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She didn't even notice the grey at first, but by the time she did, it was too late to turn around to go back. Already it had crept in all around her, a sea of fog forever changing, forever hiding things from view.

She had stilled to a stop, the cold tendrils of unease gripping at her, as always happened when she was faced with this much insanity. There was a time when the whispers had been suppressed, when the paranoia and anxiety had all but disappeared, when her confidence had finally returned.

The whispers were back now, and they made her shiver. A creeping sensation of clawing fingers was crawling up her spine. They called to her, those voices, the enticed her, drew her towards them, beckoning.


She thought of other things, her eyes closing, the glow of her golden irises stifled as she began to walk, blindly. She thought of Shikoba, of how he stayed, of how he cared for her even if he was terrible at showing it, most of the time. She thought of her aspirations, of her achievements, of her strengths.

Weak. Pathetic. Everyone would be much better off without you.



She shook her head and continued to walk without seeing her path, she kept her head held high though her skin was cracked and grey, marred by insanity. Her wings gave off wisps of fog that mingled with that which surrounded her. Where did one end and another begin?

Much like herself. Right now, like this, it was hard to say.


Coward.



Nobody.

Join ussssss.

"No!" The word was a shout, her eyes opening with a piercing glare at the grey around her. "I have lasted this long. You will not take me, now!" She snarled.

Not that saying as much actually helped. The whispers continued, as they always did, but she was able to tune them out, as she had many times before, until they were nothing but meaningless (yet always irritating) babble just out of range of understanding. She walked, and eventually, the grey faded, maybe not completely, but enough.

It would always be that way.

Why was the world now just an endless expanse of fog, shadows, and whispers? Meara's eyes darted around and she ended up jumping from time to time when a whisper or a shadow showed up unexpectedly. Not that you could predict any of them so she was startled by practically all of them. There was just something about the combination of the three that made her tensions high, her heart beat fast, and her eyes wide. It didn't help that the whispers loved to tell her different things like how she failed at everything. How everyone was dead because she couldn't help them.

That she was dead because she couldn't even help herself. That was one her own voice loved to taunt.

Everywhere she looked it was more fog and shadows, no exit in sight and nothing she did would make one appear nor silence the whispers, even if she tried to run in a random direction or cover her ears for example. "Just shut up, just shut up! I'm learning! I'm just a first year I'm not meant to be strong yet!" She yelled out after one particularly hurtful taunt from the voice of Spinar. She could feel tears gathering at her eyes from the words and it was hard to bite back a sob.

Maybe she really was worthless, maybe everyone was better off if she kept being lost in the fog. But she rather hoped to actually have those people tell her that in person if that was the case. It was the only idea she clung to that kept her from fully panicking as she continued to walk.

(wc 272)

It was like the snap of a rubber band. He was senile, he was dead. And then, slowly, painfully, he wasn't. And somewhere half-conscious, half-formed, he could only watch as a single red butterfly descended upon him and burrowed its way into his heart.

Time passed.

Was it worth it? He asked himself.

No. That wasn't his thought. But that was his voice, overlaid not with pity but with disgust.

He tried to answer, but there was no sound. His body was wracked with age and the moths had torn out his throat. Parts of him were returning, but each reclamation was a great effort. There was nothing and no one around. Just fog, endless fog. And voices that struck something in him, a nameless familiarity, that left him guilty for forgetting who they belonged to.

I could have been something, his voice lamented. I could have been respected. Instead I'm nothing.

Lucky clutched at his throat with one hand. It felt like he was trapped in this half-formed state. For every part of him that was returned, the fog was taking away another, crumbling it into grey. He could feel his fingertips growing cold, fading away again.

Do you know what the difference is between you, and the people that really matter?

He couldn't answer. He could do nothing to drown out the sound. But he probably deserved nothing less than this purgatory. The fog was thicker now, It was rising like a flood, and everywhere it touched his skin turned it to stone, and that stone to dust, and that dust to more fog. It was in every breath, it was in his lungs, and it was choking him from the inside again.

They take real risks. They make real sacrifices. They put themselves first. And they get what they want. Lucky couldn't escape the sound of it. The sound of his own self-hatred. So. Is it better to die a legend in pursuit of the life you deserve, or grow old and forgotten out of your own cowardice?

And then all at once the fog seemed to recede. Not a raging storm but a tranquil sea. The voice, his voice, was fading.

I guess I'll know soon enough.

The fog was familiar in ways that Mimsy wished it hadn't been. All of this was familiar - the creature, the fog, the voices, the ache in her chest. Even beyond the statue that she kept, that version of herself perhaps permanently imprisoned, there came a familiarity in dreams of another place. Another place in another time, consumed by Insanity and an endless sea of grey and grey and grey.

Mimsy closed her eyes and tried to think of Wonderland.

She thought of it, forgetting that she had been there. Forgetting that she had been the one to send her back into the waking world again. The smile crept into her memory within that single connection, that instant in which she had watched that one kill this one. It pierced through all of the good that Wonderland could bring to her, and left her with the memory of failure, of losing all that she had worked for to a fragment of herself that had earned no part of it.

Feeling everything begin to dim around the edges, the ground seeming to shift beneath her feet, she sat down and tucked her legs up to her chest, wielding her weapon with all of the awkward finesse of a child that had never once held one. She closed her eyes. She tried to think of Wonderland.

Think of Wonderland.

'But if you are there, Mimsy...' The words rose as a chill, a cold touch of fingertips against her cheek. '...who is at home, where he is?'

DMG: 10