“Shit is hitting the fan, what the fuck are we dealing with right now?” John spins the wheel harshly, causing everyone to enter zero gravity for a moment. The wheels crash back onto the ground, screaming and burning rubber. “Do we have a pn? A way to counter this bitch?”

  “Right now, our focus is on getting out of here without being consumed!” Vukosava yells. “We can worry about a pn ter.”

  James is peering over their shoulders. “Fuck, are the lights even working?”

  “I got high beams on!” John is putting his foot down on the accelerator. The engine is humming with power. But they have no visibility of anything, everything is gone. No houses, no trees, no fences, no signs. It’s endless. A grey void in all directions that the headlights struggle to pierce. “There has to be a way out.”

  “We’re stuck in its domain.” Harley is looking out her window. “Unless someone has the ability to decipher the mist. Which none of us have.”

  Nathen unclips his seatbelt. “Currently, we’re close to the eye of this storm.”

  Amber squeals. “John, you have to slow down.”

  “Slowing down isn’t an option.” John is hunching over the wheel. “We’re dead otherwise.”

  “We’ll be dead if we crash.” Harley snaps. “Right now, we’re running around like dipshits with no sense. I have a question; do you think that freaking knight would be the only one sent here?”

  Vukosava nods slowly. “That is a point. But we don’t have any confirmation on that.”

  Without a preamble, Amber snatches Harley’s scribble book. Taking the pen and starting to draw furiously, even under all this strain and chaos, she can manage to make it look decent. A man, a painter standing with silhouettes, with circles adorning their ft, expressionless faces. The finer details were not there yet, no shading, no facial features, no finery for his clothing. All Amber could catch is glimpses, passing, fleeting seconds where she didn’t have time to focus on the individual pieces of her drawing.

  The most eerie part of the whole thing is that Amber’s eyes were firmly shut. “The image is fading. Wait, left, go left, right now!”

  “What the hell is going on?” John excims loudly.

  “I think we might be locating a possible ally.” Nathen is looking down at Amber’s drafting sketch.

  “An ally, in this hell? How is that even possible?” James shakes his head.

  “I don’t know how she’s doing this – but what other option do we have?” Harley is keeping her eyes on Amber, who’s becoming less connected to the world.

  “Follow the instructions of the blind? You’re off your rocker.”

  “We’re all flipping blind, what difference does it make?” Harley turns her attention away from James. “Amber?”

  Amber’s is making additions to the drawing – it’s an unnerving thing to look at. Harley could see men with the feral, vicious teeth of dogs ripping through bloody lips, their eyes glowing hungrily.

  Tears fall from Amber’s face onto the page. She keeps going, adding to it. The hungry men take on greater detail, neanderthals with the distinctive features of big, bck dog. Between the two nightmares is a man being dragged between them – Harley couldn’t make out the man’s face, but she could tell that it was Fodor Dresk. Why is this here? Why show something they already know?

  “I don’t think it’s an ally. It can’t be with stuff like that.” Nathen is shaking his head.

  “Who does that stuff belong to?” Harley exchanges a gnce with Nathen. “Does anyone else draw like that?”

  “You got to be kidding me. He’s around here too?”

  Vukosava tches on quickly. “I guess we’re special. John, follow Amber’s directions.”

  “We’re seriously going towards this creepy ass painter?” James splutters.

  “Unless you have a better idea. It seems Amber has a link to him.” Harley points out.

  “Shouldn’t we be concerned why she has said link?” It seems James is good at verbalising the group’s uncertainty. “What if this is some eborate trick by that dy of mist?”

  “It’s not capable of doing that. It’s more a force than a living thing.” Amber whispers gently. Her pencil is going over the paper again. “There’s nothing in it – it’s the end of everything we cherish.”

  Harley can see the pain written over the face of her friend. The wound is still raw – it’s not something you can get over quickly, even after the passage of sufficient time. Grief doesn’t have an end point; it keeps rolling on and on. With new obstacles to tackle. It never ends, Harley whispers to herself, it eats you up, never lets you go.

  “Harley!” Nathen snaps her out of her self-talk. She looks down at her hands, which are turning the colour of ash. It’s seeping in – the mist.

  For a moment, the spread stops – she can feel herself fading away. It wouldn’t take much for the car to flip over. To clear the kerb, to crash into a fence. To crash into someone. It’s whispering in her ear – talking to her. This dy of mist is delving into her mind, billowing through her defenses one by one.

  “Do not give up.” Amber turns with intensity, her eyes still shut. “Never give up.”

  “Yo, Amber, where are we going?”

  “Cut through the backyard, two houses, left!” Amber belts out an order.

  “I hope I have fucking insurance on this thing. Everyone, hang on.” John curses bitterly, already wincing at the potential damages he’ll be inflicting on it. Along with his parents giving him a stern, cutting lecture on proper etiquette on the road. “I’m going to ruin the paint job.”

  Vukosava merely gres at him.

  “I guess I didn’t love it that much anyway.” John mutters darkly. His head bangs into the roof, as he mounts the kerb. “Oh, fuck me.”

  The fence appears with sickening speed, he picks the weakest looking section of the fence, barreling through it with metallic links ripping and tearing away. Sparks flying like wildfire on either side, long scratches making their way down to the end of the vehicle. The backyard they’re tearing through is luxurious and spacious. Swimming pool, tennis court, and a firepit.

  Vukosava is checking the rear-view mirror.

  “Are we losing the thing?”

  “I don’t know if we can actually lose it – we’re in its domain. We have to punch our way out.”

  “What the hell does that mean?” James yelps at Vukosava.

  “We have to break free of the mist. The total surface area that it covered back then was the entirety of the ancient city, and some cases specified it went even further than that. Her ability to take a city in mist has only increased in power.” Vukosava is holding onto her seat firmly. “There’s another problem, silver cannot affect it in a meaningful way.”

  “So, our metaphorical silver firebrands cannot do anything at all?” Nathen is looking out his window, seeing the expansive backyard rush past.

  “No. There’s one thing we can do. But it requires Amber to get us out of this first.”

  Amber is getting more and more vigorous with her sketch.

  Suddenly, a loud bang erupts on their left side, almost sending the car toppling over. John strains on the wheel, trying to keep them going straight.

  “What the fuck was that?” Harley screeches.

  “Due to its control over mist – some stories and legends state that it can solidify it at will.”

  “Why doesn’t it just kill us?”

  “Because it’s power is tied to its hunger. We’re not the only ones trying to get out.” The whole world around them is fading. The silence is suffocating. Vukosava presses on firmly, staring each of them in the eye with plenty of ferocity. “This is the feeling that it wants to instill in us – that we cannot fight it’s pull, that we’ll be emptied. Made hollow.”

  The next spreading canvas belongs to the dy of mist. When Alise Cartwright was human, running through the darkness of the ancient city, desperate to bring about peace and justice for the sin. With paintings of joy and euphoria, lovers embracing, couples dancing, moments of bliss done in blood covering the walls. The silhouette standing at the centre of this chaos is taking shape. His garments were woven with intricate patterns, the dunes of the desert, the bark of the trees and trickling streams. It’s beautiful – capturing the naturalistic patterns of the world.

  “Right!” Amber shouts.

  John spins the wheel around sharply, tearing up the turf as the car skids.

  “Are you trying to help the mist bitch, John?” James yelps.

  Harley is looking over Amber’s shoulder; the silhouette is standing in the middle of a nightmarish camity. The painter is clearer now, a small and thin man, with a dark complexion, dark hair, and dark eyes. An intense man.

  “He’s almost here.” Amber whispers softly.

  “Who?”

  “Charles Derhert.” The rest of the tragedies that take up the pages, transition from dark and momentous to bright and jovial. A sense of foreboding travelling through years after his death, up to now, where Marcus died to the same man that killed Fodor Dresk. That’s one source of the link, one piece of their unity is that they both lost something precious, someone they cherished.

  The whole drawing is alive, the figures seem to move all on their own, their eyes opening and closing, their facial features going through the full emotional spectrum. Words spilling out from their lips.

  “There is a way to break free.” Amber says. “He’s helping us, there’s a path to follow.”

  It’s complete. The accursed piece is starting to bcken and burn away.

  “This darkness has been light by your conviction. I see that you are passionate objectors not taken by caution or contemption.” A male voice echoes through the car, for half a second Vukosava thinks it’s from the speaker. She looks over to John who’s straining with effort, wrangling the wheel like it’s a freshwater allegator. His knuckles white, arms shaking, bending over. His eyes widen in shock.

  “I am the one you call, the painter of nightmares.” Amber’s lips move. “I required a host.”

  “Let our friend go, sir.” Vukosava turns back, to see Amber floating in the air like a balloon.

  “I’m deeply sorry, but I can’t do that. If you wish to be liberated from this hell, then you must lend me your ears.” Two voices pass through Amber’s lips, hers and Charles. “I can reveal which paths not to take.”

  “You intend to help us?” Harley blusters.

  “I have no intention of standing aside.” Amber starts drawing with intense speed, inhuman. Car crashes, being turned into raisins, breaking down to dust. Horrific deaths. The pencil is going over the paper; their figures trapped in the car. With the monsters closing in. “My ally is the same way – the knight.”

  “All these roads delve into the mist. It seems we’ll be among the st to escape.”

  A long-spreading canvas billows outwards like the wing of a bird. More and more trails of canvas extend from Amber’s back. Harley is looking at it intently – the shadow of mist is the roadblock at the end of each of these paths.

  “How the fuck can we escape?” James screams.

  “It’s still spread thin.” Vukosava mutters aloud. “It’s powerful but there are limits to it.”

  “Could one of them be the real thing, the dy herself?” John asks.

  “With our ‘friend’ here we might not have that problem. He can see into the future. He’ll know what future to prevent.”

  They continue their mad drive, the car bucking and rattling over the ground.

  “So, Miss Genius in the front seat, is there a way we can actually fight that thing?” Harley barks.

  “There is one way. But it requires us to do the one thing we never should have done.” Vukosava doesn’t like this one bit, opening another portal guarantees more trouble.

  “Welcome more guys and gals to the party, what a fantastic idea.” John snaps. “Perfect.”

  “So, painter of nightmares, do you have some miraculous suggestion that we can go with?” Nathen asks.

  “The shadow exists beyond our current reality – but the portal, walking through dimensions. That’s something that we can control.”

  “You do realise this whole mess started because we did that, right?”

  “Life isn’t easy – but if lives are on the line, then the decision is always easy.”

  “You sound like an okay guy, how’d you end up having such a – brutal reputation?”

  “My paintings, my works, they were extensions of me – my prophetic dreams. They would speak to me – in the long hours of the night. Until the sun dawned.” Amber looks around the car, half her face belonging to the man. His sprawling canvases were curling around their body like a cloak. “I couldn’t stop curiosity from spreading, it’s a fire helped by oil – and when the walls around the city were marked with the blood of innocence and my paintings moved in ways they shouldn’t. It didn’t take long.”

  “You were marked as guilty of the crime – the creator of the paintings on those bloody walls.” Vukosava concludes hollowly. “That’s what you became.”

  “I saw the trail following dear Alise, I strove to save her. My mentor, Fodor Dresk perished, I could not bear to have that same fate inflicted upon her. But in the end, I failed her too. The final flicker of life, and what a sad ending it was.”

  A string of images and paint travel down the canvases, until one path becomes clear.

  “There’s one pce that the mist cannot reach.” Amber cries. “The water.”

  “We’re going for a swim?” John asks.

  -

  Theodora and Richard were long gone by the time the weather started throwing a fit with itself - turning into the mother of all storms. They couldn’t afford to lose the investigative research they did, not the countless hours spent staring at a screen going blind. It’s not long before the brother-and-sister duo start arguing.

  “C’mon Richard, we need to go back.”

  “Go back into that, no way, sis.” Richard remains on task, turning the wheel heading towards the greyer clouds. To freedom. “We’ve got to cut our losses.”

  “But what about our integrity, our fans, our subscribers?” Theodora grumbles loudly.

  “They can wait till st - we got our lives to worry about first.”

  “I can’t believe all this shit - first Patrick Hicks and his gang, then missing person cases one after another, now a freaking weather event. Something is screwing us over!” Theodora sms her fist against the window. She’s been like this for a while now, if this keeps up they’ll be steam pouring out of her ears. “You know what - that paranormal mystery gang of losers put a curse on us. I can guarantee it.”

  “On what evidence? They were talking funny?” Richard sighs heavily. His disappointment mirrors his sisters’, but he’s always been a fraction more calm than his sibling. Their parents call them stress and more stress. “Waving hand signs in their car over a doll?”

  “I don’t believe this supernatural crap, but they’re on my shit list.” Theodora throws herself back into her seat.

  “They lost people, Theodora. I guess everyone deals with loss in their own way.”

  “Where are we going next?” Theodora takes a breath.

  “I’d say we continue focusing on gang activity. Patrick Hicks, Harry Devins, Andy Vandaji and Samus Evans. They remain our targets.” Richard suggests lightly.

  “Now you’re speaking my nguage.” The duo of trouble race towards the light, their minds set on bringing the four thugs to their own brand of justice on YouTube.