The mist came without warning.
One morning, the residents of the village woke to find their lakeside settlement wrapped in an impenetrable fog鈥攖hick, cold, and utterly wrong. Within hours, people began to vanish. No screams. No signs of struggle. Just empty spaces where lives used to be. Now you huddle in the castle's great hall at dawn, recovering from another night of ferocious fighting. Your hands shake as you reload. The barricades held, but barely.
Above the village, perched on a windswept hilltop, stands the ruins of an ancient castle鈥攜our only sanctuary. When darkness falls, the mist rises with terrible purpose, surging up from the lake. You and the other survivors retreat behind the stone walls, barricading the gates as shadows move through the fog below. Each dawn, you find fresh claw marks on the outer walls, growing higher each time.
The nights are chaos. You run through the castle's twisted corridors, armed with whatever you can find, your flashlight beam cutting desperate arcs through the darkness. Your headlamp flickers鈥攂atteries dying. Behind you, footsteps echo in the stone passages, getting closer. Something breathing in the shadows. You fire blind, the muzzle flash revealing things you wish you hadn't seen. Then you're running again, the weak light barely enough to keep you from stumbling, from becoming just another body in the morning count.
The days are for survival. You scavenge the abandoned village below, racing against the clock to gather supplies before nightfall. Ammunition. Food. Planks to reinforce the weakening gates. You're getting ready to go into the castle again tonight, rationing what little you have left. There is no help coming. No rescue. Only the mist, and whatever it brings with it when the sun goes down. Get ready to fight.
