…It
was during the hot hours that The Mists came, at the apex of the warm season.
Unwarranted, unprovoked, they rained their vitriolic venom down upon us; down
upon all those who were not quick enough to find sanctuary from the deadly
fumes. One never knew when or why The Mists came. We never knew where they came
from. Those caught in the open air and unable to find shelter were greeted by
the most horrific and exquisite pain followed by a quick and silent death. If
one were lucky enough (indeed if it can be called luck) to be caught in the
middle of this deadly maelstrom, The Mists would pour down upon you like a
cascade of deadly waters, flooding the lungs with its noxious vapors and ending
life rather quickly. Those many unlucky however, who found themselves caught at
the outskirts of The Mist’s rain of death suffered the most excruciating pain
and agony of body. The Mist would burn its way through the senses, searing the
skin and slowly singeing away all smell, taste and hearing like a gaseous,
fiery plague. Instantly it enters the brain, severing all control and
connections to motor skills and sensory organs, disorienting its victims and
leaving them helpless to die a dark, disoriented, delirious, and paralytic
death choked with pain. Nothing survived contact with these silent killers.
I
had just returned from my food delivery routes. The group had just trudged the
fifty mile round-trip journey from the safety and protection of the Colony,
over the vast, unexplored Wilderness to the Trash Heaps and returned,
heavy-laden with food stuffs for the Colony’s hungering thousands huddling
underground. I had just passed under a giant blade of green grass when the
tragedy struck.
No
one heard it of course, one never did. It was always the same, the ripple that
spread down and through the walking trail between the Trash Heaps and the
Colony, filling every member of the gathering parties with a sense of panic and
terror; something that alerted the senses and caused one’s instincts to take
over. Those not immediately killed by the deadly onslaught of The Mists and who
were still in the open left the safety of the well-known walking trail and fled
into the open Wilderness; fear overtaking each one until The Mists overtook
them all. Hundreds died in an instant with no way for those of us that survived
to retrieve their bodies. Sometimes The Mists left as quickly as they had come,
allowing us to gather the lifeless, contaminated corpses of our fallen
comrades, slowly dragging them back to the Colony’s sheltering embrace. At
other times the Mists would remain for what seemed an eternity, their hunger
for death and destruction never sated until they had wreaked havoc upon all in
their sight. At other times they would return as quickly as they had vanished
to continue their ghastly work anew. I do not know for how long they will stay
gone this time…
