Taken

Steve had never seen fog like this.

He stood at the border of the glade, boots planted in wet grass, his hand resting on the hilt of a pocket knife he didn't remember drawing. The air was cold and colourless, heavy with the scent of rain that never fell. The others whispered behind him, their voices thin as birdsong, but he hardly heard them. His duty was to watch the place where Her Grace had gone.

The place where reality seemed to have torn.

He did not understand what had happened in the day since she disappeared, only that she had taken the young man, Joey, with her. Since she found him it had become evident to Steve that she was as dedicated to Joey as Steve was to her.

The time away from her had given Steve a chance to think about his place in the world, a man made to serve his mistress. But if she was committed to serving Joey, to being subservient to the young man, then Steve would follow suit. He felt no shame in it, no regret as to how his life would be lived out. It was only natural for Steve to follow Elorae wherever she led, and if that path terminated at the feet of Joey, then Steve was happy to walk it.

Not that it mattered if neither of them returned from where they had vanished.

And now something had, indeed, entered into the world through the space between realities, but it was not Her Highness, nor was it her liege. This strange fog, only moments earlier, had begun to pour out, and now it was slowly spreading. But that wasn't the worst of it.

At first he had thought the pale look of the world in the mist was a trick of the light. Now, after staring for a few minutes, it was clear that it was something else entirely. The colour of parchment. The colour of forgetting.

He felt it even before he saw it move.

A shift in the air, a subtle wrongness—like a note struck just out of tune. The others felt it too. Donna had gathered everyone close to the fire. Serena and Indira huddled together, their eyes darting toward the fog. Eliza stood stiffly near the tents, her heels sinking into the earth, her mouth moving silently in prayer. Bianca stared, pale and open-mouthed, as though watching a storm approach across the sea.

Steve didn't pray. He watched.

Part of him wanted to run. Part of him, the much bigger part, knew he would stay until the end.

From the corner of his eye, two figures appeared between the trees—Madison and Aynsley, carrying an armful of branches each. They froze when they saw the fog.

"What is that?" Aynsley whispered.

"Girls, stay back!" Donna called from the other side of the clearing. "Don't touch it, whatever you do!"

Madison's face had gone pale. “We don't go near it," she instructed her best friend.

They dropped the wood and hurried around the clearing toward the others, their boots whispering over the grass.

The fog pulsed once, like the slow beat of a heart.

Steve felt his heart skip a beat, a mixture of panic and hope. For a moment he thought he saw something within it—light, faint and trembling, like sunlight through water. Then it was gone. Only the pale, silent cloud remained, creeping outward inch by inch.

"Watch out, it's getting closer!" he barked, raising one hand instinctively.

The women stared at him, startled. He barely noticed. His mind was on his mistress. He was no fool. Steve knew that in a **** one's imagination could play tricks, but in that moment, staring at the throbbing fog, he could almost feel Elorae's power. A familiar tingle that he had felt from her in the past. On their first meeting, when she first met Joey, when she had gifted him with her loving touch outside of Joey's house, each time he'd sensed... something. And now that something seemed to be closer, in flashes, in brief moments that made him miss her even more.

But the fog was changing.

It no longer looked like fog. The air shimmered at its edges, the way heat distorts distance. It had taken on a more aggressive texture, a roiling and bubbling, as if it were gathering energy for something.

The women saw it too.

Eliza gasped and pressed a hand to her heart. Serena's lips parted, whispering something Steve couldn't catch. Donna took one hesitant step forward before forcing herself still.

And then the sound began—a soft, impossible harmony that wasn't quite music. It came from nowhere, or everywhere, vibrating in their bones. Steve felt it crawl up through the soles of his feet. It sounded like a voice he knew and loved.

Her voice.

"Your Worship…" he whispered, trembling. "Is that you?"

The fog answered with movement. A ripple ran through it, gentle but inexorable. The shimmer brightened. For an instant Steve saw Elorae's eyes—vast, luminous, filled with terror and pain—and then the light leapt outward.

The women cried out.

One by one, threads of light unfurled from the fog, finding them like lines cast across a river. Each thread touched a woman's chest and sank in. Indira first, then Serena, then Juniper, who reached for her mother's hand but was already fading. Donna's scream tore the air, but she too dissolved—colour draining from her skin, her form melting into brilliance.

"Stop!" Steve shouted. "Stop! Leave them! Take me!"

But the fog cared not for his words. It boiled and reached, grabbing and thrusting for anyone that wasn't Steve. The air around each of them shivered and folded inward. Their bodies flickered, their outlines thinning, until there was nothing left but ripples in the fog.

Aynsley vanished clutching Madison's hand. Bianca went silently, her eyes wide in wonder. Eliza's voice whispered one last word—Joey—and then she too was gone.

And then there was only Steve.

The clearing was empty. The fire hissed softly, unattended. The fog glowed, pulsing faintly as if satisfied. Somewhere within it, he thought he heard distant laughter—or crying—or both.

Steve took one step backward. Then another. His knife trembled in his hand. The fog followed, slow and patient, rolling toward him like the tide.

"Your Grace," he murmured, "command me."

No answer came.

He backed away until his heel struck a fallen branch. He stumbled, caught himself, and stared helplessly at the clearing that had once held them all.

The world was silent.

And the fog kept coming.