"In the beginning was Thought, and Thought looked upon itself until it dreamed."
Elias Hartmann dreamed of silence vast enough to swallow time.There was no up, no down—only a trembling fog that pulsed faintly with colorless light, as though each mote carried a heartbeat not its own.
Within it drifted fragments of language, letters stripped of shape, meaning melting into sound. The air—or what felt like air—vibrated with half-formed words that sank straight into his mind.He could not move; he was not sure he had a body to move with.
A whisper threaded through the formless expanse, many-voiced yet singular:
"Forget to survive."
It wasn't warning, but command.
He tried to grasp at memory—his room, his computer screen, the book titled Lord of the Mysteries—but each image dissolved, replaced by a soft burning behind his eyes. Something enormous pressed against his consciousness, neither benevolent nor cruel.
When the pain peaked, the fog folded inward, collapsing into a single point of blinding thought.
And then—
He awoke to the smell of dust, ink, and burning candle wax.
Wood creaked beneath him; fabric rasped against his skin. He was lying on a narrow couch in a dim study, walls crowded with books. The air was thick, heavy with the quiet of long abandonment.
He blinked at the ceiling. Beams of pale morning light cut through the shutters, scattering dust like drifting constellations.
His hands were unfamiliar—slender, pale, faint calluses where a quill might rest.
He sat up. The motion sent a dull ache through his skull, like a hangover without cause.
A mirror hung opposite the desk. The face staring back was not his: angular, composed, perhaps early twenties. Silver-gray eyes rimmed with exhaustion. A faint scar curved over the left brow—deliberate, almost ceremonial.
Elias raised a trembling hand; the reflection copied him perfectly.
"…Not a dream," he murmured, voice hoarse.
On the desk, amid scattered papers and half-empty ink bottles, lay an envelope marked with wax.He broke the seal. Inside: a single sheet written in careful, archaic cursive.
"To whomever opens their eyes in this vessel—The price of knowing is silence. If you awaken, remember: speak nothing of the fog."
No signature. No context.
He exhaled slowly. Fog. The word prickled at the edge of recognition, awakening a flicker of unease.
He stood, pacing the room. Shelves bowed under thick tomes bound in leather. He traced one spine with a finger: A Brief Treatise on the Properties of Ether. Another: Theological Correspondence of the Church of Evernight.
The Church of Evernight.
His breath caught.
That wasn't possible—or rather, it was too possible. Steam hissed faintly outside; somewhere distant, a bell tolled twelve slow notes, followed by the mournful moan of a steamship horn.
He crossed to the window, pulling the shutters open.
Fog clung to the streets below, swirling around gas lamps and black-iron fences. A tram rumbled past, its wheels screeching. People in high-collared coats hurried along slick cobblestones. Posters plastered a wall across the street—one bore the words "By Decree of His Majesty, Year 1348 of the Fourth Epoch."
Fourth Epoch.
He gripped the window frame until his knuckles whitened.
It couldn't be—but the smell of coal, the architecture, the language, the Evernight bell… every piece aligned too neatly with a world he once read about.
A world where gods slumbered and thoughts could kill.
He turned back toward the desk. Beneath the letter lay a journal, pages yellowed and brittle.The handwriting was neat but unsteady; the final entry read:
"Dreams have begun whispering again. The fog knows my name."
A shiver passed through him.
Memory fluttered—something about dreams as doorways, about Seers and madness, about a man who gazed into the gray mist and found divinity waiting.The thought stabbed at his mind, then slid away, as though wrapped in soft cloth.
Why can't I remember properly?
He pressed his temples. The headache pulsed, not pain but pressure—like an unseen eye opening behind his thoughts. For an instant, the world tilted: shadows stretched, every letter on every spine turned toward him, and the candle's flame elongated into a pupil.
A whisper crawled along the inside of his skull:"You shouldn't have woken."
He stumbled backward. The distortion vanished, leaving only his ragged breathing and the steady tick of a clock.
The door creaked open.
An old woman in a maid's apron peered in, eyes widening. "Master Hartmann! You—by the Goddess, you're awake!"
Elias blinked. "Hartmann?"
"Yes, Master Adrian Hartmann. The constables said—said you'd—" She caught herself, paling. "You should rest, sir. You've been ill since yesterday."
Adrian Hartmann. The name stirred nothing.
Elias nodded slowly, feigning confusion, letting her retreat with hurried footsteps. When the door shut, he whispered the borrowed name to himself, testing its weight.
Night fell before he moved again.
He lit another candle, its flame quivering as though nervous. Outside, fog rolled denser along the street; even the tram bells sounded muffled, distant.
He sat at the desk, pen poised above a blank page. After a long moment, he wrote:
I dreamed of a fog that remembers.It watched as I forgot myself.If this is the world I think it is, then knowledge is poison, and curiosity the cup.
He hesitated, then added a final line:
But to survive, I must drink carefully.
He set down the pen, leaning back. The candle guttered low, casting shadows that seemed to whisper against the walls.
Somewhere, in the depth of that murmur, he thought he heard laughter—soft, knowing, distant as the bottom of the sea.
He closed his eyes.
And the fog, patient and alive, waited just beyond his thoughts.
End of Chapter 1 — Fog and Awakening