What Came with the Mist

Fog rolled through the hallways of the Wisteria’s School for the Gifted, shrouding the already dim corridors with a blanket of ashen haze. That wasn’t what had shivers racing up Hester’s spine, though. It was the whispers that laced themselves through the mist.

“This way.”

“Follow me.”

“Hesssterrr…”

The disembodied voices knew her name. That thought alone made her heart beat wildly against the confines of her chest.

Hester was new to this school, the scholarship kid who was invisible to everyone who mattered. Not that she expected to be welcomed with open arms, but anything was better than her classmates and even her roommate pretending she didn’t exist. She wanted to be seen.

So even though warning bells clanged in her mind, something here knew her. Saw her. Wanted her to come with it.

She should’ve turned back. Should’ve gone back to bed to sleep off whatever madness was temporarily inflicting her. But the fog and the whispers drew her forward. She was an invisible wraith in the night, determined to figure out what it all meant.

The gray cloud roiled around her, shifting and hiding her from view as she went deeper and deeper into the bowels of the school. The stone hallways turned from pearlescent, to sooty, to ebony black as the air thickened with the smell of incense and something darker. Something noxious.

This time, Hester listened to the warning and tried to stop, digging her heels against the stone. But the smoke just wrapped tendrils around her wrists and dragged her forward. Whatever this was, she couldn’t fight it.

“Yesss. Come. Follooow.”

The whispers brushed against her ear causing the hairs on her neck to stand at attention.

Finally, they stopped at a door. The shadowy mist pooled around her, pushing her against the oak and iron entryway. Before she could decide what to do, the door opened and Hester tumbled inside.

If the fog was hair-raising, what was inside the room was truly terrifying. The walls were covered in half-rotten old books; the floor streaked with puddles of what looked suspiciously like blood. Bones of small animals, feathers, and some sulfuric-smelling black liquid were gathered in silver bowls around the oval room. From these bowls blue smoke rose, swirling unnaturally towards the center of the room as if something was breathing it in.

Thirteen hooded figures wearing blood-red cloaks stood in a circle around the center of the room, each face hidden by an animal mask. At the sound of her entrance, all eyes turned towards her.

“It’s time,” the mist whispered. The next words turned her blood to ice in her veins. “You’re Chosen, Hesssterr.”

Chosen? She was the invisible one. How had she been chosen? What had she been chosen for?

The closest figure, the boar, walked forward and grabbed her arm, pulling her upright. Up close, the mask looked real, even down to the coarse fur, sharp tusks, and distinctly musky smell. It it wasn’t for the very human hand that held her, Hester could’ve sworn it was a boar.

Her chest tightened and it was suddenly difficult to breathe. The boar led her to the middle of the circle with a grip not rough, but firm. Hester tried to pull back, but even when she took a step backward, her body moved forward. She was being breathed in, just like the smoke, unable to stop herself from moving to the center of the room.

Frozen in place, she stood in the thickest part of the smoke, breathing in the sickly sweet smell of death. Thirteen pairs of beady eyes looked at her. Through her. But worse was the feeling of another presence, a darkness that settled over her skin and sank into her bones.

Then, the chanting started.

The figures spoke in sounds too animalistic to be a human language. They brayed and snorted, hissed and roared. The mist translated some of sounds into words:

“Chosen. Chosen. Found. Chosen. Gift. Chosen. Feed. Chosen. Devour.”

Hester became one with the darkness, while the figures stepped closer. Closer. Until she was fenced in by antlers and teeth, beaks and maws. Her whole body shook, a seizure shuddered through her.

Twenty six hands reached for her, ripping off chunks of her body, and still Hester could not move as the everything closed in. The smoke and beasts indistinguishable from herself as pain cleaved through her. She was darkness and pain and death.

###

When Hester opened her eyes, she was in her dorm room.

Just a dream. She sighed, but her body could not fully relax.

It was a dream that felt too real. She could still feel the pain of her body being torn apart. Could taste the blood and the mangled sweetness of death and rot. Her skin felt stretched too thin, as if death became a second layer that clung everywhere.

No. Something wasn't right.

Jumping out of bed, Hester raced to the mirror, determined to see if there were marks on her body.

There was nothing.

No scars.

No evidence of her body being ripped apart.

No body to be seen.

She felt it though. There was a body.

Whatever the darkness did to her... she was now truly invisible.