The Letter in the Fog

The sound of the horde never stopped.
Even on still mornings, when the wind refused to stir and the mist hung thick between the buildings, you could hear them—just beyond the walls of Meadowmere.
Snarling, clawing, moaning in hunger. A sound that burrowed under the skin and stayed there, even in sleep.

Verrin sat alone in his room above the Tavern, running a whetstone down the edge of his sword. Not out of necessity—he’d honed the blade just yesterday—but because the rhythm of it drowned out the gnawing sounds outside.
Or at least made them feel… farther away.

A knock at the door.

Three taps. Intentional. Then silence.

Verrin didn’t move right away. He listened.

The street below was quiet—not the usual bustle of carts or residents returning home from the night before. Just the horde.

He opened the door fast, ready.

No one.

At his feet, a black river stone pinned a folded parchment to the threshold, fog trails the only sign of someone’s passage.

No mark. No wax. No name.

Verrin shut the door without a sound, locking it behind him, and brought the letter to his table. The paper was damp—faintly sticky with morning dew—and the ink had begun to bleed, but the words were still legible.

He read it once, and something in his chest sank.

“What an interesting predicament. Tensions are running high; trust and truth are already failing. Paranoia claws at your soul, the ravenous hunger outside the walls…”

Whoever wrote this… they knew.

“Even when you wish for silence, there is none. You still hear those beasts…”

Verrin exhaled slowly, a cold breath through his nose. His grip on the parchment tightened, but he kept reading.

“The ones fighting and dying when the gates closed, no one bothered to save them. No one warned. No. That would be asking too much…”

They weren’t just speaking in riddles. These were details. Personal. It read like a confession from someone who had been left behind… or someone who had watched them be left.

His vision blurred slightly at the edges as he read the next line.

“We all met the ferryman. Each of us lost something to return to this mortal realm…”

He sat down on the edge of the bed, the sword now forgotten at his side.
No one had ever spoken of it. Not directly. Not openly.

Everyone who returned from the crossing did so broken, changed, and unwelcomed. There were no cheers. No embraces. Just the indifferent hum of a city that pretended they had never gone.

“Are we truly alone? Are we the damned?
Of course, we are. We are the forgotten. But we do not forget…”

He folded the letter slowly, methodically, and slid it into the lining of his cloak—where he kept the things he didn’t trust the world to see. He stood without a word and approached the window.

The fog coiled over the outer walls of Meadowmere. Beyond it, as always, came the sound of the horde—scraping claws, guttural groans, fleshless hunger.

But now, he wondered if someone stood within the fog. Watching. Waiting.

“You are not alone. Myself and others are with you. Let us see whom we put our faith into.
Shall we?
I’ll be watching.”

Verrin smiled without warmth.

“Good,” he muttered, eyes scanning the shadowed rooftops. “Because so am I.”
The sword slid back into its sheath. The sound of the horde outside surged again.

But Verrin didn’t flinch.

Not anymore….