“We realized that there was a fog descending on the city. I suppose, I would have normally gotten off work at dusk and made my way home via the carriage service. Fog was normal then. Came down from the mountains you see. Its why so many homes got the rot. All that moisture.”
“Any road, it had to be about midway through the day when my boss, she came and said my pa was there to take me home. I was surprised, but he burst in the back with my coat in hand and hustled me out the door telling me to be quiet til we got home.”
“It was so grey. Middle of the day and you couldn’t see two feet in front of you. Somehow, he knew where to go as we twisted through the alley ways and stayed off the main roads. The air was so still and you could barely hear your own feet as we shuffled along.”
“Then, must have been ten minutes since we left, I heard the first scream. Pa covered my mouth, pulled me closer, and somehow we started moving faster. I swear I could feel hot breath on the back of my neck as we stumbled in the haze. It seemed like forever we ran with a scream would puncture the silence ever few moments.”
“Then suddenly we were home, rushing in the door and baring it behind us. That was when I first realized my pa was holding his thrower. He never explained that, but when the fog lifted in a few days, we learned what the screams were from.”
“Over a thousand bodies were found in the city, desiccated like mummies. Men, women, and children dead from old age.”
~ From Taubha’s Lesser Book of Names
