The fog rolled in thick as milk, swallowing the cobbled streets of Blackmoor. Clara pulled her coat tighter around her trembling frame, her breath puffing in clouds as she glanced nervously over her shoulder. The streetlamps flickered, their light barely piercing the suffocating mist.
She was alone—or so she thought.
The first sign of him was the sound: a faint, rhythmic tap-tap-tap, like the slow, deliberate beat of a broken metronome. Clara froze. The sound grew louder, closer, accompanied by the wet squelch of boots against damp stone. Her pulse hammered in her ears as she spun around, squinting into the haze.
A figure emerged—a man, impossibly tall, his form bending unnaturally as though the very air around him rejected his presence. His coat was patched and tattered, dripping with water, and his hat brim cast his face in shadow. But it was his hands that caught Clara’s attention—long, bony, tipped with fingers too sharp, too claw-like to be human. They twitched as though eager for something to grasp.
His voice was a raspy whisper, the sound of dry leaves scraping against stone. “Lost, are we?” His words coiled around her like vines, choking her courage.
Clara stumbled backward, her heel catching on a loose stone. She fell hard, her palms scraping against the rough surface. Before she could scramble to her feet, the man tilted his head, revealing a face that was all wrong. His eyes—two dark voids—seemed to pull at the edges of reality, warping the world around them. His lips twisted into a grin that split his face unnaturally wide, revealing jagged, uneven teeth stained the color of rust.
Panic surged through her as she pushed herself up and ran, the sound of her own breathing filling her ears. But the street felt endless. The fog thickened with each step, as though it were alive, conspiring against her. The rhythmic tapping followed her, always just behind, a grim metronome counting down to her doom.
Her foot struck something solid. She fell again, this time landing against a cold, hard object. She reached out to steady herself, only to feel cold, clammy flesh. She screamed and turned to see another figure, standing deathly still.
It was a woman—or what had once been a woman. Her skin was pale and translucent, her hair a wild, matted mess. Her eyes were sunken, but they gleamed with a cruel light. Bloodless lips moved silently, forming words that Clara couldn’t hear but somehow understood: “Stay with us.”
A hand clamped onto Clara’s shoulder—sharp nails biting through her coat and into her skin. She twisted and flailed, but the grip tightened. The man from the fog loomed over her now, his grin impossibly wide, his hollow eyes devouring her every scream.
The last thing she saw was the fog enveloping her like a shroud, and the whispers—soft, haunting—calling her name.
And then, silence.