Day 13,

It’s the first time I’ve seen the sky all grey and overcast like this.  Normally any rain or storms around here come on quick and then clear up just as suddenly.  There’s a low mist hanging on the ground too.

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The nature sprite kept holding the doors shut when I tried to leave the house this morning.  I ended up climbing out a window.

I suspect this mist is another odd island phenomenon.  I would have expected it to clear up as the morning went on and the sun warmed things up, but it’s only gotten thicker.  When I left it was just a low haze covering the ground, but by the time I reached the library you could barely see across the street.  When I tried stepping out for lunch a few minutes ago I couldn’t see any further than my outstretched arm.  I think I’ll be taking my lunch in here again afterall.

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I’m spending tonight in the home of a new acquaintance of mine.  Vernon is his name.  The same young man that came to seek Elder Pat’s counsel the other day whom I met in passing.

I suppose some context is in order.  Around the time I usually close up the library and leave for the day the mist started clearing up, visibly thinning as I watched it for a few minutes.  Figuring at the rate it was going it’d be mostly clear by the time I got to the edge of town I made the mistake of trying to return home as usual.

Within minutes of my departure the mist rapidly came back strong as ever.  It should come as no surprise that I soon became hopelessly turned around.  By now I’d realized that returning to the house was out of the question and was attempting to retrace my steps back to the library.

By the time the unseen sun was down and I was relying on my lantern crystal to see even the limited view the mist allowed me, I still had not made it back.  To make matters worse, the villagers had seemingly all shuttered their windows against the mist this night, or else they were keeping their crystals covered.  Either way, no residential rainbow lit the road this night.

Just as I was getting worried enough to consider knocking on someone’s door for assistance, I thought I spied a familiar landmark signifying an intersection not too far from the library.  Thinking that I’d be able to use it to reorient myself and find my way from there in short order, I made my way over.

And then, in the center of the crossroads, at the edge of my lantern light I saw it.  At first I thought it was a villager, lost out in the mist like me, and I called out to them.  But then I realized they carried no lantern.  And then it turned towards me.  Its face was a featureless black plane save for the eyes - perfectly round glowing points similar to those of the nature sprite.  There was a wrongness to the thing’s movements as it approached me, alternatingly stiffly jerking its limbs and moving its whole body all at once in a smooth glide, its vaguely human form never getting more distinct despite getting closer in the mist.

I ran, of course.  And then nearly ran into another of the entities as it congealed from the mist in front of me.  Around this point I began panicking.  The obvious, rational thing to do would have been to try to get into one of the houses.  The villagers by all signs knew well enough to stay off the streets while the mist was out and had survived this long.  Of course, when you’re in the grip of a panic attack rational thought rarely enters into the equation, or if it does it’s in a distant back corner of your mind that’s screaming in frustration and despair as your body does the opposite of what it’s desperately trying to tell it to.  And so I just kept running and dodging around the shadowy figures standing around in the fog, all of them unearthly still until I alerted them to my presence after which they began following in my wake.  Thinking only of distance I blindly ran on, only dimly registering that I was making things worse by attracting attention.  Up until I blindly ran into a door.

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Stumbling backwards to the ground from the impact I dropped my lantern, heard a crack, and saw the crystal pop out of its housing and roll away.  Watching it, still stunned, I saw the approaching shades smother its light.

I scrambled to the door I’d just run into, using it to help prop myself up back to my feet.  I heard a click and fell over once again, this time in the other direction as the door opened inward.  I vaguely noted hands grabbing me and pulling me the rest of the way in, the sound of the door slamming back shut, and a voice saying… something.  I was too busy trying not to pass out from hyperventilating to process the words.

Eventually I calmed down enough to become properly aware of my surroundings.  I was on the floor of someone’s home.  A bit smaller than Norman and Marva’s.  The light in here had a blue tinge to it, more saturated than the archive.  And standing over me with a worried look on his face asking if I was alright was the bespectacled gentleman I’d seen about town but never really talked to.  His signature dapper coat was on a rack nearby.

Gathering my wits I told him I was now and thanked him.  He introduced himself as Vernon.  He already knew who I was by reputation.  He asked what I was doing out on a shade night.  I told him I didn’t know what a shade night was.  This surprised him that no one would have explained something that important to me.

Twice a month - usually around the full and new moons but it can vary several days in either direction - the mists appear during the day.  And then as night falls the nighttime shades rise.  They won’t enter into homes or anywhere else free of mist, but if they find a human, living or dead, they’ll claim them and take them back to the Catacomb Depths where the dead dwell.  It’s been decades since the last time someone living was claimed.  Everyone’s taught from the time they’re old enough to walk not to venture out on a mist day.  The only times anyone ever stays out past morning on one of those days are funerals for the recently deceased, leaving the body for the shades to lay to rest at the end of the ceremony.

The two of us could only guess that no one told me because they all either assumed someone else did, assumed I had the sense to stay out of obvious creepy mist, or simply never thought to mention something that’s such a basic part of life that everyone knows so it slips into the background.

My host split the dinner he had been preparing when he heard me outside (“Shades don’t knock” he commented) and we spent the remainder of the evening chatting, him mostly taking the lead of the conversation to help get my mind off of what I just went through.  He’s a charmingly pleasant sort.  He told me a bit more about himself and his role in the Village, but I’m too tired right now to recount it all.

Given that the shades will be outside until morning (and peeking out the window we could see that the whole pack I’d drawn to Vernon’s door was still there) he offered me a place to sleep for the night.  I had some concerns spending the night with a man I’d just met, but he appears to in fact be a gentleman through and through.  I just checked on him to find him snoring on a pile of blankets out in the living room while I’m in his bed.  “A gentleman is, not does,” as they say.  I think that’s a saying anyway.

Well, I think I’ve written enough to still my mind for now.  Going back to bed to try to get to sleep again.

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