The fog hadn't lifted.
Rem woke to the same oppressive white pressing in around the wagon, visibility ending at the same twenty feet it had the day before. She couldn't quite remember falling asleep or how long she'd been unconscious, just that her body felt rested .
She sat up slowly, finding Altaria already awake beside her with copper hair somehow perfectly arranged despite sleeping rough. The priestess smiled at her, gathering her blanket in quick efficient movements.
"Morning," Altaria said softly. "The others are already breaking camp."
Morning? Rem's mind tried to grasp what that meant, tried to calculate how many hours had passed since they'd settled down to sleep, but the timeline felt slippery like trying to hold water in cupped hands. She climbed out of the wagon to find Kaisen hitching the timber beast while Elise packed supplies into neat bundles, both of them moving through the routine like they'd done it a thousand times.
"Sleep well?" Kaisen asked when he noticed her, his smile easy.
"Fine," Rem managed, her throat tight with wrongness she couldn't articulate. "How was the watch?"
"Quiet," Elise answered instead, tying off a supply pack "Nothing happened all night. The fog just sat there like a wall."
Rem's stomach churned. Something about that felt wrong, deeply wrong, but when she tried to examine why, the thought slipped away and she found herself nodding like it made perfect sense. Of course nothing had happened. They were safe here, weren't they?
They ate a quick breakfast of dried rations, the same food they'd had last night tasting somehow different in her mouth. Or maybe it was the same, she couldn't quite remember what they'd eaten before. The fog swallowed all sense of time, made everything feel like it was happening in the same eternal moment stretching in all directions. It was fuzzy.
"Ready?" Kaisen asked, climbing onto the wagon seat.
Rem nodded, settling into her spot beside Altaria in the back while Elise took her usual position up front. The timber beast started forward with a low rumbling sound, pulling them deeper into the white nothing that surrounded them on all sides.
They had decided that since this forest was clear of monsters due to the fog, some good rest inside the wagon was better for them instead of scouting in the open, they could switch between taking reins and rest well.
Hours passed, the journey blurring together into endless sameness as the wagon rolled forward and the fog never changed. Her mind kept trying to focus on something concrete, some detail that would anchor her in reality, but everything felt soft and distant like she was watching it happen to someone else.
She rested her head on someone's hard shoulder, her eyes drifting but open, [Mind-Body Unity] pulsed with quiet wrongness in the back of her awareness, her body refusing to fully relax despite her thoughts growing heavier and heavier. The skill kept trying to tell her something, kept insisting that danger lurked just beyond perception, but the message couldn't quite form into coherent warning.
"There," Kaisen said suddenly, pointing ahead to where the fog seemed slightly thinner. "Good place to make camp."
Camp? Already? Rem's confusion tried to surface but dissolved before she could voice it. They'd just broken camp this morning, hadn't they? Or was that yesterday?
They set up the same routine as before. Fire in the center, bedrolls in a circle, supplies unpacked and organized. Everything felt familiar in ways that should have been comforting but instead made Rem's skin crawl.
The fire crackled to life, pushing back the fog with orange light that created their small bubble of visibility. Kaisen passed around dried meat and bread, the same rations they'd been eating.
"Long day," Elise commented, settling down near the fire with a tired sigh.
"The fog makes everything feel longer," Altaria agreed.
Rem bit her tongue hard enough to taste blood, using the sharp pain to cut through the haze settling over her thoughts. Something was very wrong here. They were repeating themselves, saying the same things they'd said yesterday.
"You okay, Rem?" Kaisen asked, noticing her silence.
"Fine," she lied, forcing herself to smile. "Just tired."
The conversation flowed around her while she sat there trying desperately to hold onto some thread of awareness, some piece of clarity that would explain why everything felt like a dream she couldn't wake from. They talked about the capital again, about their plans, about nothing important, and Rem found her attention drifting despite her best efforts to stay focused.
Her eyelids grew heavy. Her body wanted to sink into the pleasant exhaustion pulling at her limbs, wanting to give in to the comfortable warmth of the fire and her companions' voices washing over her.
'No!' she thought fiercely, biting her cheek again until fresh blood filled her mouth. 'Stay awake. Something's wrong.'
"We should sleep soon," Kaisen said, the words echoing with terrible familiarity. "Long day tomorrow."
"Kaisen and I will take first watch," Elise added, standing and stretching.
The same words. The exact same words as yesterday. Rem's heart started racing "Actually," Rem said, her voice coming out rougher than intended, "I'll take watch tonight. You two rest."
Kaisen blinked at her in surprise. "You sure? You look exhausted."
"I'm sure." She forced herself to stand, forced her legs to support her weight despite how badly they wanted to give out. "I need the air anyway."
They didn't argue, too tired themselves to question it. Altaria settled into the wagon while Elise and Kaisen took their bedrolls near the fire, and within minutes they were all sleeping peacefully like nothing was wrong.
Rem sat alone by the fire, watching the flames dance and flicker while her companions' breathing evened out into the rhythm of deep sleep. Her body screamed at her to lie down, to close her eyes, to give in to the exhaustion pulling at every muscle and nerve. But she forced her eyes to stay open, biting the inside of her cheek whenever the drowsiness became too strong. The sharp pain cut through the fog in her mind, giving her something concrete to focus on beyond the comfortable warmth trying to drag her under.
Time had lost all meaning in this place, stretched and compressed in ways that made Rem's head hurt when she tried to track it. The fire never seemed to die down despite her not adding wood. The fog never changed. Her companions never stirred from their peaceful sleep.
Something moved at the edge of her vision.
Rem's head snapped toward the movement, her sword instinctively summoning into her hands. For a moment she saw nothing but white fog pressing in around their small camp. Then the movement came again, clearer this time.
Kaisen stood up.
His eyes were closed, his movements slow and dreamlike as he walked past the fire toward the edge of their camp. He didn't look at her, didn't seem to notice her at all, just kept walking with that terrible blank expression on his face.
"Kaisen?" Rem whispered, but he didn't respond.
He stepped into the fog and disappeared.
Rem was on her feet before she'd consciously decided to move, following him into the white nothing without thinking about the danger. Her sword was in her hand, her body tense and ready despite the exhaustion still pulling at her limbs. She felt scared.
The fog swallowed her immediately, cutting her off from the fire's warmth and the camp's dubious safety. She could barely see three feet ahead, could barely make out Kaisen's silhouette moving through the white like a ghost. The fear doubled.
She followed him deeper into the forest, moving as quietly as she could manage. Branches appeared out of nowhere to scrape across her skin. Roots tried to trip her. The fog pressed in from all sides, disorienting and thick, but she kept Kaisen's form in sight through sheer stubborn determination.
He walked for what felt like hours but was probably minutes, moving like a man possessed, passing certainty through terrain he shouldn't have been able to navigate with his eyes closed. Rem's heart pounded in her chest, her breathing harsh and loud in the oppressive silence.
Finally Kaisen stopped in a small clearing where the fog seemed thinner, allowing pale moonlight to filter through from above. Or maybe it was sunlight. Rem couldn't tell anymore, couldn't trust her senses when everything felt wrong.
And then Kaisen knelt.
His head bowed low like he was genuflecting before royalty or a god, his hands pressed flat against the ground. His lips moved, forming words Rem couldn't hear from her hiding spot behind a thick tree trunk.
She crept closer, trying to make out what he was saying, and that's when she saw his eyes.
They were open now. Wide open. But there was nothing behind them, no awareness or consciousness or anything that made Kaisen who he was. Just blank emptiness staring at nothing, pupils dilated so wide they looked black in the pale light.
"Kaisen," Rem called out, her voice cracking with fear. "Kaisen, wake up!"
He didn't respond, just kept kneeling there with his head bowed and his eyes empty.
Rem moved closer, her sword raised despite knowing she would never attack him. This wasn't a physical threat she could fight anyway. This was something else, something that had gotten inside Kaisen's head and was wearing him like a puppet.
"Kaisen!" She grabbed his shoulder, shook him hard. "Wake the fuck up!"
His head turned toward her slowly, mechanically, and when his eyes met hers Rem's blood went cold. The expression on his face was wrong, all wrong, twisted into something that looked like rapture and agony mixed together. His mouth stretched into a smile that was too wide, too perfect, showing too many teeth.
"The fog is kind," Kaisen said, but the voice wasn't quite his. "The fog is gentle. The fog will keep them safe forever."
Rem stumbled backward, her sword trembling in her grip. "What the fuck did you do to him?"
"The fog is kind" the voice said through Kaisen's mouth, his head tilting at an angle that made Rem's stomach churn. "Such peace, Dreaming sweet dreams where nothing hurts and everyone we loves stays close. Don't you want that too?"
"No," Rem spat, though part of her did want it, wanted to sink into those sweet dreams and forget about the guilt and the fear, the constant struggle to survive. "Let him go."
Kaisen's body stood slowly, movements jerky and wrong. "None of them want to go. They're all so happy in their dreams. Why would you take that from them?"
Rem's mind raced, trying to figure out what to do. She couldn't fight Kaisen, couldn't hurt him when he wasn't in control of his own body. But she also couldn't leave him here, couldn't let whatever this thing was keep him trapped in false contentment while it fed on his consciousness.
Kaisen's body convulsed, his eyes rolling back in his head as the thing controlling him fought against her intrusion. The fog around them thickened, pressing in with crushing weight, and Rem felt something vast and ancient turn its attention fully onto her with hunger that made her soul scream.
"This one fights. But his desire burns so bright, cuts through the [ ] like a blade. Such want. Such hunger. I will help him take what he craves."
Rem gasped, her hands fell loose as the sword fell to the ground engulfed by the fog. Kaizen, or the thing wearing his body approached her with a small pace
"His desire for you is so so strong, it wasn't even a challenge to [ ] such a weak mind"