It was an unassuming morning. Wake up, get dressed for the occasion and leave the house. Another day spent doing mostly the same things, as I always have.
I was walking downtown to work, quietly minding my own business. No, it would be more accurate to say that I had drifted through the streets.
Getting to work wasn’t the hard part, however. It was the fact that it was supposed to be foggy all day, everyday. That, and it had been a Wednesday, of all days. I hated Wednesdays. It would always remind me of my family.
The fog was beginning to take its toll. It came just a week before, but it wouldn’t go away. I distinctly remember when my friends made a joke about this mist and the effects it had on the human body as well as the mind. It was only a joke we had come up with, but there were quite a trepid few who would be stupid enough to believe in it. We called them conspiracy idiots.
It was only going to last for a few days, they said. Our town wasn’t gonna be covered in this stuff for much longer, I hoped. But it only persisted. And soon enough, people were forced to stop driving in the midst of all the fog. Thankfully, there were next to no actual side effects, but it was only when my friends told the jokes to more and more people did some of them become believers.
The idea spread like a virus. Soon enough, it became popular amongst the townsfolk, and they were even able to convince one of our bumbling idiots of a journalist. But not me. I wanted nothing to do with such idiocracy.
As I moved about the looming mist in the surrounding area, I would notice more than a few people wearing face masks. This was a first. I wasn’t convinced enough to start believing in what was supposed to only be a joke that I had mostly come up with, but unfortunately for me, people thought differently.
‘Bunch of cowardly sheep, the whole lot of them,’ I figured. I walked away from those people, not even bothering to strike a conversation. If they were this naive, then there was no way they would get that much further in life.
But the fog was becoming more and more distracting. I couldn’t quite concentrate anymore. It was a whole lot worse today, quite a bit worse than the previous days. People were suddenly wearing face masks, and now I had been lost. Unlike before, when I could just backtrack and follow the directions to work on my trusty navigator app, I no longer had my phone on me. I could only curse over my negligence. It had been since yesterday, but I should’ve known when to buy a new one immediately.
I had no choice but to start asking the people around me. My workplace was far, perhaps a bit too far from here. I just needed to grow a pair and ask for some directions. It didn’t matter who I talked to, though. Of course, I’d never actually talk to these people even when they didn’t wear their face masks, but now that practically everybody was wearing one, I had grown unsurprisingly apprehensive.
I didn’t care if I was going to be late for a bit of a while. It was better to be late than never, anyway. So for the next 10 minutes, I asked the nearby townsfolk for directions.
The first person I talked to. I remember him wearing a hoodie with a pair of glasses and a mask, a phone and backpack attached to him. He treated me as though I didn’t exist, but I was able to tell that he had tensed up a little just from his mannerisms.
I moved on quickly. There was no point in conversing with teenage assholes.
The second person also walked away in silence, not even bothering to say anything to me. She looked older than the young boy, but not unlike him, she too was wearing a mask.
‘What the hell is wrong with these people?’ I inwardly questioned.
By some miracle, I hadn’t given up. Asking random strangers probably wasn’t gonna work though, so I needed to be a little more selective.
The third individual, however, was actually responsive this time. It was a person inside of a restaurant. The one I would always go to. I didn’t order anything, though. I just talked to him instead. We had met plenty of times, but we were never friends, much less acquaintances.
He was someone who looked to be in his late twenties, around the same age as me. He wasn’t wearing a face mask like I was, and he was happy enough to actually talk to me unlike the first two people I asked.
“You said you needed directions to work, right?” The guy responded to my question.
This wasn’t our first time speaking to each other, but that didn’t matter much when practically everyone inside the restaurant was wearing a face mask.
“Yeah, the stupid fog is blocking my vision. I don’t have my phone with me either, so I had no other choice but to ask in person,” I said to him.
“You plan on telling me where you work?”
“Um… yeah. I work for a company called Eimin. I’m… an aspiring writer, haha. My boss is gonna be mad as hell if he finds out I’m super late today.”
I didn’t know his name, unfortunately, so I could only refer to him as Mr. Doe or John for short, not that I would say that to him out loud.
“Oh, you mean that big building some kilometers away from here? I don’t work there, but I know someone who did. It should be…”
John wasted no time getting straight to business, as he handed me out directions on a piece of paper that he wrote just for me.
It wasn’t a long wait, but it wasn’t a short one either. Finally, he had finished writing everything down. Unbeknownst to him, almost everyone inside the restaurant was looking at our general area. I ignored the stares.
“Thanks,” I remarked. I took the piece of paper he handed me as I walked out of the restaurant through the auto sliding door, with another person entering the place just as I stepped out. It was the same as when I came in here.
I then looked at the paper as well as John’s writings.
Unfortunately, I didn’t fully trust him. I needed to be absolutely sure that these were the proper directions and not some random place, so I resumed my session of asking people around the town.
I was running out of time, however, so I decided to discard my initial plan of selecting who I was gonna ask.
I talked to another one. A fourth person just outside an ancient-looking shop. She was fat and frail and dressed in robes, but as soon as I approached her with the paper in my hands, she said something that would surprise me.
“Get away from me, you freak!” She screamed, running back inside the shop.
There were fewer people around us and nobody nearby, as the fog had already covered their figures. I was beginning to get further away from the town.
The woman was wearing a mask like everybody else but John.
‘Is it just me or does this whole town have a vendetta against people that don’t wear masks?’
I merely shrugged it off and continued walking, hoping to find the right person.
The fifth individual I saw made an attempt to actually look at me, just as John did. It was a middle-aged person sitting down on a wooden bench, silently peering forward with unimpressed eyes. And just like John, he was unmasked.
He spoke to me with an almost menacing voice.
“You’re not where you’re supposed to be, aren’t you?”
“Uhh… sorry…Was I bothering you or something?”
“Follow the trail of stones with an open mind,” he said nonchalantly as he faced forward, gesturing to the direction ahead of him with a simple nod.
“Follow the what?” I glanced at the direction he motioned towards with his head for a few seconds, hoping to understand what he was saying, but as I returned my gaze to his, his figure suddenly vanished.
“What in the hell!?” I was startled.
“What is going on with the town today? What is wrong with everyone!?”
I hadn’t the faintest clue of what was transpiring anymore. And before I could start losing it, I began to take deep breaths and started thinking things through in a more rational manner.
“Calm down. Calm down. It might just be the fact that I didn’t get much sleep today. I’m just tired, is all.”
I took more deep breaths again in an attempt to further calm myself down, and none of them had been in vain. I was able to fully regain my composure as a result.
“That’s it. No more asking random people. I’ve had enough! I’ll just follow the directions on the paper and work my way from there.”
I finally decided to stop going against my instincts and began walking towards my destination without asking any longer. Even through the almost blinding fog, the directions proved to be effective, as I finally had a general idea of where I was going.
I saw less and less people as I followed the markings on the paper that John had given me. I had every reason to become more worried, but I didn’t want to worry needlessly. I just needed to keep walking.
The directions I was given were somewhat strange. I really hadn’t expected to go around quite a few buildings and even some narrow tunnels on my way to work. I had already doubted John’s directions, but it was too late to turn back.
Soon, I was alone– nobody within my vicinity anymore. And now my surroundings had quieted considerably until I could hear only the humble chirping of the birds.
The fog around me did not falter one bit. If anything, it may have even intensified.
Eventually, I stumbled upon a small but grim looking building, which had been the final marking on the paper that I held in my hand.
But as I walked closer to the building, I was met with a few Do Not Cross signs.
“I knew it! That John guy tricked me! I’ve been had!” I screamed angrily.
I shredded the paper into bits and pieces before I started cursing.
“Damn it. Why did I do this!? Why didn’t I just stay home!?
But just as I started losing it, I heard the voice of someone who I hadn’t expected to appear whatsoever.
“Don’t worry, Jason.”
I turned my head towards the familiar voice in the distance, their silhouette making a sudden appearance before my very eyes.
“Jesus! Y-you scared me!” I said as their figure slowly gained clarity through the fog.
“Boss? What are you doing here?” I asked them, trembling.
“I’m only doing what I should be doing,” my boss told me, a subtle melancholy filling their words.
“Hold on. Have I finally made it to Eimin? Should I start working now?” I asked again.
“No. We’re not doing anything of the sort. In fact, I have just one job for you. A sort of final task, if you will.”
“Final task? What are you talk–”
“Come with me,” I was interrupted.
“Where are we going?”
“Just keep following me and stay silent.”
“O-okay.”
As I saw my boss walking towards the building ahead of us, they suddenly removed the yellow police signs before gesturing for me to continue.
“Come, now.”
I said nothing, as I was instructed to. There was a passageway in the building that would allow for people to enter. We walked inside of it, and I had hoped to figure out what my boss was trying to show me.
I didn’t know where we were going, and the silence between the two of us continued to ensue. As we got deeper into the building, the only thing that surrounded us now or the only thing that was continuing to surround us was darkness, but even with that being said, I was still able to see my boss walking right in front of me the entire time thanks to the lighter on my hand.
I couldn’t stand to just walk and stare silently anymore. Before we could arrive at our destination, I asked.
“Do you know anyone by the name of John?”
“He works for me now, if that’s what you’re thinking,” my boss told me.
“Oh, really? So that’s why. Look, I don’t know what this is about, but I do so hope you aren’t trying to lure me into a–”
“We’re here,” my boss said.
As we got closer to our supposed destination, I could see a light shining through one of the small cracks on the ceiling until eventually, we arrived at what appeared to be abandoned railway tracks from above the ground.
“As soon as you see it, touch it lightly. Only then will you find what you’re looking for.”
“I don’t understand. What do you mean by–”
But my boss had already disappeared as soon as I shifted my gaze to their eyes, just like the fifth individual I had met from earlier.
For some strange reason, I wasn’t worried. No, I was close. Close to discovering the truth. I continued walking just as I had always been.
It didn’t take very long for me to “get’’ what my boss was trying to say to me.
All this time, they were guiding me towards something I had been continually denying.
Something I couldn’t accept. To think I would cause such a ruckus…
Eventually, I saw a few strikingly familiar things.
“So that’s where I last left you. Haha. Hahahahahahahahahahaha.”
Tears streamed down my eyes as I fell to my knees.
“I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry,” I said wistfully.
I stayed planted on the harsh trail tracks, but I couldn’t feel anything at the moment. I was numb. Both physically and emotionally.
It took me a while. A long, long while. As I laid and sat there for what felt like days, I could only ponder over my many regrets in life.
The things that I accomplished. The things that I wished I had accomplished, and the many more wishes in life that were never fulfilled.
My family– my four other siblings and my parents…
I wished for more time, but time was something I already had in abundance. It was just that I could no longer use it in the way that I wanted to.
I decided to write everything down on my phone. I needed to get my thoughts out.
And now I think I’ve written everything I wished to convey. But time is a wasting.
To my family… I’m sorry for leaving you guys. And I’m sorry for leaving you with something you wouldn’t have expected.
But now I must go.
Thank you for the memories.