Fog has its own kind of sound.
It doesn’t roar or howl like a storm — it whispers. It steals things. The world shrinks until even your breath sounds like someone else’s.
That morning, the forest was gone.
When Sarah opened her tent, she couldn’t see beyond ten feet. The pine trees that had surrounded their campsite the night before had dissolved into pale ghosts. Even the river, just twenty yards away, had vanished behind the gray curtain.
“Hey, Mark?” she called, her voice muffled. “You awake?”
There was a rustle from the next tent. “Barely. What time is it?”
“Almost eight.”
She looked at her compass — the needle quivered, twitching slightly to the east. At least something still made sense.
Mark crawled out, rubbing his eyes, hair flattened under his beanie. “Man, this fog’s thick. Think we can move today?”
Sarah hesitated. “Not till it clears. It’s too easy to lose direction here. You could walk in circles for hours.”
He smirked. “That’s what the GPS is for, right?”
She didn’t answer. The GPS had died last night — moisture in the battery case, she guessed. Out here, on the Pacific Northwest Trail, you learned quickly that technology was only as reliable as the weather allowed.
They had enough supplies for two more days. The plan had been to reach Bear Hollow by tonight, but the fog changed that. It always did.
Mark stretched, yawned, and said, “You worry too much.”
Sarah gave him a look. “And you don’t worry enough.”
From somewhere deep in the mist, something cracked — like a branch snapping. Both froze.
“Wind?” Mark asked quietly.
“No wind,” Sarah said.
They listened, but the sound didn’t come again. Only the steady drip of condensation from the trees and the slow, pulsing quiet of the fog itself.
By noon, the fog still hadn’t lifted.
Mark insisted on scouting ahead, just a short distance. “We’ll leave markers,” he said. “You stay here, I’ll find a clearer patch. If I can’t see you, I’ll shout.”
Sarah frowned. “Don’t. Fog eats sound. You could be ten feet away and I wouldn’t hear you.”
But Mark was already shouldering his pack. “Relax. I’ll be careful.”
He vanished into the gray, his shape dissolving like smoke.
Sarah waited. She checked her watch, boiled water for tea, repacked the gear — anything to keep her hands busy. The fog pressed closer, damp and endless.
After thirty minutes, she stood and shouted, “Mark!”
No answer.
“Mark, come on, that’s not funny!”
Still nothing.
A cold pulse of fear went through her chest. She picked up her compass and flashlight, tying a rope around her waist and securing the other end to the tent stake.
The fog muffled every step. The ground was slick, uneven. Her breath came fast, loud in her ears.
“Mark!” she called again.
A shadow flickered to her right — movement, quick and uncertain. She turned, heart pounding.
“Mark?”
But it wasn’t him. It was a backpack — his backpack — lying half-open near the roots of a fallen tree.
She knelt beside it. The straps were damp, one torn, as if ripped free. His flashlight lay nearby, cracked.
“God…” she whispered.
Somewhere ahead, deeper in the fog, something scraped against rock.
She gripped the compass tighter and followed.
The sound led her down a narrow ravine. Each step sank into wet moss.
She stopped often, listening — but the fog distorted everything. A birdcall became a whisper. Her own footsteps sounded like someone else’s.
At one point, she heard her name.
“Sarah…”
Soft, distant.
She spun around. “Mark?!”
Silence.
Then again, fainter: “Sarah…”
Her throat tightened. She couldn’t tell where it came from. The fog was everywhere — above, around, inside.
She tried to retrace her path, but the rope she’d tied was gone. The line had snapped somewhere behind her. Panic surged.
“Okay,” she murmured to herself, forcing her breathing steady. “Compass. North. Keep moving.”
She checked the needle — it spun wildly, no direction stable.
Static electricity? Magnetic minerals? Or maybe just her hands shaking too much.
Hours seemed to pass. The light dimmed — afternoon, or maybe evening. She found a clearing, small and circular, trees bowed inward as if hiding something.
And there — in the center — Mark. Sitting cross-legged, staring into nothing.
“Mark!” she cried, running to him.
He didn’t react. His face was pale, lips trembling.
“Hey!” She shook his shoulder.
He blinked, slowly turning toward her. “I… I couldn’t find the trail. Every step, it looked different. Like the ground moved.”
“It’s the fog,” she said. “You’re okay now. We’ll go back together.”
He looked around, confusion clouding his eyes. “Back where?”
Sarah opened her mouth to answer — but she realized she didn’t know.
They built a fire that night — small, smoky, half a comfort. The fog glowed faintly in its light, turning everything to silver.
Mark sat close, hands trembling over the flames. “It’s like it’s watching,” he said quietly. “The fog. Like it knows we’re here.”
Sarah tried to smile. “You’re exhausted. It’s just the mind playing tricks.”
But part of her didn’t believe it.
She had marked a tree near their camp with a knife earlier. When she checked it again, the mark was gone. Not covered — gone. The bark smooth as if untouched.
She said nothing.
Instead, she forced herself to think practically: supplies, shelter, bearings. Tomorrow, they’d wait for sunrise, climb higher ground, maybe see the valley from above.
She slept lightly, waking often to the sound of drops falling, fire crackling, and once — footsteps circling the camp.
At dawn, the fog began to thin. The first glimpse of sunlight pierced through, golden and alien.
And then she saw it — their original camp.
Just fifty yards away.
They hadn’t moved at all.
Sarah felt a shiver crawl through her. All that wandering, all that fear — and they’d been trapped in the same place.
The fog lifted slowly, revealing the river, the pines, the hills — familiar again.
Mark exhaled shakily. “Guess we found our way back.”
Sarah looked up at the clearing sky. “No,” she said softly. “It found us.”
The wind stirred, gentle and clean.
And for the first time in two days, the forest was quiet again.