The potato hurled through the mist like a ship breaching calm waters; like a blade parting the world’s frayed seams. It didn’t hit the creature—she hadn’t even dared hope it would—but it did something. It made it stop.

Just short of where the humble projectile had tumbled to the ground, the shadowy figure froze mid-lurch. Its movements, once twitchy and uneven, stilled as if caught off guard. The hollow sockets where eyes should have been fixed themselves on her. If emptiness could hold disbelief, this was surely it.

“That’s right,” Ember hissed, the sharpness in her voice betraying the trembling in her chest. “Take another step, and I’ll really give you something to howl about.”

The creature didn’t howl. Nor did it answer. It simply lingered there, its long, spindly limbs swaying as if tasting the air. Waiting as the mist began creeping back in, eager to reclaim the territory her projectile had cleared.

The creature moved again.

It came closer this time, slowly, its jagged limbs dragging through a mist which clung to it as though part of the same whole.

Oh no, you don’t.

Emberlyth didn’t wait to see what would happen next. An apple had already found her hand, and now, it cut through the mist in a fiery arc. It struck the creature dead-on, drilling through its head. Where its head should have been, at least. For a moment, the trail of displaced mist showed nothing. No body. No blood. No head. Just air and the faint shimmer of light filtering through the hole her apple had carved.

And then the mist folded back in on itself. Slowly, deliberately, it filled the space the apple had cleared, reforming the shadow of the creature's head as if nothing had happened.

It tilted its hollow eyes at her, not in anger or hunger, but something far worse: Why?

And then it came.

"Why, my sweet little Ember,” her father’s voice slithered through the mist. It wasn’t quite his voice—not really—but it was close enough. Close enough to twist her stomach, to prickle her skin with cold gooseflesh. It was the way she remembered it, but stretched, distorted, echoing from every corner of the mist at once. “Why do you hurt me so...?”

Her breath caught, her fingers trembling as she fumbled for another apple. “Shut up!” she spat, her voice louder than she’d intended, and weaker than she’d hoped.

The shadow ahead flickered, splitting into three, each figure standing in a different place, moving differently, yet all unmistakably him.

“Why?” the voices echoed together.

“Why are you so naïve?”

“So weak?”

“So...”

The apple left her hand, burning a fierce trail through the mist and tearing through one of the shadows. The mist parted briefly, peeling back like smoke caught in a strong wind. But there was nothing there.

Nothing.

Except his voice, finishing softly, “...disappointing?”

She twisted around, heart pounding, her feet unsteady in the shifting ground. The burlap sack fell from her arms, her hands having already found another set of projectiles. But they felt like lead, heavy with futility.

The voice came again, but it wasn’t her father’s now. It was Olsen’s, creeping through the haze like oil slipping under a locked door. “Where did we go wrong with her?”

“We didn’t go wrong,” came another voice, sharper, bitterer—Efrain’s. “She’s just a disappointment.”

“Talentless.”

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

“Unable to live up to the Draekart name...”

The words poured down on her, a venomous rain. Then came the shadow of a girl, skipping through the mist, humming a fractured little tune, her silhouette impossibly small and heartbreakingly familiar. Ember froze, the apples trembling in her grasp.

The girl’s shadow flickered and blurred, but the memory was unmistakable. It was her. A younger her. Pretending to be fine in a world too large, too lonely.

Her throat tightened. Another shadow took shape nearby, taller this time, bearing the mocking curve of her cousin’s grin. A laugh bubbled out, low and cutting, blending into the swirling mist.

With a frustrated snarl, Ember hurled a piece of bread from the sack. It sliced through the figure, a clumsy missile propelled by anger, but it passed harmlessly through the mocking shadow.

The laugh deepened, rich and hollow, echoing endlessly as if the mist itself had joined in.

“You should have been more like me. You should have—”

And then they were gone. All of them. The voices. The shadows. Swallowed by the mist as if they’d never been there at all.

Emberlyth’s chest heaved, her heartbeat pounding in her ears, a frantic drumbeat against a silence to heavy to bear. Her eyes darted, scanning the haze, searching for something—anything—solid to anchor herself to.

A flicker of darkness at the edge of her vision. She spun toward it, and there it was. Spindly limbs stretched wide, impossibly long, impossibly still. The thing was mere feet away, close enough that she could almost feel the chill radiating off it. Close enough to touch.

Her foot caught on the sack she’d dropped, and she staggered back, arms flailing as she fought to keep her balance. The creature didn’t move, but its jaw… its jaw was already slid open. Wider. Wider still. Wider than anything of flesh or bone had any right to be, stretching into a grotesque, gaping shadow that seemed hungry enough to swallow the world.

But it wasn’t moving.

Not toward her, at least.

Its head tilted slightly to the side, the smooth, empty plane of its face turned as if listening for something. The faint sound of footfalls echoed through the mist. They came from everywhere at once, refracting like the voices had, bouncing off nothing and everything in equal measure.

And then, with a soundless hiss, the creature melted away. Its spindly limbs collapsed into the mist, folding inward like smoke drawn into a deep breath. The suffocating weight of the haze eased, thinning just enough for Ember to remember what it was to breathe.

The footfalls, though—they didn’t stop. They grew louder, sharper, until they coalesced into a singular rhythm, a steady cadence that approached from one direction alone.

Ember stood frozen, her pulse a wild, erratic thing in her chest as she watched a new shadow take shape in the mist.

And then he was there.

Penta.

He stepped forward, head bowed, his gaze fixed on something cradled in his hands. She saw the moment he noticed her, saw his head snap up and his face twist into something between shock and disbelief. His lips parted, and she didn’t need to hear him to know exactly what he said.

“Oh, shit.”

Before she could call out, before she could demand answers, he turned on his heel and bolted. Vanished back into the mist without so much as a glance behind him.

She barely managed a broken, “Wait!” before he was gone. Snatching up her burlap sack—it seemed wrong to leave her only armament behind—she set off after him. The trail was there, left behind by his passing, but not for long. A dozen hurried steps, and the mist erased it once more. As if it had never been. The footfalls faded. The mist closed in. And before she knew it, Emberlyth was alone once more.

Her ragged breath rasped in her ears, heartbeat pounding as her eyes frantically searched a hazy world. It swirled thicker now, the fog, curling around her feet like hungry smoke, licking at her ankles, rising higher with every moment.

“Come back, Emberlyth…”

The voices slipped through the mist like cold fingers, soft and persistent.

“Return to us.”

“It’s not safe out there.”

“Here, it’s more comfortable.”

Her grip on the sack tightened. Had Penta been nothing more than another cruel trick, an illusion conjured to lure her further into this endless void? The thought bit deep, and she shuddered against it.

The voices crept closer, circling her like a pack of wolves.

Don’t listen.

“Just stay, we could—”

And then she heard it. Something running. Rapid, heavy footfalls thudding through the haze.

Even without seeing it, she could imagine it. The creature surging forward, its movement a terrible mixture of grace and wrongness. The mist itself carrying it, swirling and folding as its spindly limbs propelled it closer with sickening speed. It would only take a moment before it loomed above her, an overwhelming presence to chill her to her core.

Emberlyth spun, her pulse a wild drumbeat in her ears. A shadow rose ahead, coming straight for her. Without thinking, she whipped the sack around, swinging it with every ounce of strength she had. The burlap blurred through the air like a hammer, smashing into the approaching figure with a hollow thud and sending them crumpling to their knees.

The mist seemed to sigh, parting in the wake of her desperate strike.

For a moment, Emberlyth simply stared, sack still raised in her trembling hands. Then she let it drop to her side.

There, hunched on the ground, gasping for air, was, indeed, Penta.

He wheezed, clutching his stomach where the sack had hit him. Slowly, painfully, he raised his head to meet her eyes. “Ah,” he rasped, offering the faintest of smiles even as his breath came in labored gasps. He seemed as surprised by the situation as she was. “It really was you, Lady Draekart. How… lovely to see you again.”