whispers in the fog
Perhaps there is still some doubt in your mind, or perhaps you are too cautious to venture far off the beaten trail. Whatever your reasoning, you end up turning away from the fireflies and their dancing lights, and face the pathway laid before you with determination. You continue down the path as it weaves in and out of the trees, ever deeper into the woods.
The forest explodes with color all around you, the birch trees and the maples standing proudly in their robes of red and gold, bright green moss creeping up their trunks. Below them crabapples and cranberries tempt you sweetly, while mushrooms and wildflowers grow along every collapsed trunk. It is all too tempting to pause and enjoy the scenery, or to reflect on the strange noises rustling in the fallen leaves. Perhaps you don’t notice the mist that snakes in between the trees, cloaking the ground from view, rising higher, and higher, and higher; or perhaps you notice it right away, and watch it creep forward with distrust.
It curls thickly along the ground, rising up like a wave swelling to meet you. In the blink of an eye it has consumed you, swallowed you and the forest whole, obscuring even your hooves from sight. The air grows heavy beneath the weight of all that fog.
If you kept walking despite the fog, you soon realize the ground under your hooves has changed, becoming more wild and unkept as you strayed unknowingly from the path. From within that fog, from all around you, just out of sight - come muffled voices.
Voices you recognize.
Perhaps they are the voices of your friends back home, or your loved ones long passed from the earth. Perhaps they belong to your brother, your sister, your father, your mother; or a childhood friend you’ve long grown apart from. Whoever they are, their voice carries an eerie tone, like an echo follows their words through the fog, calling your name softly, sweetly, longingly. Off to the side the mists begin to thicken, a spectral form standing to greet you. Ghosts you think you recognize pull themselves from the ground and converge around you, shivering, whispering.
But up ahead, you can see a section of the fog parting, a light streaming between the trees. Perhaps it reminds you of the stranger’s words from before; perhaps it is enough to give you the strength to push through the ghosts rising all around you.
Or perhaps you find yourself trapped, and begin to think to yourself - what’s the worst that can happen? These ghosts you once knew, what harm could they bring?
To continue the quest, you must reply to this thread with your character's choice. There is no word limit, and you can be as creative with the prompt as you'd like! Elena has chosen to stay on the path, but the forest seems committed to distracting her. Can she even see the trail under her hooves still? What are the voices whispering to her? Are any of them familiar?
Choices: continue through the fog onto the light, or linger with the voices
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