[Thunder]

(Please move to Lamenolai once done)

"Ugh...damn."

The fallen Seraph staggered up over the hill, clutching his wounded shoulder. He had wrapped it crudely with bandages, which had stopped the bleeding for now, but the pain was still unrelenting. It drained his strength with every step he took. He knew that if he didn't do something about it soon, he would become too weak to go on, and then get caught and killed by the ones pursuing him. Shelter...where was shelter?

[Thunder]

He reached the top of the hill and stopped to catch his breath. Getting around was much harder now that he lost his wings. Once he recovered, he looked up, and in the distance, a few miles away, he could see the rooftops of a city. The Seraph smirked. It was Lamenolai, the City of the Guardians. And surrounding the city was a thick cloud of strange, black mist.

Over the past few days, this mist had descended upon the entire land, from Lambastia to Barakka. Though he wasn't entirely sure what the mist was, it had brought...things with it. Things that felt oddly familiar. Things that were like him, but not quite. These "lost" creatures were drawing everyone's attention, and he knew they would attract the ones chasing him as well. It was the perfect distraction.

He laughed, and began heading towards the town with renewed energy. Now that he was near the city, he had an idea.

[Thunder]

This morning was the most freaked out Jason Vanhart had ever been in his entire life.

The previous day was completely normal. He went to his classes at Lamenolai University, did his homework afterwards, had dinner with his friends, and then hung out with them for the rest of the night. But this morning, he woke up to his phone's group text message tone going off at a thousand dings a minute, with all the messages telling people to look and see what the hell was going on outside. So Jason peeked through his window, and he jumped back in alarm when he saw the city streets covered completely by a weird, black fog. His first thought was that it was a dangerous gas leak, and he immediately went to check his school email to see if the university had anything to say on the matter.

[Thunder]

There was indeed a warning from the university, cancelling classes for the rest of the day and telling no one to go outside until safety officers completed an inspection of the mist. Ominously, there were no details on the origins of the mist, nor any clue to what it could be. After reading that email, Jason thought for sure that he was going to die. He sent out a few texts to his family and friends explaining the situation, and was horrified to hear that they were reporting the black mist in their areas too. He became quite convinced that the world was about to end, and that he should tell everyone he loved them, including that one cute girl in his literature class who he hadn't gotten the courage to ask out.

[Thunder]

Meanwhile, every dorm on campus had gone on lock down. After Jason caught up with his text messages and emails and sent out his own, he decided to get out of his room and investigate what was going on in the other parts of the dorm. His friend Selena lived in the same building; he thought he should go check in on her. So he stepped outside into the hallway, where more people than he thought lived in his building were wandering around, whispering about the situation. There were even two girls crying hysterically by the elevator. Jason couldn't blame them.

[Thunder]

As he made his way through the halls and down the stairs to the first floor, Jason observed even more disorder. There were RAs or campus security officers posted at every exit, blocking students from going outside. People were munching on snacks and eating instant ramen, having been unable to go to the cafeteria or local restaurants for breakfast. Only a handful of folks were attempting to do homework. And then there was the small number of guys who relished every class cancellation no matter the reason, blasting music in their rooms, using the lock down as an opportunity to party. Jason sighed at their apparent lack of urgency.

[Thunder]

Eventually, after having to convince multiple RAs that he wasn't trying to leave the building, Jason arrived at Selena's room, number 114. Her door was decorated with little drawings of ghosts, ghouls, and cryptids, and there was a flier for the Supernatural Society taped under the peephole. He gave her door a few good knocks, and it instantly flew open, taking him by surprise. On the other side there was a petite Asian girl, looking up at him and beaming. "Hi Jason!" she greeted. "What's up?"

[Thunder]

Jason blinked at her. "Well, I came here to see if you were fine," he said, "but you seem way too excited for all the stuff going on right now."

"And why wouldn't I be?" she giggled. "Come on, Jason, I am the president of the Supernatural Society! And this is the most obviously, awesomely supernatural thing that has happened in the entire history of the school, EVER!"

She threw her hands up in the air. Jason shook his head. "Anyway," he sighed, "may I come in?"

[Thunder]

Selena opened the door wider and let Jason inside. He had been in her room plenty of times before, but every time, he was always impressed with what the place looked like. Much like the outside of her door, the interior of her room was covered with all sorts of supernatural creature decorations. There were posters of vampires and werewolves and mothmen on the walls, as well as stuffed animal aliens on top of her bed. She had even put up some newspaper clippings about paranormal activity and alleged cryptid sightings. Jason supposed that anyone else who walked into her room would think her crazy...and really, she was a bit nutty. But what was going on right now seemed to prove the worth of the Supernatural Society, shockingly.

[Thunder]

Selena had a bean bag chair in the corner with little ghosts printed on it, which Jason promptly flopped onto. Selena meanwhile hopped over to her laptop and started scrolling through a website. "Whatcha lookin' at?" Jason asked, trying to catch a glimpse of what was on her screen.

"Oh, just news about the mist!" she replied. "Apparently people are reporting that it's not actually dangerous. Like, you can go outside and breathe just fine. It doesn't seem to do anything to you. And also, people are saying there's these starry looking monsters roaming around inside the mist! Isn't that so cool?!"

[Thunder]

Jason took another look at the mist outside Selena's window. Not actually dangerous. Yes, and student loans were really all just a myth devised by millennials. And what was this about monsters, now? He shook his head. "I think those people have lost their minds," he grumbled. "That mist must be making them hallucinate monsters."

Selena turned around and pouted at him. "Oh come on, Jason, you can't bring yourself to believe for just one second? Like, seriously, the evidence is right here!"

[Thunder]

She brought her laptop over to him and shoved the screen in his face. She had a webpage open, weirdworldnews.net, with a photograph of a man standing in front of the black mist in a startled pose. He appeared to be staring at some strange, bestial silhouette lurking past the dark fog. An caption accompanied the photograph, stating it was taken at the outskirts of Nabias.

Jason squinted at it for precisely one second and then turned his head away, crossing his arms. "Nope. Fake. Photoshopped."

[Thunder]

Selena gave him a withering look. "All right, fine," she sighed. "You don't believe. So I guess I'll just go investigate this all by myself."

She walked over to her backpack, which was sitting at the foot of her bed, and tossed it over her shoulder. Then, she started making her way towards her window. Jason blinked and pushed himself up from the bean bag chair. "H-hey, wait," he stammered, stretching a hand out towards his friend. "Selena, what are you doing?"

She grinned at him over her shoulder. "Heading out, duh!" she laughed.

[Thunder]

In a flash, Selena opened up her window. Jason yelled her name and tried to run up and grab her by the shoulders, but she moved too quickly. With one fluid motion, she vaulted out the window and landed on the grass.

"Don't tell anyone I'm out here!" she called to Jason. She gave him a wink before darting into the mists, vanishing from sight.

Jason rubbed his temples. "Oh, hell," he growled. "Selena, for the love of god, come back!"

[Thunder]

Jason took a deep breath, then covered his mouth and gasped. The window was open. The mist was coming in. A translucent layer of gray, slowly worming its way into Selena's room. He had breathed it in. He had breathed the mist in. He immediately put two fingers to his neck to check his pulse, then glanced at Selena's mirror, expecting his face to be turning blue. He gazed at his reflection for several agonizingly long seconds. But nothing was happening. Perhaps he really had been paranoid about the whole thing.