"The Shadow In The Mist"

 

The narrow road curved like a ribbon through the mist-covered hills, its edges vanishing into the fog that clung to the mountains like a living thing. The air was cold, sharp with pine and damp earth, and the only sounds were the steady hum of the car and Eli’s enthusiastic humming — completely off-key, of course.

Zane Faulkner leaned against the back seat window, collar turned up, his eyes half-lidded with quiet amusement. “You’re humming a funeral march, Eli,” he said lazily.

Eli turned from the passenger seat with a grin. “It’s not a funeral march! It’s... festive. You just have no taste.”

“Festive?” Lyra raised an eyebrow from behind the wheel. “It sounds like a dying accordion.”

“Rude.” Eli scoffed. “Can’t a man hum when he's happy? This place is paradise. No crime, no conspiracies, no locked-room murders. Just... fog and chai.”

Zane smiled faintly. “Give it time.”

They arrived at a small wooden cottage perched on the edge of a slope, surrounded by forest and silence. The cottage belonged to an old friend of Zane’s — now retired — who insisted they use it for a few days. A quiet getaway. A chance to breathe.

The three of them spent the day exploring the hills, walking through trails lined with mossy stones and trees hunched like old men whispering in the fog. There was laughter. Teasing. Eli tripped over a rock and claimed he was “testing gravity.” Lyra rolled her eyes. Zane simply watched — always calm, always observing, like he was filing every moment away for later.

As night crept in, the fog thickened and a bite returned to the air. The trio wandered into a local tea shack near the edge of the village — a humble place with wooden benches, rusted lanterns, and the rich smell of cardamom and wet leaves. It was the kind of place where time forgot to move.

They sat outside, warm cups in hand, the mist swirling under the dim yellow light.

“This is perfect,” Eli declared, sipping noisily. “Exactly what I needed. No danger, no madness — just me, my tea, and... whatever this fried thing is.” He poked at a questionable snack.

“You eat like a raccoon,” Lyra muttered.

Eli grinned. “And proud of it.”

Zane’s attention was elsewhere. His eyes followed the shapes moving behind the fog, the distant flicker of a torchlight, the low mutter of villagers somewhere beyond the shack.

A young waiter — barely twenty — approached with a shy smile. “More tea, sir?”

Eli perked up. “Absolutely! And maybe you can tell us something interesting about this place while you're at it. Any local ghost stories?”

The boy hesitated.

Lyra smirked. “Scared him already.”

“No, it’s just...” The waiter glanced over his shoulder, then leaned closer. His voice dropped. “There is something. But people don’t talk about it. Especially not at night.”

Zane’s eyes sharpened, though his expression remained amused.

Eli leaned forward. “Now you have to tell us.”

The boy swallowed. “There’s a cave. About a mile up, past the old cedar grove. They say something lives in it. Something... angry.”

Lyra raised an eyebrow. “An animal?”

“No one knows. No one sees it. But everyone hears it.” The boy looked around again, as if the fog had ears. “People go missing. Tourists. A local boy once dared to go near it. Gone. Just... gone. No screams. No sign. Nothing.”

Zane set his cup down slowly. “What’s it called?”

The boy hesitated. “They call it Chaaya Gufa... The Shadow Cave.”

Eli chuckled nervously. “Great. A misty hill station with a place literally named after shadows. Sounds completely safe.”

“Why don’t the police do anything?” Lyra asked.

“They sent people once. Years ago. The men never came back.”

There was silence for a few seconds.

Then Zane smiled. “Well. I was getting bored anyway.”

That night, the fog thickened like milk poured into water. The forest around their cottage groaned with the wind, and somewhere in the distance — barely audible — came a low, hollow howl. Almost... inhuman.

Eli lay curled in a blanket, wide awake. “Did anyone else hear that?”

Zane, seated by the window, nodded. “Yes.”

“Why aren’t you freaking out?!”

“Because it came from outside the cave.”

“That’s not better!”

Lyra was already dressing. “Someone in the village reported a missing man.”

Zane turned from the window, face unreadable. “It begins.”

The next morning, they reached the village square. A crowd had gathered around an old woman sobbing into her scarf. Her nephew — a local guide — had not returned from his morning hike.

Zane moved quietly among them, picking up whispers. Lyra spoke to the woman gently. Eli stayed close, arms crossed.

“Second disappearance this month,” a man whispered. “The mist is angry again.”

Zane knelt near a patch of ground where a faint footprint was barely visible in the mud. But it stopped — suddenly — as if the man had vanished mid-step. No dragging. No animal prints. Just... nothing.

They reached the edge of the forest trail. The cedar grove loomed like a cathedral of giants. The deeper they went, the more the air seemed to shift — heavier, stiller. The birds stopped singing. Even Eli fell silent.

Finally, they saw it.

The mouth of the cave was narrow and jagged, like a wound carved into the hillside. The ground around it was dead — no grass, no moss, no life. Just stone and silence.

Lyra scanned it with her tracker. “No radiation. No heat. Nothing.”

Zane crouched near the entrance. The rocks bore faint scratches — too high for any animal. And symbols. Faded, almost erased by time, but still faintly visible. Triangular patterns. Claw marks embedded in geometric formations.

“Language?” Eli asked.

Lyra frowned. “None I recognize.”

They didn’t enter. Not yet.

Instead, they marked the area, collected samples, and returned to the cottage. That night, Lyra began cross-referencing the symbols. Eli paced.

Zane stood alone on the porch, watching the fog pulse like a living thing.

Later that night, a sound woke them.

A low growl — not animal, not human — echoing from the direction of the cave.

Zane grabbed his coat. “Stay here,” he said to Eli.

Eli shook his head. “Not a chance.”

Lyra loaded a small stun device. “We’re going.”

They moved through the fog like shadows, feet silent, breath visible. When they reached the cave this time, something was different.

The mist around the entrance moved — swirled inward, like being inhaled.

Then they saw it.

Just a shape — massive, crouched, eyes like embers — barely visible in the fog. It didn’t roar. It didn’t charge. It simply turned its head... and stared.

Eli froze. Lyra gasped. Zane stepped forward.

The creature vanished into the darkness, soundless.

Zane turned. “We go back. Now.”

They didn’t speak for hours.

Lyra finally said, “That... wasn’t an animal.”

Zane nodded. “No. And it doesn’t match any known creature — prehistoric, mythological, extraterrestrial... nothing.”

“Then what was it?”

Zane didn’t answer.

Instead, he opened his notebook and began sketching the triangular pattern from the cave wall.

Lyra watched him. “You think it’s ancient?”

He glanced at her. “I think it’s older than ancient.”

                   

                         **************

The fire crackled softly in the cottage's hearth. Outside, the wind howled like a warning. Lyra sat cross-legged on the floor, books and devices spread around her like a digital ritual. Eli stood at the window, arms folded tight against his chest, staring into the dark mist that pressed against the glass.

“I ran every scan I could,” Lyra muttered. “No heat signature. No movement sensors. Nothing shows up near the cave — not even birds.”

Zane stood silent at the table, studying the cave’s triangular markings he had drawn earlier. His fingers lightly tapped the side of a pencil.

“It’s not from our time,” he said at last. “And maybe not even from our world.”

Eli turned. “You’re saying it's... alien?”

Zane shook his head. “No. Worse. It's unknown. Something that doesn’t exist in any taxonomy — animal, myth, folklore, or fantasy. A true anomaly.”

Lyra leaned in. “But it has form. It has weight. It left claw marks. It looked... real.”

“Real things don’t disappear into thin air,” Eli added. “And they don’t drain fog into themselves.”

There was silence.

Then Zane spoke, voice low. “I’m going back.”

“What?” Lyra blinked.

“You saw it. That... thing. It didn’t attack. It waited. Observed. Like it was... thinking.”

“You’re not going alone,” Lyra said quickly.

“I won’t let you,” Eli added, trying to sound brave.

Zane gave a rare smile. “You two will stay at the base of the trail. If I don’t return in 30 minutes — leave.”

“No.” Lyra stood. “This thing is beyond all of us. If something happens to you—”

“Then you need to live to tell the story.”

His tone was calm. But final.

Fog hung low over the trees as Zane made his way back to the cave, flashlight in one hand, a short blade in the other — forged from an experimental alloy Lyra had developed. It was designed to withstand plasma temperatures. Today, it would face something stranger than fire.

The forest was quiet. Not even the wind whispered. No crickets. No rustling. Just silence.

Then — the cave.

Its entrance was wider now. Or maybe the fog had tricked his eyes before.

He stepped in.

The inside was unnaturally cold. Not icy — empty. As if the air itself had forgotten how to move. The walls were lined with the same triangular markings — etched in chaotic directions, like they had been carved in pain. At the far end, there was a pit — a jagged hole that went down, sloping into nothingness.

Zane knelt beside it.

And that’s when it came.

Not a roar.

Not a scream.

Just... presence.

Something behind him. Massive. Breathing.

He turned slowly.

It stood tall now — twice his height — cloaked in smoke and muscle and shapes that didn’t belong on any living thing. Its face — if it had one — was a shifting mask of shadows. But two burning red points locked onto Zane.

It didn’t charge.

It spoke.

Not in words.

In thought.

A sensation in his mind, like metal grinding on glass.

YOU DO NOT BELONG.

Zane’s body tensed. He gripped the blade. “Neither do you.”

The creature surged.

Zane moved fast — faster than anyone should. The blade slashed across something that sparked like dark lightning. The creature recoiled — shrieked without sound — and lunged again.

It was not a fight. It was survival.

Zane danced around it, eyes calculating, movements precise. The blade sliced again — this time deeper — and the creature screamed, the cave vibrating with unnatural frequency.

Then Zane noticed something:

The symbols on the wall began to glow.

A pulse. A rhythm.

The creature hesitated — as if in pain.

Zane stepped closer, lifted the blade high, and with one brutal strike — plunged it into the center of its chest.

Light exploded.

Fog sucked inward violently.

The creature let out a final shudder —

And vanished into ash and silence.

30 minutes later...

Zane emerged from the forest, bruised, pale, but standing.

Eli rushed forward. “Are you—?!”

“Alive,” Zane said simply.

Lyra stared at him. “Did you see it again?”

Zane nodded. “And ended it.”

“But... what was it?” Eli whispered.

Zane looked toward the cave, now sealed with collapsed stone and dirt. “Nothing this world remembers.”

Two days later, they packed to leave. The air was lighter now. The mist thinner.

But Lyra couldn’t shake the feeling that they had only scratched the surface.

Back in the cottage, she flipped through one of her ancient folklore books — a rare, near-illegible copy she had once rescued from a ruined archive in Cairo.

On the very last page — barely visible in faded gold — she saw a triangle.

With claw marks.

She froze.

Below it, in old hieroglyphic script, was a fragment of translation:

“The Silent Ones who dwelled before names. Banished beneath earth. Marked by the mist.”

Her hand trembled slightly.

“Zane…” she called out.

But he was already standing behind her.

He saw it.

And for the first time in a long while...

He said nothing.

THE END