The Fog

A chill went down her spine when she heard it -- the hungry, wheezing, crackling noise that only belonged to one being in this world. With the utmost dread, she looked over her right shoulder to face the Fog itself. The ghostly cloud, stained red by the neon light on the storefront behind it crawled toward her slowly, tauntingly, but with the fervent intention of consuming her. Before she could run, she heard a voice behind her.

“Hey! Get in my bunker! You’ll be safe down here.” Valencia found it hard to believe that any place could be safe from the Fog, but she didn’t have any other choice. She took off as fast as she could in the direction of the voice.

An old man led her through a hatch in the sidewalk and down into a dingy damp cellar beneath the streets. “It can’t reach us underground,” he promised, switching on fluorescent lights that bathed the basement in a stark sterile glow. Now able to see her savior, Valencia half-wished the lights had remained extinguished, that she might not bear the misfortune of beholding his grotesque face.

A grizzled old man he was, well into his sixties, who appeared as though he might have had more than an encounter or two with the Fog himself based on the countless boils and blemishes besmirching his leathery skin. A shock of coarse white hair erupted from the sides of his head, and over his eyes he wore the cumbersome night vision goggles characteristic of residents of the Foggier parts of town.

“The name’s Nom,” he introduced, extending a wrinkled and calloused hand.

“Valencia,” the girl replied.

“You should be more careful out there,” he advised, “the Fog grows more brazen with every passing day.”

“It’s never bothered me like that before. They say so long as you don’t disturb the peace, the Fog will spare you.”

Nom snorted, “They say that because they fear the Fog. Just like Ignites fear the Fire and just like Electrites fear the Lightning. People fear anything they cannot control. In a desperate attempt to quell their fear, they convince themselves the Fog gives a damn what they do. The truth is no one knows what the Fog wants. And if they did it wouldn’t matter. In time it’ll consume everything unless someone does something about it.”

A solemnity washed over Valencia’s face. The notion was not foreign to her -- that everyone was simply plodding about aimlessly, biding their time until the Fog decided to have its way with them. It wouldn’t be the first time a Numen leveled an entire city. Fire had just recently consumed Ignicity. She said at last, “Numen are practically gods. No man could match them.”

The old man’s chapped lips curled into a conniving grin exposing a mouthful of yellowed and broken teeth, “Aye,” he said nodding, “But another Numen on the other hand. That would make for a formidable foe.”

Nom limped over to a desk littered with maps and writings, and after extensive foraging, produced a map of the known world. “Fog, Fire, Lightning, Earth, Wind, Water, Snow, the list goes on,” he began. “Each Numen presides over its respective city, and allows the others nowhere near. As I said, we fear what we cannot control, and the only thing the Numen cannot control is each other. My thinking is that if we mortals manage to pit the Numen against each other, they may well destroy themselves, restoring order to the world.”

Nom’s plan was utter madness, though it evoked in Valencia a feeling that had abandoned her years ago: excitement. Her heart fluttered in a novel fashion as a sense of purpose replaced the dreary emptiness she had grown accustomed to. “How would you propose we do that?”

“We? Am I sensing a revolutionary in you, Valencia?”

“Maybe if your answer is satisfactory.”

“I met another like you recently. I gave her the mission I give you now. Travel to the ruins of Ignicity where you will find her body. Around her neck will be a locket fashioned in the shape of a heart. Concealed within: fire. Other revolutionaries have been working in secrecy to rig our prosperous downtown to combust. Bring me back the locket and I shall ignite the fire. Once Fog believes that Fire has attacked his precious city, he will not hesitate to retaliate. Some Numen may flock to Fog’s side, others to Fire’s. The deities that have plagued us for generations will be locked in divine combat, and be it years, decades, or millennia, they will spell their own demise.”

* * *

She set out immediately. Ignicity was within walking distance of the bunker. By dawn, she had reached her destination. The sun rose over the charred ruins of the city, blazing orange as though symbolic of the fiery death that had befallen it only a few weeks prior. Valencia commenced her search.

She was no stranger to scavenging the dead, and had become quite efficient at it, but the heart-shaped locket eluded her for hours until dawn faded to noon, and noon faded to evening. The orange blaze of the sun became a yellow glow as clouds came in at noon, and finally a grey haze as clouds settled over the entire sky by the evening. At last, she found it.

Just outside of what was once a convenience store, a body lay face down with its arms extended over its head. Valencia approached it, rolling it over with her foot. Strung around its neck was a silver pendant on a chain. It still gleamed beneath a thin coating of soot and ashes, and to Valencia’s delight, it was in the shape of a heart.

She lowered herself to the body on the ground…

* * *

Nom awaited her coming on a bridge overlooking downtown at midnight.

“I have what you’re looking for,” she called out as she approached him.

Nom turned to her, his expression instantly brightening. “Daughter of the revolution,” he addressed, “You have succeeded!”

Valencia gave him a small, humble smile and handed over the locket. Nom took it in his hands, admiring it with hungry, gleaming eyes.

“After all this time…” he whispered, then said to Valencia, “When they tell our tale, you shall be praised higher than any of the Numen ever were.”

Valencia said nothing, and once again, gave him a grateful smile. With that, he opened the locket.

Immediately, a puff of smoke erupted from it like a fountain. Nom withdrew his face from it as more smoke was emitted. Then, the small fountain grew in height and density, until it became a geyser. It whirled and swirled furiously, swelling to a thick cyclone of ash nearly fifteen feet in height. Nom’s expression darkened as he looked up at it. Dropping the locket, he realized what it was, and that it was too late to be stopped. The ash toward the base of the cyclone thickened and began to coalesce. More and more ash condensed further and further up the swirling cloud until the shape of a man formed. Finally, the swirling ash settled around the man, revealing his face -- soot-stained and hardened as though chiseled from cinder, grinning menacingly, with his arms crossed.

All Nom could do was burn.

* * *

She lowered herself to the body on the ground.

Gingerly, as if nervous she might wake the woman from her eternal slumber, Valencia unfastened the clasp of the heart-shaped locket and donned the jewelry herself. Opening the locket, the consignment Nom so desperately sought revealed itself within: matches and flint; the spark that would erupt into a war of Numen if the revolution was to be a success.

Suddenly the ash swirled up off the ground before her, a twister towering fifteen feet in the air, dust thickening at its base. Valencia struggled to draw breath as the air grew hot and suffocating around her. A silhouette began to materialize in the spiraling cloud until it was a man that stood before her, tall and dashing, clad in rugged raiments, with two piercing red eyes.

“This is as far as you go, daughter of Fog,” the man decreed in a voice smooth and collected.

Through labored breaths all she could manage was, “Who are you?”

“I am Fire,” the man replied. Sensing her disbelief, he elaborated, “Yes. The physical embodiment of the Fire Numen. You have something that belongs to me. I’d like it back.” With a brisk snap of his fingers the locket drifted from Valencia’s neck to Fire’s hand. He deposited it into the pocket of his tattered overcoat saying, “You’re not the first of Fog’s to trouble me. Had to burn damn near half my city smoking out the last one, but once I found her she sang Fog’s intentions like a canary.” Valencia thought back to the corpse she had just robbed, shuddering at the hell this divine monster must have made her final moments. He went on, “The bunker-dwelling revolutionary enlisting a downtrodden scavenger to steal fire from Fire himself was a clever ruse, I’ll concede; but this war Fog means to start is madness.”

Her face must have betrayed her confusion as Fire scoffed, “You didn’t find it strange that the old man relied on a complete stranger to execute his life’s mission?”

“I thought --”

“He couldn’t leave the City of Fog because he is the Fog. Just as I am the Fire. Fog means to start a war, that much was true, though he means not to end the Numen, but to rule them. His ambition makes him reckless -- dangerous. Sooner or later he will succeed and the entire world will be shrouded in his devious haze. That is,” he stared right through her with those smoldering red eyes, “unless you help me stop him.”

Weary, terrified, betrayed, Valencia was paralyzed to protest. “How?”

Fire knelt and pinched some ashes off the ground, filling the locket with them. “These ashes are my essence. Though I cannot leave my city on my own, you could transport me. Bring this locket to Fog as he asked, and I will take care of the rest. Your city will be free and the Numen can coexist in peace for another eternity. The power is in your hands,” he concluded, tossing her the locket.

* * *

Fire stood before her now, eyes aglow as he stood over the scorched body of Fog. A wicked smile crept across his lips that soon gave way to a burst of malevolent laughter. Valencia could feel the air growing hot, suffocating, as if the man himself were ablaze. Then suddenly he was.

In a ball of flame, Fire leapt into the night sky, leaving Valencia to watch in terror as he called down, “Thanks for the ride. With that geriatric lunatic out of the way, Fire just found its new city!” and like a meteor, he shot towards downtown.

Twice betrayed and helpless, Valencia watched the city burn.