A Day In The Mist: Prologue & Chapter One

Prologue: The End Begins

It's always better to end with a bang. Isn't that how the saying goes? It's supposed to imply that an ending should be spectacular, the star of the show so that the audience feels they got their money's worth.

The world ended on July 21st, 2024.

The world as we knew it didn't end with a bang, but with a muffled whimper. There was no great fanfare, no worldwide nuclear apocalypse. Life as we knew it quietly came to a slow, muffled end. Instead of fire and brimstone raining from the sky, we were taken by The Fog. As far as anyone can tell, The Fog rolled in from every direction simultaneously. It didn't originate from one coast or another, but rather seemed to close in on the US from every direction at once, encircling us with no way out. We learned quickly that any living entity, be it plant, animal or human, that breathed in The Fog suffered from a cellular breakdown. The Fog interfered with biological life on a cellular level, causing our bodies to destroy themselves from the inside out. It didn't matter how little or how much entered your lungs - any amount was a death sentence. Our own immune systems consumed and ultimately killed us in a matter of days. Plants and animals were similarly affected.

Our most brilliant scientists, armchair biologists, the CDC, and anyone else with the smallest background in medicine all searched for a way to reverse the breakdown and develop a drug or treatment to save those who had been affected. Tests were done, and as the death toll increased ethics and morality were thrown out the window in an effort to expand and speed up the search for a cure or an immunization. Everything and anything was tried to stop the collapse of human society. A country-wide state of emergency was declared, martial law was put into place, and every emergency service we had ever relied on was enacted. None of it helped.

We did not find a cure.

As the choking fog moved inland, humans fled in advance. Cities emptied, and everyone crushed further and further into the heartland of the United States. Kansas became the most sought after destination in the country as people fled inward, seeking the geographic center of the country where they thought they would be safest. Alaska and Hawaii were considered lost immediately. Unfortunately, with the collapse of civilized society came the collapse of civilized behavior. It wasn't like you see in the movies or on television. People did not form organized gangs and create "post-apocalyptic" societies, they didn't resort to cannibalism or protection rackets.. They simply turned on one another. As more and more people converged on Kansas, the press of humanity became unbearable. What remained of law and order collapsed. Too many people in one place led to tempers flaring, violence, and ultimately murder.

When the president died, what little organization remained in the military disappeared. The last television broadcast we ever sent out was a warning: The United States was lost. Kansas was not safe. Get out, hide, do not come here. Then the nation went dark, as fear and panic finally consumed the last vestiges of reason and logic. The last remaining zone free of The Fog rapidly became a free-for-all bloodbath as hundreds of thousands of people fought over remaining food and medical supplies and killed one another for scraps of clothing and blankets.

Not all life ended. With the collapse, it's hard to get any accurate numbers but a rough estimate is that 10% of life in the country survived due to some kind of innate immunity to whatever biological changes The Fog made to our cellular structures. Plants and animals survived in similar numbers. We don't know why or how, and there's no one left to find out. What's left of humanity is spread too far to collaborate. As far as we know, every other country is also gone. Those of us that remain do not have a way to contact other states without traveling there physically and hoping to find survivors, let alone other countries. Those of us that are left, are left alone.

Within a week, the power grids went down. Any food not shelf stable went bad almost overnight, further reducing what supplies remained. That, along with 90% of crops dying, made food scarce at best. The few people remaining barter if they can, hunt if possible, and otherwise scavenge as best as possible. Surviving in The Fog does not mean surviving is easy. The Fog never receded fully. It is a part of life now. It ebbs and flows with no discernible pattern or reason, but it's always present. It is not sentient, or evil, or somehow malevolent. It simply is.

This was how the world ended. Not with a bang, but with a whimper. All that remains now are the stories not yet told, and the people who carry on and share them.

A Day In The Mist: The Chapter Of Molly J.

The world ended on Sunday, July 21st, 2024.

At 7:15 PM Saturday evening, July 20th, on the west coast of the United States in the city of Seattle Washington, Molly was sitting at her computer after coming off of a ten hour shift. Beside her she had a fresh mug of hot coffee, and underneath her desk was her 3-year old lab mix Alfie. These things were not unusual. What was unusual was the breaking news of a large fog bank rolling into the city. A fog bank was not normally news, but there was seemingly something off about this one that made it newsworthy. Something about it had the meteorologists both excited and confused, and every news agency was reporting on some unusual aspect or another of the incoming fog. Quickly losing interest, Molly simply made dinner, watched a little bit of television, and went to bed.

6:45 AM, July 21

Things seemed strange already when Molly was preparing for the morning. She did not have a yard for the dog, so he required a morning walk. Normally these early walks were pleasant, a quiet time to reflect and get the day started properly. But this morning, something was off. Molly first noted the thick fog through the windows. Fog in Seattle was not unusual, but she couldn't recall it ever having been this thick before. It seemed almost oppressive somehow.

"No matter," Molly thought, "Nature calls". Alfie was insistent, so she threw on a rain jacket and they headed into the swirling fog. Immediately the chill penetrated her raincoat and she shivered. It was oddly chilly for mid-July. Alfie did not seem bothered, so Molly turned them down the street and they headed off on their morning walk. Something in the back of her head told Molly there was something odd about the day, something too quiet, but she couldn't quite place the feeling so she did her best to shake it off and simply attributed it to the thick fog muffling the normal sounds of the morning. Ten minutes into their walk, she saw it.

Lying partway in the sidewalk a few feet ahead, Molly could barely make out a shape on the ground. Not thinking about it, she and Alfie continued moving forward. A few feet further on, and the shape came more clearly into focus - there was a person lying on the ground. Stopping short, pulling the dog back to her side, Molly wasn't sure what she should do.

"Fuck," Molly thought, "Oh god what am I doing?"

"Hello," she called out, "Are you alright? Do you need some help?" Not receiving an answer, Molly grew increasingly worried and moved towards the prone form.

"I'm going to come closer," Molly said, "Please don't be afraid. We won't hurt you." Moving close, Molly kept Alfie close as she kneeled down next to the form lying face down.

"What the fuck what the fuck what the fuck" was running through Molly's head as she reached out a hand to touch the person and check their breathing to make sure they were okay. Her heart rate was rapidly rising. "Please don't be dead please don't be dead..."

"I'm going to put a hand on you, okay?" She said aloud, "Please don't panic..."

Reaching a hand out, Molly placed it on the person's back, checking for breathing. Waiting a moment, holding her breath, Molly did not feel the rise and fall of breathing. Beginning to panic now, she pulled her hand back, unsure what she should do next. Should she roll the person over? Keep walking, get somewhere safe and call the police? Her mind reeled, not thinking clearly and growing increasingly frightened. Molly pulled Alfie a few steps back and dialed 911 on her cell. After a few rings, the line went dead. Confused, she tried calling again. Again, after just a few rings, the call simply ended. How was that even possible? Why would the emergency lines be down?

Making a quick decision, Molly knelt back down next to the person. Gently tucking her hands beneath the form, she slowly rolled them onto their back while still trying to maintain a hold on the increasingly annoyed dog who just wanted to move on. Seeing the face of the form, Molly scrambled back and screamed, turned, and vomited into the street. While she had suspected maybe some injuries or bruising, Molly was not prepared for what she saw. This person was barely recognizable as human! The face was sunken, almost appearing to have melted, with black veins crisscrossing what remained of the features leading down the neck and into the collar of the shirt. There were traces of blood from the eyes, nose and mouth, but no obvious sign of injury.

The gruesome sight was the breaking point. Molly's mind at last gave in to complete panic. In her scramble back from the body, she had let go of Alfie's leash, and her own anxiety fed into his. Alfie took off at a run down the street. Not thinking, Molly sprinted after him, alternating between screaming his name and screaming for help. As Alfie pulled ahead and the sound of his paws hitting the pavement faded in the roiling fog, she lost her bearings. Unsure of what to do, she kept running in the last direction she saw the dog heading in. Sprinting until she couldn't anymore, Molly stopped on the pavement to catch her breath. She had no idea where Alfie was, no idea who no one was answering her calls for help, and no idea how far she had run. As she struggled to catch her breath and soothe her burning throat, she heard a low rumbling approaching rapidly.

Molly turned around to see a blur of light and sound rushing towards her as the roar grew increasingly louder. Too late, she realized that she had unknowingly stopped in the middle of the street, unable to get her bearings in the fog. Too late she recognized the lights and sound for what they were. Too late, she recognized the truck.

"Oh god..."

End Chapter

Author's Note: This story began as simply a prologue to introduce a world I thought would make for interesting stories. I intended to set it up as just the prologue, leaving it open to return to later for a series of stories connected by this world and how individual, unconnected people would adapt and survive across the country with this oppressive Fog having ended most of life. I do not intend for these stories to stick to a single genre, as I feel this world can support several different areas of writing from horror to drama, from fantasy to sci-fi, and whatever falls in between. I also, as you can probably note from the chapter above, do not intend to always focus on the fog itself, but instead on the stories that take place within it.

Once I finished the prologue, I realized that I needed to include a story as well. Not to set a tone, or begin an interconnected series, but to reward anyone who stuck through the setup and was interested in the setting. So I decided to include an additional short, in the form of an extra chapter attached to the prologue as a sort of teaser entry into the world itself and the human element. This also gave me the opportunity to show that this world and these stories are not always going to revolve around the cataclysmic event(s) that have taken place, but will often, instead, focus on individuals and their specific experiences. These experiences may come before, during, or after the event(s) that changed the world. I honestly hope you enjoyed it if you've made it this far - I am very excited to write more in this world and explore the human experiences within it. Thank you so much for reading - and please subscribe and share if you want to see more.

-Casey