A PRESENCE IN THE MIST: THE STORY OF A BROKEN CYCLE

Volume I: Genesis

“To the king, to glory, and to the realm!” Beeric roared, slamming a mug of ale down on the rough wooden table, spraying it across the surface. He raised his mug toward his men in a toast to the morrow.We all exploded into a single, pride-swelled shout. “Long live the king!” We mirrored his gesture, all of us brimming with false courage. There were twelve of us crammed into a tavern in the capital’s northern ward, and we felt like gods already.I kept polishing the hilt of my new sword and dreaming of the beasts I would slay. It still smelled of forged iron and charcoal. It was probably worthless, but to me, it was the steel that would carve out my destiny. We talked loudly, spinning grand tales of how we’d slaughter every creature that dared cross our path and how we’d squander the gold once the job was done and we marched back home. One wanted to buy a title, another an inn; some just wanted to return to their villages and settle down. We were young and full of dreams and hollow pride. We were convinced that the bards sang the gospel truth, and that the world was waiting for us to save it. High on the spirit of noble paladins, we marched out of the city the next morning, cut through the woods, and crossed the threshold of the mine. The dark didn’t scare us. Our torches cut through the tunnels, and the jests kept flying. We descended deeper and deeper into abandoned shafts, weapons drawn, our hearts hammering with pure excitement.Then, that excitement curdled into a fucking nightmare.There was no epic clash. It was a butchery. The creature burst from a godforsaken crawl space in a side tunnel, completely silent. It wasn’t a storybook monster that could be vanquished with a single blow—no glowing weak spot that, once pierced, would bring peace for a thousand generations. It was a shapeless mass of talons, muscle, and blind hunger. Beeric didn’t even have time to shout a warning. The creature tore his head off in a single bite. His body hit the dirt.How could he? The creature tore off his head in a single bite. His body hit the dirt like an empty sack. Blood geysered from his neck like a fountain. In that single heartbeat, the laughter and fairy tales they’d crammed into our skulls since childhood died with my comrades’ terrified screams. But we’d been down there for hours, too far from the sun. Who was going to hear a dozen wretched bastards screaming their lungs out? The boys I’d toasted with the night before—the ones I’d trained with since before I could remember—began charging blindly. They swung swords that looked like snapping twigs against the beast and were torn apart, one by one. No mercy. Then again, maybe there was mercy in it—once you’re dead, you stop hurting. Right there, in the thick of the slaughter, something inside my head clicked off. The thrill was gone, replaced by a cold, numb detachment from my companions. I looked ahead. The monster blocked the path for anyone trying to push forward and butchered them. Well, no shit. You stay in your own damn home, minding your own business, and a pack of arrogant pricks breaks in. “Off with its head,” some royal highness would say. There was no room for heroes here. No room to dodge it, either. “Just a routine scout,” they told us. “Just do a sweep of the mine and report back.” If Beeric had been less boastful and more cautious, we could have written our report without venturing deep into the mine. But were any of us cautious? We were supposed to run into a couple of goblins—similar bullshit. A desperate choke tightened in my throat. I broke into a cold sweat. The air in the cavern reeked of rust and despair. I turned on my heel, dropped my gear, and ran like hell in the opposite direction.I tripped at least a dozen times, trampling over bodies torn beyond recognition. I ignored the outstretched fingers of those still crawling through the mud, begging for help. I ran as hard as I could away from the screaming, thinking, Poor beasts. They’re just like the pigs I used to see back at the village farm. They’re born, they eat, and they rot in the same spot. They swallow every bit of garbage fed to them. Guess where they end up? Slaughtered. That’s nature for you. It’s no fairy tale. But let’s return to the matter at hand and think of something less dystopian. Only four of us crawled out of that circle of hell. Only four pairs of legs were fast enough to outrun the butchery. We collapsed at the mine’s entrance, soaking wet from the driving rain that washed away the blood caked on our skin, but it couldn’t wash away the filth we felt inside. I sat there for hours, staring blankly at my belt. I used to have a sword that was supposed to help me carve out my destiny. Well, I suppose it did. That brand-new blade—not that it was of great quality or that I’d paid a fortune for it—was likely now chipped, caked in mud, and useless. Lost in the depths of that hellhole—forget those miners, too. It’s your mine, not mine. I stared into the blackness of the cave and promised myself I’d never be so foolish as to enter a place like that again. Nor would I ever believe that a sword and good intentions could save the world and all that nonsense again. From that day on, God knows what became of the other three. We spent the last decade training and talking trash as if any of it mattered. As if getting stronger and faster were some grand purpose in life. Here was the result: just the four of us, lying there and staring at a mine. In the end, though, if we made it out, it was only because we were the fastest to run. We didn’t have to pretend to be something we weren’t while our brothers fell one by one. We got lucky the thing didn’t hunt us down—maybe it was just defending its home. And that was how I left, with nowhere to go.....

If you were suddenly faced with the collapse of your certainties and expectations, would you flee to survive, or would you still seek a way to confront what remains?