabi”, said the child, smiling at her on their deathbed.

“We do what we must, for those we cherish.” Said the hero, a flame sparkling in her eyes.

Gabrielle stopped on her tracks, her eyes widening, and a new figure rose at the back of this horde. A figure mounting a horse and wearing a once radiant armour, now melted and blackened by the touch of flame. Her visage was small but powerful, now broken down and almost unrecognizable. Her flesh was charred to coal in several spots, but it was still her. The figure she had been running away from. A vision of a Saint turned into a moaning, suffering wretch barely holding to its horse and a large blue and golden banner.

When Gabrielle saw this caricature of Esperanza de Aragón, all that bravery disappeared. It was never even real bravery to begin with, it was just her tendency to distance herself from any situation. But she couldn’t escape from her failure.

They locked eyes on each other. Even from afar, Gabi could see this figure smile at her with burnt lips, reaching out, silently calling…

Once again, she was paralyzed. Gabrielle no longer felt like pushing or fighting, as the horde of burning shadows grew closer and closer, swiping, grabbing, pulling. She gasped, looking around herself, totally surrounded, being pulled from different directions, her clothes starting to burn as well.

She screamed.

Pulling strength from deep within, Gabi wrestled herself away from the hands burning her armour, charging in the opposite direction now, cleaving through the creatures that could get in the way of her desperate retreat.

“Get away from me! Away!”

She was so determined to escape that she abandoned her sword, grasping and pushing at the ground as she struggled to keep standing, as she ran as fast as her tired legs would take her, as far away from the horde as she could.

But she could only run so far in The Fog.

—-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

In a world where magic was thought erased from history, the gods of yore punished their insolent children.

The Fog. An invasive entity, something beyond a meteorological event. No one knows exactly where it came from, or how it started spreading, but people agree on one thing: It came from the North, one night, and there was simply no way to stop it. It didn’t disperse with the passing of time, and the brightest torches failed to penetrate the darkness it brought. Wherever it spread, the Fog remained, and the shadows never failed to appear.

The darkness within people’s hearts, their fears, their regrets, their sins, everything materialized in the form of strange creatures bent on the destruction of their creator. Compasses stopped working, the sharpest sense of direction was no longer reliable. Suddenly, you were lost, chased by visions of your nightmares.

But these were not mere illusions, they were very real, and they were thirsty for blood. Literally. During the very few expeditions organized by some of the realms in Jericho, it was common to find corpses dried up to the bone.

These were dark times for the people of Jericho… and no solution was in sight. Only despair, and certain doom.