The first knock was slow.The second was not a knock at all — it was a wet, sucking sound, as though something dragged itself across the wood from the inside.
Jonas stood frozen in the street, his breath clouding in the cold. The gaslamp above him sputtered, dimmed, and went out. The fog thickened instantly, curling up the building's bricks like greedy fingers.
The door to the Last Door Bar creaked. A thin line of blackness cracked open, and from it, a pale hand slipped through — not human. The fingers were too long, jointed wrong, and bent at impossible angles. Its nails were chipped obsidian, clicking against the frame in a rhythm Jonas almost recognized… almost.
The door opened wider.She stepped out.
It wasn't the woman Jonas had seen before in the mist. This one wore the same veil, but her gown clung to her as though wet, the fabric pulsing faintly as if alive. Beneath the veil, the shape of her face shifted — too many teeth when she smiled, too many eyes when she turned her head.
"Jonas," she whispered, knowing his name without asking. "You've been following the wrong fog."
The street behind him groaned. Cobblestones cracked apart as tendrils of mist, solid as bone, crawled toward him. The gaslamps flickered back to life, but their glow was not yellow anymore — it was deep crimson, bathing everything in a light that made blood look black.
He ran.
The fog chased him like water down an alleyway, pouring around corners faster than wind. Doors slammed as he passed, windows locked themselves, and from somewhere above, church bells began ringing a funeral toll — except they weren't ringing in time. They were counting down.
And Jonas realized with ice in his veins:They were counting him.