#fog
#1 of Writing Prompts
A short spooky drabble I wrote for a horror word prompt on Twitter. The word was fog.
Misjudging the time. My own fault. The sun, lowering in the distance, spills bright red across the earth. I am a mile deep on a hiking trail in the Appalachian mountains, and the treetops have begun to loom over me like a disappointed father. There is a small bird caught in my chest, thrashing in fear and confusion. I clear my throat to stop from coughing feathers into the dusk.
Cool air rushes up the mountainside, and fog embraces the foliage, snuffing out the last broken glimpses of bloodied land below. I take three deep breaths. My brain imagines the fog spreading into the wetness of my mouth, twisting down into my lungs to suffocate me as thick balls of cotton.
Driving to work one early morning I saw two young bucks bound across an exit ramp and into 6 lanes of traffic. They had drifted out of the fog like ghosts, quick and purposeful. There was nothing I could do but watch. An inevitability to their demise. One made it over the median - the other was flipped 3 times and did not get up.
Will the creatures sitting in the fog consider me with the same detachment when I tumble down the mountainside? Will they watch, mouths agape, as I stumble blindly into the mouth of some predator? To be turned over 3 times and pinned beneath the weight of death and teeth?
Darkness is here, as if it had never been otherwise. The fog magnifies the moonlight, teasing me with shadows and glimpses of what is hidden. The trail continues on. I cannot remember how far I have come. A rock twists free beneath my foot, and I reach out into nothingness. I am met with nothing.
I think I see, in the final moments, the thin legs and barreled torso of a young buck. The shadows of their stubby antlers fade into the leaves. I am unable to tell if it was the one who made it, or the one who did not.