(Time-Stilled World, 4 Kilometers into the Forest Of Death, Between A Mysterious Fog Field)
The fog didn't roll in.
It rose.
Quiet. Pale. Patient.
It seeped up from the ground like it had been waiting there all along, tucked beneath the mulch and ash, curling around ankles and knees with the slow certainty of death.
At first it was just mist, thin and gentle, like dew. But as the team pushed deeper into the forest, it thickened.
Until they could no longer see the ground at all.
Leo felt it immediately. Not on his skin, but in his gut.
Something was off.
Every instinct in his body screamed for him to stop, to turn around and run, but his legs kept moving, one foot after the other, following the file.
The others felt it too— he could see it in the tension of their shoulders, in the shallow rhythm of their breath that they were all nervous as well.
