My Sister's a Guardian (RotG Fanfiction)

Chapter 26: The Other Enemy

She relaxed and sighed. "How come?"

I threw my head back. No dark clouds brewed in the speckled sky, so it wasn't a Terror Storm. "I just feel like there's something near us." I stepped closer to Ranya. "Not Mother Nature, but something bad. I just have a feeling."

"Maybe it's an animal or something. We're almost at the fields—look." Ranya pointed as we rounded the last triangular house. I could hardly see the wide stretch of road bordered by thick snowy fields sifting in the wind. Precarious powerlines ran along one edge. Darkness nearly completely smothered the area; no lampposts lit the road, only the stars and Windshallow-purple crescent Moon.

I gripped the straps over my shoulders tighter. I began to tremble. Ranya glanced over at me. "Here—how about we run?" she said. Far away, I could see dim lights just peeking through the darkness.

Something rustled in the cloaked field, too loud and large to be wind. Ranya's hand flew over my mouth; she pulled me down behind the three-foot-tall cliff of snow bordering the edge of the road. We stayed crouched for a moment. The wind howled, and I strained my ears for any other odd sounds, a footstep or a voice. My heart wouldn't stop pounding. But nothing happened, and Ranya slowly stood and lifted her head above the snowbank.

I sensed something behind me, and spun.

A thick white mist bloomed across the streets behind us like a bright ash cloud, rapidly growing, towering and expanding to my sides. Sharp, spiny beings formed at the front. They reminded me of snakes, but perhaps even more of the one picture of starving children I'd seen.

In the brief moment while I processed what I saw, I witnessed frail trees in the nearest yards vanish as the fog enveloped them.

I screamed, "Ranya!"

Her gaze snapped over her shoulder, and her eyes widened. She yanked me to my feet even before I had the chance to stand. "Run!"

We sprinted down the road. Each rapid pound of my heart shook my body like my bag slamming hard into my back. The mist was fifty feet from us, but moved quicker than we. It stretched to the sides, all-encompassing.

My mind went through a thousand possible ideas on how to survive. None of them were good.

Yet, I still tried to shout over my panting, my voice shaking, "Can we hide... where it won't get us?" I desperately scanned our surroundings a hundredth time. Only flat fields smothered in deep snow, and leaning powerlines, all directly in the mist's path where they would vanish, sat around us. I wasn't certain what I was looking for, but I didn't find it.

"You can't hide from... the mist!" Ranya breathed, and she tried to yank me faster. But we couldn't pump our legs any more rapidly. The fog consumed the electric wires, shutting off the lampposts and other house lights behind us. We plunged even further into darkness. The mist beings' low hoarse whispering reached me in a language I couldn't comprehend. It sounded as if it had come before time itself.

I desperately scanned the dark fields again. Did any of them have a vehicle we could drive? No. Any people who could help? No one lived out here.

All of this happened in less than a second.

"Do you have any... weapons for the mist?" I asked Ranya.

"No. We just have to... run. The mist will... leave eventually." Her voice shook. When would the mist leave? After it had killed us?

There was one thing I could think of that might help. There wasn't much hope otherwise. I held my free hand back toward the fog, trying frantically to concentrate on a shield or freezing the mist in time, anything that might spur my powers to life. But my thoughts ran too quickly for me to catch. I kept trying.