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I felt like I was floating, flying maybe.
Which was odd, because I didn’t think I had a body left to feel anything. Mist surrounded me, and I could see it, though I shouldn’t have eyes. And when I opened a mouth I no longer had, crying “Hello?” into the blank spaces, I heard my own voice echoing impossibly around me in the void.
“Am I dead?” I called, turning in a circle with invisible feet that couldn’t feel the ground.
It was more like the memory of a body than an actual body, and I knew - I was dead.
I was in the mist.
“Nicolas?” I yelled, struggling to move through the barren, gray landscape.
Gray fog was everywhere on the ground, above in the sky, and spreading in all directions. Mist billowed thickly under my feet, and I glided more than walked, like I was ice skating.
Dark figures loomed ahead, but when I got near enough to see them, I realized they were only trees with blackened, twisted branches.
Peering up at the trees for what felt like an eternity, I finally realized I recognized their shape, and a memory slowly formed.
I’d once lounged on a blanket under these trees, and they had been green and beautiful. The summer sun had shone through the leaves, dappling the blanket and my bare skin as Nicolas and Acadian drove me crazy with their kisses.
As I pulled up each detail of the memory, the trees began to shimmer and change.
Tiny buds formed and grew quickly into fresh, green leaves, and the bark shed its charred look. Beneath my feet, a soft blanket appeared, and though I couldn’t see a sun in the sky above me, light shone down through the branches, making flickering patterns on the blanket through the leaves.
“Mon amour... you’re actually here. C’est incroyable. I cannot believe it.”
Whirling, I came face-to-face with the Nicolas of my memories - vibrant andalive.
He was real and sturdy when I flung myself at him and he caught me in strong arms. He hugged me tight, and I breathed in his scent, my body coming alive under his touch.
“How is this possible?” I murmured, already afraid to lose it.
“This is the mist, and it’s your memory. You brought it to life. You called me here, too,” he explained, gazing down at me with those rich dark eyes and the sweetest smile on his lush lips. A mouth made to speak poetry.
“But you can’t stay, Kana, love. The Trials...”
I deflated in his arms, suddenly remembering the horde of gobbelins.Thatwas why I was here.
I was dead.
I had failed.
“Hold the memory ofthisday, not the gobbelins,” Nic cried, and I looked up to see that the trees had begun to fade to black again, and the growls and stench of gobbelins were suddenly roiling in the air.
Squeezing my eyes shut, I locked away the memory of a very real death, working hard to call up the lazy summer day again.
“That’s how the mist works?” I asked, when we were once again settled on the soft blanket under green leaves.
“Whatever you focus on appears. It’s not that different from living, though time no longer exists here,” Nic said, gazing at me like he was afraid to blink.
“Time? So whatever I imagine, appears instantly?” I asked, trying to figure it all out.
“Essentially. Though if you imagine others who have not yet rejoined the mist, it’s not truly them that appears. Just a memory. So you can never have a new conversation, or touch someone in a new way. You can only relive the memory, until they join the mist. And the longer you’re here, the more memories you lose, until one day, you simply become the mist itself.”
I looked down at our joined hands, my mind reeling with this glimpse into the afterlife.
“Did you see Blaise, when she died?” I asked. I suddenly wanted to speak with her and ask her what she’d experienced. For some reason, I’d never asked, and now it felt like a mistake.
Nic sighed and shook his head. “The mist is endless and unpredictable. Our connection draws us together.”
