Cipher Code {complete}

Chapter Three: Darkness •EDITED•

The once busy workshop now rested in a field of drooping weeds, its walls covered in scores of creeping vines and moss. The wooden walls had rotted quickly as a result of the dampness in the almost poisonous atmosphere, and the creepers were either brown or yellowing, slowly being killed by the fog that gave it life.

"Why is this fog destroying everything?" Esau yelled into the milky whiteness. He reached up to his face and ripped off his mask, leaping to his feet and throwing a punch into the fog. "Isn't it just water?"

Beside him his sister gasped, fumbling to catch the old cloth before it touched the marshy ground.

She stood up and shoved the rag against his face before he could react, her eyes widening slightly with anger as she reached to touch the cloth that stretched over her own nose and mouth. "Don't do that ever again."

"I. . ." Esau took the makeshift mask from Edythe without saying another word. Guilt made him unable to speak.

He had almost forgotten that she was there, watching out for him like she always did. It was suicidal to breathe in the fog when it was this close to the ground. He knew full well that the fog was not water.

His despondent gaze fell to the grass crushed beneath his boots. He had to squint to make out the little green blades that had barely adjusted to the harsh conditions and managed to survive. In couple of days, they too will die.

Everything was barely visible, soaked in the dreariness of the fog. Sometimes he felt like he would disappear into the fog as well. It was just a matter of time before he fell sick too. . . and died.

His gaze shifted to his sister, he could see her clearly enough despite the fog dancing circles around her feet. Her eyes were like blue beacons in the white darkness. I don't want her to die.

The blazestone pendant sitting below Esau's collar heated up as though sensing his thoughts, sending satisfying tingles of warmth into his toes and fingertips. He saw a corresponding burst of orange beneath Edythe's collarbone.

Yes, he consoled himself, we have blazestones on us all the time.

It wouldn't be that easy for them to get infected. They'd survive the longest, till there was no more fog. At least that was what his Ma had told them three months ago, when it had first descended.

Returning his gaze back to the dilapidated workshop behind him, he tried to stifle the frustration brewing in his chest. His helplessness choked him more than the fog did.

"I'm sorry Eddy, I won't do it again," he apologized. The words felt hollow coming from his mouth and he knew it; they both knew that he was lying.

"Okay," Edythe said when he looked her way, patting her gloved hand on his shoulder. "Let's hurry up and go home. If we're late Ma will be. . . worried."

Worried wasn't the best word to describe their mother's reaction to their loitering, but it was the best Edythe could come up with.

They both knew that if their Ma found out that they had spent so much time by the workshop with midnight approaching, they'd be in unspeakable trouble.

"Yes," Esau said, his eyes narrowing ever so slightly at the fog, "before midnight we have to be home."

When the moon goes up, the fog comes down, he reminded himself, even though he knew they'd be back home long before the fog fully descended and navigation became impossible.