The water surface remained calm and still, not a ripple to be found. Long grass and water weeds stood limply by the edges of the lake that reflected the clear cloudless sky where the half-moon shone brightly over the field.

And I stood there before the lake, shivering from the cold night air, wearing nothing but my thin worn out blue PJs, looking for the reason of my being here at this hour. The harder I tried to find the answer, the more it felt like it was slipping away again and again. It was almost within reach when suddenly I was aware of a stillness that was present. Not the type of stillness where everything and everyone stops moving but the kind that causes the hairs on our skin to prick and stand upright for no explainable reason.

Normally I’d just push it aside and continue doing what I was doing before; in this case it would be searching for the reason why I was out here in the open. But I had a hunch that this wasn't normal. And so I scanned area around me with my eyes when something small and white caught my interest. It was like finding ‘the needle in the haystack’ when, in fact, I was looking for something else.

It turned out to be a small puff of fog that sipped from a large space between two ominous tall trees with wide trunks. The fog grew and grew, until it became a thick mist that totally covered every tree in the woods except for their roots. The seemingly harmless fog did not bother me much in any way until it abruptly spread out and covered the vast distance between the lake and the woods so fast and so quick that I almost lost my footing as I took an involuntary step backwards. Sure it surprised me that it blanketed the field before me in an unbelievable rate, but that should not have been the sole reason why I took a step back, in fear.

Something rustled behind me and it took all of my willpower and focus to not turn around for the sake of satisfying my curiosity. I tried not to image anything horrifying. To help distract myself from this seemingly illogical and dreamlike situation I was in, I looked ahead of me, my vision pierced through the thick mist and I saw what I thought I should not have been able to.

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I saw myself standing in the mist. Except, the ‘me’ in the mist appeared fake and expressionless, but has an uncanny resemblance to me. We looked exactly the same if not for his doll-like eyes.

I thought that this was a cruel joke and decided that I had enough of this creepiness. I opened my mouth to speak. But no words came out. I attempted repetitively, to make a sound, to yell, to scream. I thought I was turning deaf or even hysterical. I am a physics student, and what was happening to me defied certain laws of physics, such as the mist settling over the field yet there was no wind to act as a medium of transport. I observed the grass after the fog settled, there was no movement, not even a slight indicate that it had briefly shifted position.

Maybe my mind was playing tricks on me. I pulled a couple of sleepless nights a two  days ago to complete a last-minute assignment, but I never thought brain-tiredness could cause a person to become mute or even hallucinate. I closed my eyes and decided that this nonsense was all going to go away after I count to ten.

“One.” I said out loud to give myself confidence and self-assurance.

A wolf howled not too far away. I urged myself to go on.

“Two.”

A second wolf responded to the first cry.

“Three.”

More joined in the chorus of howling and barking.

“Four.”

They annoying wolves continued.

“Five.”

They stopped. I stopped too, momentarily, and I wondered what caused them to stop suddenly. I encouraged myself to resume counting.

“Six.”

A shadow passed over my closed eyes after I heard the unmistakable sound of a pair of gigantic feathered wings beat down from the sky as an unknown bird flew over me. I gulped in panic and cleared my throat.

“Seven.”

Silence.

“Eight.”

The silence continued.

“N-nine.” I stammered.

I waited. I did not know what I was waiting for, but I waited still, uncomfortably.

“Ten.”