Leaving the house was like stepping out of a tomb and into a ghost. The fog was a living thing, thick and wet, clinging to them with a possessive chill. It swallowed the world, erasing distances and muffling sound until the only thing Lio could hear was the squelch of their own boots in the sodden earth and the frantic, papery rustle of his father's maps.
Ira led the charge, a caricature of a bold explorer. He held his satchel of lies to his chest like a holy relic, stopping every fifty feet to consult a chart that was likely redrawing itself in the damp darkness. "Aha!" he'd exclaim, pointing his finger at a blank expanse of fog. "According to the pre Pulse ordnance survey of 1998, there should be a footpath just beyond this… theoretical copse of trees."
Lio translated this for what it was: "We're lost."
His mother, Sera, trailed behind them, a study in silent endurance. She hadn't spoken a word since they'd left. Instead, she occasionally reached out to touch things they passed—a strangely bent fence post, a moss covered stone—with a tenderness that unnerved Lio. It wasn't the tentative touch of discovery; it was the sad, familiar caress of recognition. It was as if she were greeting old friends she knew she was seeing for the last time.
It was Mina who brought their shambling procession to a halt. She stood stock still, head cocked, listening to something only she could hear.
"What is it?" Ira asked, his patience already as thin as his waterlogged maps. "Mina, we don't have time for games."
"He's giving directions," Mina said, pointing a tiny finger to her left, where a barely there trail snaked into an even thicker bank of fog. "He says the path to the right is grumpy today. And muddy."
Ira let out a huff of pure frustration. "And what else does your… consultant have to say? Does he have an opinion on the atmospheric pressure? Perhaps a critique of my route planning?"
Mina ignored him, her brow furrowed in concentration. "He wants to know if Papa remembered to lock the door. He says it's drafty at the bottom of the ocean."
A cold spiderweb of dread traced its way down Lio's spine. It was the casual, domestic detail that made it so horrifying.
"That's enough," Ira snapped. "We're not taking directions from… from the air."
"But he says you'll need your compass," Mina insisted, her voice unwavering. "The good one. The brass one you lost." She pointed toward the gnarled roots of an ancient looking tree, half swallowed by the marshy ground. "He says you dropped it there last time. It's under the big root that looks like a snake."
Ira froze. His hand went instinctively to his pocket, then came away empty. He had been complaining about losing his favorite compass—a heavy, reliable brass instrument from his father—for weeks. He'd torn the sinking house apart looking for it.
"Don't be ridiculous," he said, but his voice lacked conviction. His eyes were locked on the snake like root.
"He's getting impatient," Mina warned. "He says if you don't get it, the Hollows will."
The word hung in the air, ugly and sharp. Hollows. A name Lio had only heard in fearful whispers from other desperate families they'd passed, a name associated with fog and stolen memories.
Sera's head snapped up. For the first time, she looked directly at Mina, her expression a mixture of terror and something that looked horribly like pity.
Lio, his heart thudding against his ribs, couldn't stand it. He walked over to the tree, knelt in the sucking mud, and plunged his hand into the cold, wet space beneath the root. His fingers brushed against something small, round, and metallic. He pulled it out.
It was the brass compass. It was caked in fresh mud, but otherwise unharmed.
He held it up. The silence that followed was absolute, broken only by a single, mournful drip from a high, unseen branch.
Ira stared at the compass in his son's hand as if it were a venomous snake. The first real crack appeared on his face—not just frustration, but a fissure of genuine, soul shaking fear. He snatched the compass from Lio, wiping the mud away with a shaking thumb, refusing to meet anyone's eyes. He didn't say thank you. He didn't acknowledge Mina. He simply turned and, without another word, started down the left hand path—the one the ghost had recommended.
As they followed, Lio looked at his little sister. The fog swirled around her, and for a moment, it felt like she wasn't his sister at all, but a small, solemn messenger for the broken world itself, a crack in their reality through which terrifying truths were beginning to leak.