The Hunt for the Wasting Miasma

Would your character try to keep others from going back into the fog?

Roe panicked as the swirling mist crept forwards, engulfing her in its cloud of dreams. She sucked in one last clean breath of air and closed her eyes. Time to focus. Her solution was to hold her breath for as long as she could so she could stumble out of the darkness and back into the open space. However, the fog had seeped even further forward and had obscured her vision of the path ahead. She could no longer see the grassy hill or the big white medical tent at the top of it. She could hear muffled screams of others and the scuffling of hooves as others were trying to flee. Hesitantly, she stuck out her left leg, feeling around blindly in front of her. Once sure there was nothing ahead, she took a step. Tentatively, she made agonisingly slow progress forwards, her ears constantly flicking left and right to listen for sounds of someone who may be able to help. Holding her breath sounded like a good idea at the time as a quick solution to her problem but her lungs were screaming for oxygen now. Her face was crinkled with pain, her lips squeezing together as tightly as they could. Hurry...hurry. She tried to quicken her pace, throwing her legs forward now in a high-stepped walk like one of those dancing Spanish horses. It was going well until she crashed into a wall. The speedy pace meant she had no time to react to her hoof touching the brick and the rest of her body continued in motion so she face-planted the wall. As her body crumpled to the floor, Roe let go of her breath, taking a big gulp of contaminated air. Uh oh...

Within seconds, the monster's magic began to take over her brain. The heavy fog surrounding her began to swirl and dance, shadow creatures appearing left and right. They all whizzed around, Roe's eyes darting this way and then that way as she tried to catch a glimpse of a face or a distinguishing feature.

"Hello?"

She called out to them, her body wanting to follow them. She felt an overwhelming sense of pull like metal attracted to a magnet. Seemingly, her body now floated. Feet off the ground, she followed the bodies down different paths, the pull getting stronger and stronger the closer she became. A sudden flash of brightness made the little deer pull her face away quickly, shielding her eyes from the light. The brightness dimmed to a average spring-day atmosphere. She dropped her arm, her eyes adjusting to the scene in front of her. She couldn't believe what she was seeing. She...she was home. She stood on the main path through her village. One side was a large grassy area where children played, their laughter filling the air with innocent joy. The other was a deep canal. Boats were moored on the embankment, bobbing up and down with the ever so slight current on this fair day. This path led to this little corner shop. It sold everything you could ever possibly need. It was so tiny but so large at the same time, especially when you were so little like she had been. Last time she had walked this path, she'd been a mere fawn, side by side with her parents. Tears welled up as the sadness hit her. This was the very last memory she had of home before she was sent away to live at The Order to harness her magical powers. She turned her head to look behind her because, at the other end of the path was her childhood house. But a house was not what she saw. Instead, stepping out of the light, were her parents. They looked just as they had the day she'd left - they hadn't aged a day. No grey hairs or wrinkle lines. They wore smiles that stretched from ear to ear as they approached her and Roe could no longer hold back the tears she was fighting. Her mother reached her first, embracing her in a hug. The warmth of her body made this all feel so real. It was a strong, heavy hug - an apology hug. No words between them could have explained what that hug did. As her mother released, her father then stepped in and took over, enveloping her in a larger-than-life bear grip. Roe suddenly became that small 2 year old fawn once again. The one before she was put on the back of a wagon. The one before they stood on their doorstep and waved her goodbye. The one before she was dropped off at The Order's Academy and thrust into this life she didn't want. She pulled away from their embrace, now angry at them being here after all this time. She wanted to berate them, scream at them for what they had done to her. But she couldn't bring herself to say a single word. Instead, a question formed inside her mind.

"Why now?"

The question sounded not quite right for a moment, her voice sounding wobbly and off-pitch. She took a deep breath, intaking a little more dreaminess. The birdsong tweaked, coming back into focus. She repeated herself, this time sounding clearer...realer.

"Hush now, my sweet child. No need to dwell. We are here now and that's all that matters. Come. Walk with us."

Just as they had when she had been a little girl, they each took a side, standing shoulder to shoulder with her. The vague answer to her question was still somehow comforting to Roe and she accepted their response. They set off walking, the feeling of weightlessness still lingering as they floated out of the scene and into another. Now, they walked up the long, writhing path of her childhood home. Her parents were successful mages. Her father worked in the Ivratian Navy and was constantly called away when a new assignment came in. She had very few memories with her father in them as, even when he wasn't on the ship, he spent the majority of his time in Faline, always battle-ready. Her mother had also been a very high ranking member of society as one of the Royal Council but she had stepped away from her position when she fell pregnant. It was always the reason that Roe thought she'd been abandoned for. They obviously hated the fact that she had ruined their lives. Roe never knew if her mother went back to the council after she was sent away. They wrote letters when they could be bothered but they were often short and very void of any personal detail about them. She had enjoyed receiving them at first, always excited when the mail was handed out at breakfast time in the cafeteria. Despite the short letters, her replies were always long and detailed, sometimes extending over two or three pages. After a while, they became tiresome and Roe began to realise they were only writing because they felt obligated to do so. Her replies became shorter too.

Due to their high status within the mages, their house was highly secure. The house sat alone, surrounded by a large, intimidating wall. The gates were equally large wrought iron with the little spear tips on top to deter those who thought they could scale it. The house itself was large but traditionally styled. It's yellowed walls were slowly being eaten by ivy. The thatched roof was well groomed and tidy. It had a small front garden that was well kept and blooming with a multitude of colours from a variety of different flowers. Hanging from the front door was a weathered old wreath, older than Roe could ever think of. Nothing had changed. It was all how Roe remembered it.

"Home."

"Yes, you are home."

Her parents turned to face her now.

"You should stay forever. We were wrong to ever send you away."

A sickening feeling swelled in Roe's chest. Stay? She stepped back and they matched her stride, following her. Do you know how long she had wished for those words? How long she had prayed for a letter to come telling her to pack her bags and come home? How she wished her parents had told her to stay when The Order demanded for her to be sent to the academy? If they had said those words when she had wanted to hear them, she wouldn't of missed out on that opportunity. But now? Something just wasn't sitting right with her. Everything about this just wasn't adding up in her head and she couldn't shake the funny, icky feeling she had. They had had 20 years to say that and they had made no attempt to. They wouldn't be saying that now.

"No."

Roe began to squirm now, stepping backwards even more. Their voices were gooey and twisted.

"You can't say no to us! We are your family!"

As she reversed, her parents chased her forward but their features began to twist and blur. The house had now disappeared into the mist. Her parents had faded back into the shadow creatures she had followed what felt like a lifetime ago. Roe turned on her heel and began to run. Running and running through the darkness, memorising every turn she had taken back to the spot she had come from. The shadow creatures chased her, hunting her down now to shroud her back into the dream where they could control her. There! There, on the floor! There, on the floor, was her crumbled, lifeless body that she had left behind to follow an impossible happily ever after. She leapt into the air, stretching out over the distance. The mist stirred around her, helplessly grasping at her to try and slow her down but she was unstoppable now and...BAM!

Her eyes shot open and she shot up onto her feet with a fear she had never felt before. Her body twisted around and she galloped blindly forwards. Her strides ate up the ground until she burst through the clouds into the light. A clear view of what she had left behind faced her now and Roe threw herself on the floor. Too stunned to speak, the doe just lay there for a moment, heaving heavily as she tried to suck in as much clear air as she could to clear her head. The faces of her parents haunted her, their lips moving as if shouting something at her but their voices had been silenced. No no no no no. They aren't real. They aren't real. They aren't real. Now she understood Seb and his constant 'it's my fault' jibberish. He'd obviously seen something - or someone - that he hadn't wanted to see.

She sat up and looked around. Since her maddening vision, even more had fought their way out. Some were screaming. Some were weeping. Some were trying to fight their way back into Mead, shouting about how they couldn't let that perfect life slip away. One such person won their fight and scampered back into the village to comatose themselves back into the dream world. These people needed help. She had no time to dwell on the nightmare that she had been subjected to. With a grunt, she arose. Even though she couldn't see it, she knew it was there. Ivy. There was ivy covering almost every building in Ivras and there was no limitation to its lengths which meant there was no limitation for Roe. She closed her eyes and imagined the ivy growing, reaching out from building to building and intertwining with one another to create a fortress in front of the entrances. She wouldn't be able to successfully contain the whole village nor would she be able to prevent the monster's escape if it tried but it would cause a disruption to those determined to sink back into the warped dream state. As one entrance closed up, she moved on to the next. With every magical cast, it was like having a ram slam its horns into her ribcage over and over and over again. Eventually, it all became too painful for the little deer and she sank to the floor. She panted heavily as if she had just run a marathon, completely overwhelmed with a mix of sadness, fear, pain, exhaustion and confusion. Nearly half the entrances were now closed off. This was good for those who were trying to get back in but, for those locked inside the hell that Mead had become, this was just another obstacle for them to hurdle over if they could. For now, Roe had done all she could and it was now time for her to rest as much as she could. It wasn't like she wanted to rest, to be completely honest. Yes, the magic use was a painful, tiring struggle for her and she hated every second but it was so worth it when she was actually helping those who needed it. She felt useful and wanted! Lying down and taking a nap was only going to show her weaknesses to those around her and make them shun her from the action. Another reason she didn't want to rest because she didn't want to reflect on the nightmarish cloud of vision that had gripped a hold of her. It had all felt so real. It was almost idyllic. Until it wasn't. If she hadn't already hung up the hope of her family ever wanting anything to do with her, she would have fallen into the trap. What could have happened if she had accepted their invitation to stay? Dread was the only word to describe what Roe thought of to the answer of that question. No, she couldn't focus on that right now. Maybe after the mayhem had simmered and the monster had been defeated could she then look back and think of the what ifs. Right now, it was time to get ready for the next wave of problems.