It Came From the Fog

[System Sound]

The nameless soldier was curled up against the trench wall, shaking from fear and cold. Nameless, like countless others lying lifeless in the mud or cowering in fear and despair. They were all forgotten, just like the planet and the war that had lost its meaning long ago.

 

His breathing was ragged, his chest rising and falling in uneven bursts. His lasrifle lay discarded by his side, its once-pristine barrel caked with mud and rust. He clutched a tattered scrap of fabric—something taken from a comrade long since gone. The colours were faded, the emblem unrecognisable, but it was all that was left to tether him to what felt like another lifetime.

 

The horizon was cloaked in a thick fog, streaked with the dim glow and sound of far-off explosions.

 

‘They say the fog’s alive,’ muttered a soldier beside him, his eyes darting back and forth over the edge of the trench. ‘That it eats your mind before it takes your body. Ain’t natural, I tell you!’

 

The nameless soldier said nothing. He’d heard it all before—the theories, the warnings—but no one had answers, only fear. He knew better than to look into the fog, to let it draw him in. Better to keep his head down, to try and shut out the sounds of battle—the anguished cries, the explosions that shook the very earth. He had seen others stare too long into that fell mist, their faces slack, eyes vacant, slowly walking out into the no man's land, swallowed whole.

 

Sometimes he thought he heard voices calling to him from the mist, whispers he could never quite make out. Today they came again. He clapped his hands over his ears, screwing his eyes tightly shut, trying to block it all out until the artillery's drumbeat would drown the whispers in thunder again. He tried to force himself deeper into the earth, clawing at the mud in desperation,

 

The fog thickened. It rolled in faster than usual, swallowing the trenches and muffling every sound except for the soldier’s ragged breathing. The temperature plummeted, biting into his bones. The soldier tried to stand up, to see what new hells came for them that day, but he froze when he heard it.

 

Rap… Tap… Tap…

 

The sound was faint at first like a finger tapping lightly on a wooden table. It grew louder, more deliberate until it reverberated through the fog. He dared to lift his head, his heart hammering against his ribs.

 

And then he saw it.

 

A gigantic figure loomed in the fog. A machine, one of the Mechanicum Knights, he realised, but not like any he had ever seen. It moved with a slow, deliberate stride, impossibly tall, its silhouette shimmering faintly like a mirage. The fog dragged behind it like a cloak. The weird symbols carved into its armour seemed to writhe, shifting like shadows under its unlight glow. It carried an ornate staff in its left claw, the source of the relentless tapping sound as it struck the ground with each step. Yet the machine was impossibly silent. How can something so huge be so utterly quiet?

 

Rap… Tap… Tap… Went the staff.

 

The soldier couldn’t breathe, couldn’t look away. A snow-white skull that looked like a melted candle, drooped and creased, stared down at him from the hunched mechanical monstrosity, its single, glowing green eye burning with an intensity that pierced the fog and his soul. It turned toward him and he felt its gaze—an all-consuming terror that froze him in place.

 

Around him, men began to panic. Some clutched their weapons tightly, their knuckles white, while others whispered prayers or pressed themselves into the mud as though they could disappear into it. The commissar, a man who had once seemed unshakable, whispered a trembling prayer: “Emperor, forgive us.” Then, with shaking hands, he drew his sidearm, trying to end his life. All he was rewarded with was a dry click, a jam.

 

The soldier wanted to scream, to run, but his body refused to obey. The machine loomed, its gaze sweeping the trench, pausing for what felt like an eternity. The sheer terror it radiated threatened to crush him, to shatter his mind.

 

But then, it moved on. Disappearing back into the fog.

 

When the sound of tapping finally faded, the trench fell into a suffocating silence. No one moved. The commissar sat slumped against the wall, his pistol hanging limply from his hand, his eyes wide and unseeing. One of the younger soldiers began to sob quietly, her tears cutting streaks through the grime on her face.

 

The nameless stared into the fog, half-expecting the machine to reappear. He wanted to believe it was over, that they had been spared, but the cold dread in his chest told him otherwise. The fog hadn’t lifted, and he knew it wouldn’t.

 

The whispers grew louder, their disjointed murmurs coalescing into clear, commanding words: “Drown… in the… Dark.” Each syllable struck his mind like hammer blows, unravelling what little resolve he had left.

 

His fingers tightened around the tattered fabric, but the threads slipped free, falling apart in his hands like ash. Something inside him fractured. Just like the fabric, his mind unravelled.

 

The whispers now a crescendo in his ears, ‘Thousand… Faced… Moon…!’

 

Slowly, as if the fog itself was pulling him, he rose to his feet. His movements were sluggish, his body heavy, yet he climbed the trench wall as though in a trance. Around him, others watched in silent horror, their faces pale, mouths moving in pleas he couldn’t hear over the whispers roaring in his mind.

 

However, one by one, they followed him.

 

The fog swallowed them, their figures fading into its suffocating embrace. Behind them, the trenches fell silent, save for the faint, rhythmic tapping that echoed long after they were gone.