Chapter Text
Fog rolled through the vacant streets, thick and unnatural, swallowing the city’s forgotten edges. Lauren watched it settle from where she stood, eyes tracing each swirl as if it could be anything but her creation. Somewhere in that haze were creatures she could still recognize, faint remnants of the people they’d once been, before the Mist hollowed them out. She pressed her hand to her chest, feeling the pulse that reminded her she was still alive, still human—for now. But with each breath, that same fog called to her, whispered in familiar voices, waiting for her to follow it into the dark.
The once sickening screams that roared throughout the city, replaced with eerie silence, she almost preferred the screams; that meant there was human life to be found. Now, she didn’t even know if there was anyone still alive. She felt like the last heartbeat in a body already gone cold, moving through empty streets that bore nothing but shadows and fog. Each footstep echoed louder than it should, a reminder that was an intruder in the graveyard of her own making. And as she moved forward, the silence seemed to close in tighter, as if the city itself held its breath, waiting.
The silence pulled at her mind, coaxing her back to those last moments of humanity— the sharp prick of panic, the blur of chaos and her own mistakes. She hadn’t meant for the Mist to be used like this, and certainly hadn’t planned for her to have the Mist in her own body anytime soon. She remembered that day with too much clarity, like the sting of alcohol on a fresh wound. The hum of machines, the stale scent of recycled air, and the soft beep of monitors were all supposed to be safety nets, protection against anything going wrong.
But alas, no good deed goes unpunished, they had all failed her, just like her own work had. It was meant to be a breakthrough, a moment of triumph for her work. The Mist, the nanobots she’d poured her heart into, was supposed to heal, not destroy. The state had greenlit the first round of human treatments, and Lauren stood at the helm, watching as the Mist was administered for the first time.
But then something went wrong. The code, the same one she spent years perfecting, twisted and corrupted. The first patient—just a young man, no different from any other—suddenly convulsed, his body jerking in ways that shouldn’t have been possible. Then his eyes, once a beautiful green, now a pale blue. Empty. Void. And before she could react, before the alarm bells in her head could register the chaos, he attacked.
Panic gripped at her chest. There was no plan, no backup. The Mist, designed to heal, was turning him into something entirely—something terrifying. She should’ve done something, should’ve moved, but she froze. And that hesitation—her inability to act quickly enough—cost them all. As the man lunged at her, his hands cold and relentless, she felt the sharp sting of the infection. It wasn’t a bite or a scratch. It was worse. She could feel the vapor thickening around her face. The man had climbed off of her and took everyone else out in the room within seconds. She had gotten up and ran out of the hospital. It was like a domino effect, one by one more and more people had begun getting infected, it spread through the hospital like wildfire, the once sterile scent of disinfectant now tainted with the acrid stench of panic and decay. She was once again tackled to the ground as if the first time wasn’t enough, and felt that same vapor flow into her veins. Instead of trying to run like the last time she laid on the ground—giving up—she had failed to do the one thing that kept her going.
As the Mist coursed through her veins, she felt her skin cool, a hollow ache spreading from the center of her chest. Her vision blurred, then sharpened unnaturally—distorted flashes of movement and color rushed past her as distant voices echoed in her ears. The world was slipping from her grasp. Staying still in her place on the road, she could hear the doors to the hospital crashing open, and Lauren heard screams—a scream that was still human, still pleading for help, followed by the unmistakable sound of something snapping. She ached to close her eyes, but they wouldn’t obey, nausea rising as she watched someone she’d worked alongside fall to the Mist’s power, their once familiar face now empty, void of any of the life it once held. The streets outside were a warzone—flames licked at the edges of overturned vehicles, bitter stench of smoke mixing with something worse. Something… wrong. The Mist was everywhere now.
A tickling sensation crawled beneath her skin, like tiny electrical currents dancing across her nerves. Her breath quickened as a wave of something cold settled deep inside her. And then, it hit her with bone-chilling clarity. The Mist was inside her—more than just a virus, more than just a chemical. She could feel it. The slow, merciless transformation was already in motion. She wasn’t human anymore. Not fully.
Lauren’s thoughts snapped back to the present as the sound of footsteps drew nearer. She instinctively tensed, her hand hovering near the wrench at her side. Through the fog of her own mind, she could barely make out the figure approaching—distant, blurry, but distinctly human. As the person stepped closer, the low light revealed a woman, no older than her, clad in a gasmask and green goggles that obscured most of her face. Lauren took a sharp breath, her muscles tight with both fear and the need for control.
The stranger didn’t speak, but Lauren could see the hesitation in their posture, in the way they held themselves. A part of her wanted to push past them, to run, but another part—a more human part—wanted to hear something familiar, something comforting, even if just for a moment. The stranger’s eyes were locked on her, studying her like they were trying to read a puzzle. Lauren opened her mouth to speak, but her voice came out as a strained whisper, barely audible, as if the words were trapped behind the thick fog that clouded her mind.
“I’m…” she tried again, her throat tight. The Mist had taken much from her, her voice being one of the cruelest losses. “I’m not like them.”
Her gaze flickered to the group behind the figure—three or four others, weapons drawn, their expressions wary. They didn’t trust her. Not yet. But she could feel something in the air, something tentative, like they were all holding their breath, waiting to see what would happen next.
The stranger tilted their head slightly, still unmoving. There was a long pause, a silence stretching uncomfortably between them, until the person finally spoke, their voice muffled by the mask. “You’re not like them… But that doesn’t mean we’re going to let you walk away.”
Lauren’t heart skipped at the finality in their tone. She understood, more than they could know. She wasn’t fully human anymore—couldn’t be. Not after everything the Mist had taken. But she wasn’t one of them either. Not yet. She hadn’t fully embraced the dark thing the Mist was trying to turn her into.
The group kept their distance, and Lauren remained frozen, every muscle tensed, ready for whatever came next. There was still so much they didn’t know about each other, about who they were, who they were becoming.
The silence hung thick in the air, broken only by the occasional crackle of distant flames; there hadn’t been any rain yet since the Mist broke free. The woman shifted slightly, her gaze flickering between Lauren and the others behind her. Her fingers twitched near the straps of her gas mask, the tension in the air gnawing at her resolve.
The older man—perhaps in his late fifties—finally spoke, his voice gruff but steady behind his mask. “We take her with us. If she’s a threat, we deal with it when the time comes. Until then, she’s our liability.” He glanced at the man who was already shaking his head in frustration. “You’re out of your mind” the younger man snapped, his hand resting on the hilt of his knife, a hard edge to his voice. “She’s one of them. Look at, Those eyes… whatever’s left of her humanity is barely clinging on. We can’t trust her.”
The woman in front of her gaze flickered to Lauren, her unease deepening, but she didn’t disagree. She knew there was too much danger in letting someone like Lauren slip through their fingers—especially when the Mist had its tendrils in the world like it did now. But the older man wasn’t swayed. “We need people. She’s not going to be much use if we leave her out here to die alone. Besides, we don’t know what she might know, what information she might have. And if she can’t help us, at least we can keep an eye on her.”
The third man, the one who hadn’t spoken yet, glanced at Lauren with a mix of indifference and suspicion. He didn’t seem thrilled at the idea of having her around, but he wasn’t about to voice his concerns. At least not yet. The younger man gritted his teeth. “Fine. But don’t come crying to me when she turns on us.” The woman hesitated, a part of her wanting to step in and say something. She wanted to believe that Lauren wasn’t a threat—that she was like her. Wanting to trust that she was human like the rest of them. But part of her knew how fragile trust was. And right now, trust didn’t feel like something they could afford.
“Alright” the woman finally said, her voice tight. She turned back to Lauren, her words softer, almost apologetic. “You’re coming with us. For now.” Lauren’s chest tightened as she processed the words, her mind still clouded with the remnants of the flashbacks, the terror, the helplessness. But there was no choice. They were all she had now, whether she wanted to trust them or not. The Mist was never about science—it was about survival. And she needed to survive.
The younger man still looked at her with distrust, his eyes narrowing, but he didn’t protest as the woman motioned for Lauren to follow them. Before the group moved, the much shorter woman hesitated again. Then took a step toward Lauren. “I—” she stopped herself, glancing at the others briefly before moving her head to look Lauren in the eye through fogged lenses of her goggles. “I'm Reed.” Her voice was strained, quiet, unsure. “I’m… sorry we’re dragging you into this.”
Lauren nodded, her throat tight as the words fought to be spoken, caught somewhere deep within her. Her lips parted, but her voice came out in a raspy whisper, broken by the Mist’s effects on her vocal cords. “Lauren” she managed, the sound almost foreign to her ears. “Lauren Boyd.” The older man raised an eyebrow but didn’t interrupt as Lauren turned her gaze to the group. Her voice was quiet, barely audible, but there was a certain firmness to it. “I’m not here to harm anyone.” She tried to meet their eyes, but the weight of the Mist pressed down on her chest, pulling her gaze away, her thoughts swirling. “I’ll just follow. For now.”
The younger man scoffed but said nothing, keeping his distance as Reed motioned for Lauren to walk behind her. The third man—still silent—kept his wary eyes on Lauren, his hand resting near the handle of his gun. They began walking, Lauren trailing behind Reed, with the group in a loose formation around them. The road ahead felt long and uncertain, but Lauren’s mind kept going back to that moment—the moment she froze in that operating room. Could she have prevented it all? Could she have stopped the Mist from spreading?
She was still asking herself those questions as they trudged onward, not knowing how much longer the group would tolerate her presence, or if they would ultimately leave her behind. The weight of their uncertainty weighed on her. She wasn’t human, not anymore, and they would be the first to see that. But at least for now, they didn’t know just how much of a monster the Mist had turned her into.