The Bearer (4)

You run—feet hammering the pavement, lungs tight with panic—but you’re not getting anywhere. 

You’ve been here already.

That crooked streetlamp casting the sickly amber haze.
Peters Street.

Again.

You stop.

Your breath spills out in short, white plumes. You turn, slowly, your eyes begging the world to prove you wrong. But the signs are the same. Same walls. Same cracks. Same angles. Same silence.

You didn’t move.

You were never moving.

The fog didn’t follow you—it folded you.
Wrapped the world like a paper trick, shuffled the streets like a deck of marked cards, and placed you right back where you started.

Bang.

The sound tears through the air. Sharp. Hungry. A revolver.
Close.

You don’t think. You drop.

Concrete slams your chest. Elbows scrape. Palms sting.
But you're alive. The bullet missed.

Not because of grace. Not skill.
Because luck, for once, blinked your way.

Though the gunshot rang from behind, the bullet hissed past from above—angled, deliberate. As if someone’s watching from a rooftop.

A hunter.

Your gut coils. Something’s off. Deeply off.

You sniff the air—metallic, wet. Not your blood. Not yet.
The world feels… staged.

Street signs. Lamp post. Fire escape. Even the silence.
Too still. Too perfect.

Your mind kicks back to life—trained instinct, detective's itch.
This fog isn’t weather.

It’s a tool.
A lie.

It explains everything. The loop. The repetition. Why no matter how far you run, you always land back here. 

It’s just a theory. A hunch.

But hunches used to pay your rent.
Got you medals. Confessions.
Made monsters admit things their lawyers told them not to say.

So maybe this fog isn’t just hiding the streets—
Maybe it’s rewriting direction itself.

A war on perception.

Bang.

Another shot—this time ahead of you, a thundercrack warning you to stop.

But the pain comes from the right.

A white-hot bite sinks into your waist, sharp and clean, like fire dipped in glass.
It knocks the air out of you. Your knees hit the ground before your brain catches up.

You grunt. Not a scream—just a raw, animal sound.
You don’t get to scream. Not here. Not now.

You roll, dragging yourself into the shadows between buildings, spine against freezing brick.
Your hand goes to the wound. Should be left side. Definitely left—

No. Wait. Is it?

Your hand moves again. The pain follows—no, shifts.

The fog.

It’s not just outside you.

It’s inside you now.

In your ears, in your nerves.
Your skin hums with wrongness.
Your own body can’t be trusted.

You press harder. Wrong spot—again. Your fingers don’t know what’s real.

You’re bleeding. You know that much.
But where? How much?
Is the blood even real?

This isn’t confusion. This is sabotage.
This is systemic.

The shooter knew what he was doing.

You rewind the first shot in your mind. Sounded like it came from behind—
But the angle was from above. Rooftop.

The second? It cracked from in front, but struck from your right.
He’s not just good.
He’s inside this fog.

No, worse.

He’s using it.

Like it answers to him.

Your pulse pounds. There’s no way to fight something you can’t see, can’t hear, can’t trust.

So how do you win?

You run.

Crack!

No roar. No thunder. Just a hiss—like the world inhaling sharply through its teeth.

Something slices the air by your temple.

Close. Too close.

You flinch as concrete behind you explodes in a burst of dust and splinters. No gunshot heard—just the cruel whisper of a bullet skimming past, and the gritty screech of a wall being torn apart.

Your brain stumbles to catch up, replaying angles, velocity, space.

The first round missed high—from above.
This one missed tight—from your side.

You see a door—shut tight, hunched in the dead frame of a building. Shelter. Warmth. Accusation of trespass. It’d be smarter to go in. Safer, even if it means looking like a thief.

But You don’t.

The feet dragged you sideways instead—into a narrow alley clenched between two concrete teeth. Why?

Why not go inside?

Why not listen to reason?

Because reason lies.

And right now—You don’t trust anything that sounds like you!

Not even my own sense.

Crash.
Glass shatters like a scream.

A bullet must’ve kissed that window. You smile, almost laughing. The fog isn’t just hunting you. It devours everyone. Even the bastard who let it loose.

The gunshots—yes. You deduce the origin: he remembered where you stood before the fog thickened. Then came the guessing game. Predicting your flight, your fear. Shooting not at you—but at logic. Instinct. The human animal, cornered and twitching.

He thought you'd run left. Maybe right. Hide under the stairwell. Behind the crates. Anywhere.

He was wrong.

And now he knows it.

He’ll thin the fog, of course. Try to see again. Try to find you.

You don’t wait for that.

You break into a sprint. Out of the alley. The mist tries to cling to your skin like it knows it’s losing.

There—a sealed manhole. Salvation in a circle of rusted iron. And just as the haze begins to recede, you feel your heart thump louder. Louder. You're still alive.

You twist it open. Fast. Careful. The iron cover groans like something old remembering pain.

A rusty ladder reveals itself—bolted into the wall, slick with condensation and something darker. You descend, one hand gripping cold metal, the other steadying your breath. Each rung sings a quiet, metallic cry beneath your weight.

Then—
Halfway down, you reach up, pull the cover shut. The city vanishes above you. Sealed.

No trace.

Just you and the tunnel now. And whatever’s waiting in the dark below.

You hear it. The water. Rushing somewhere distant—steady, indifferent. A cold comfort.

And the fog?
It doesn’t follow you down here. Praise whatever's left of god. It clings to the streets like a mad dog, but fears the dark beneath.

You scan yourself—quick, fingers trembling.

Shit.
Your leg. Your gut.
Two holes. Clean entry, dirty exit. Blood’s pouring out. Not dripping. Pouring.

“Fuck...”

You thought it was one shot. A warning.
No. Two bullets. Precision work. One to slow you. One to kill you slow.

And then it hits you.
Your blood. It’s trailing behind. A breadcrumb trail straight to this hole in the world.

“Holy fuck...!”

You're not safe. Not yet.

Your body jolts forward on instinct. Feet slapping against wet iron—
A narrow platform, clinging to the side of the underground stream like a desperate thought.

You run.
One hand pressed against your gut, trying to keep your insides from spilling out.
Each step a jolt of pain. Each breath a hiss.

The canal roars beside you, a black vein of the city pulsing beneath the skin of civilization.
No one should be down here.
Not even you.
But you are.

You follow the platform, deeper into the dark.
No plan.
Just blood, adrenaline, and the taste of metal in your mouth.

****

You’ve been running for a while.
Too long.

The platform beneath you is slick with condensation and your own blood.
You feel it now—death, somewhere between your lungs and your spine.
You're not going to last much longer.

And yet…

You stop thinking.
Turn off the rational part.
Let the primal switch flick on.

Forward?
Left?
Right?

Doesn’t matter.
You let your body decide. Let instinct take the wheel, bleeding hands and all.

And there it is—
A ladder. Bolted into the wall like a promise.
Not salvation. Just a direction. A chance.

With what's left of your strength, you climb.

The manhole opens like a lid on a rusted jar.
And the night air hits you.
Sharp. Cold. Unforgiving.
It tears through your wounds like icy fingers.
But it’s clean. Real. Above ground.

You know this place.

Oak Street.

Close to the university.
A name echoes through your skull like an unwanted ringtone from a life you don’t fully claim:

Professor Areldine.
The least likable, least trustworthy, and most likely option you have.

If this body's memory serves—he should still be there.
Stargazing. Alone. Always alone.

You just hope tonight is one of those nights.

Because you don’t have many left.

You burst through the gate.
No time to hide the trail of blood behind you. Living—just staying alive—is all that matters now.

You run, lungs burning, body screaming. Past walls and halls, your feet somehow remember the way even as your thoughts fray at the edges.

Finally, the building looms ahead: the professor’s wing.

A light.
Through the slit beneath the door.
Still on.

The gods haven't completely turned their backs on you. Not yet.

You throw yourself against the door with the last of your strength.

It creaks open.

And you collapse.

The cold floor greets your face. The metallic tang of your own blood fills your mouth.

But before your eyes shut, you catch a glimpse—just enough.

Professor Areldine.

Not alone.

He’s speaking with a woman. Her face is a blur; the outlines refuse to hold. Vision already dimming.

Your thoughts slur into static.

Heh.
So the Professor does have a bit of a wild side, huh?

A final intrusive thought dances across the edges of your dying mind—absurd, stupid, and utterly human.

Then, darkness.