[Thunder]

Even so, it was better to be safe than sorry. He closed the window and then sat down on Selena's bed, rubbing his temples. What should he do now? Security. He should call campus security. He hated to go against his friend's wishes, but she was, quite frankly, doing something very stupid and he valued her safety above her weird cryptic hunting fantasies.

He pulled out his phone and called security. The response was quick, but disappointing. "We'll try to find her," the man on the other end said, "but this whole thing has left us pretty understaffed, and it ain't easy to find someone in a city of this size. If you leave us your number, we can call you back once we have any news about her."

[Thunder]

With a sigh, Jason gave them his number, thanked them, and then hung up. Well, it had been worth a shot. He figured they'd be really busy with all the crap that was happening. Still, it didn't sit well with him that there might be no one available to go find Selena. Scared as he was of the mist, he would hold his breath and charge through it, if it meant finding his friend and getting her back to safety.

Before he could think up a plan, though, his stomach growled. In his panic, he hadn't eaten much in the morning -- just a banana and a granola bar. If he was going to do this friend rescuing thing, he'd need some more energy. So for now, he left Selena's room and went back up the stairs to his own, where he made himself a nice, warm instant ramen.

[Thunder]

Once he'd consumed the last of the ramen, Jason started packing up his own backpack with the things he thought he'd need on his excursion into the mist. Water. A flashlight. Batteries. His phone. His phone charger. A first aid kit. Snacks. His trusty Swiss Army knife. The one thing he wished he had was an air pollution mask, in case the mist happened to be a health threat, but he still seemed fine, despite having breathed the stuff in about half an hour ago.

[Thunder]

When he felt thoroughly prepared, Jason left his room and headed back down to Selena's room. She hadn't locked the door before she leaped out the window, so he could still go in and access her window. By now, the bit of mist that had entered her room had dissipated, but beyond the window, it was still rolling in thick. Jason took a deep breath. It was now or never. He reopened the window and, after carefully judging the distance between himself and the ground, leaped out.

[Thunder]

He wasn't the most athletic guy, but he managed to stick the landing anyway. Jason rose to his feet and glanced around. Though he knew exactly where he was, the dark mist made the campus eerie and unfamiliar. It was as if he'd stepped into a warped version of reality.

But he couldn't let the creepiness deter him. He had to think of where he could find Selena. She was probably somewhere where she had heard of strange occurrences before. The graveyard to the north of the city, on the hill? It was a start. Gazing ahead determinedly, Jason began walking in that direction.

[Thunder]

As expected, there wasn't really anyone else out on the streets (nor any monsters, for that matter), which added to the strange mood the mists brought. Lamenolai was so lively, usually, and now it was a ghost town. When Jason did see people, they were police officers and firefighters, campus security guards and researchers examining the mist. He was tempted to walk up to these people and ask if they saw Selena, but he knew if he did that, he'd just get forcibly sent home. His journey through the streets became like the stealth video games he played, with him hiding behind dumpsters, buildings, and statues whenever someone else walked by.

[Thunder]

All the hiding made for slow progress, but eventually, Jason did to the bottom of Cemetery Hill, where crooked iron gates marked the entrance to the graveyard. Jason gazed up the hill and shuddered. This place was old, dating back to 300 years ago, and its run down look with tilted gravestones and overgrown grass already made it creepy enough on normal days. But now, with the black mist blanketing it, it seemed even more sinister, and it gave Jason a bad feeling in the pit of his stomach.

[Thunder]

Still, he pressed on, passing through the opened gates. He remembered back when he was first getting to know Selena, he had come here with her, out of curiosity for what she did with the Supernatural Society. They had talked about all the spooky things that had happened here -- ghost sightings, objects moving all by themselves, floating balls of light -- and then the club ran some tests to see if they could detect anything unusual. Of course, they had found nothing, but they still had a good time just exploring the graveyard and conversing. All in all, the club members weren't actually that nutty, but Jason supposed the mist's appearance was making them lose their minds.

[Thunder]

As he reminisced and moved further into the graveyard, he heard a strange noise. His memories dispersed, and he jumped backwards, his heart pounding now. It sounded like something was shuffling in the tall grasses ahead. "Selena?" he called out, in a shaky voice. Maybe it was her. Maybe it was another student who sneaked outside. Or a homeless person. Or a ghost. Or one of those monsters that couldn't possibly exist. If it wasn't Selena, he had a lot of questions about who else could possibly be roaming around a scary graveyard at this time.

[Thunder]

There was more rustling, louder now, and Jason could see the grasses in front of him moving. Soon after, a grown man emerged from the grasses, someone Jason didn't recognize. The man's black hair was a total mess, and he had dirt and bruises and dried blood all over his body. His left arm was bandaged up, with even more blood staining the bindings. The man saw Jason and gave him a desperate look. "Help..." the man wheezed. "Please..."

[Thunder]

Jason's fear vanished. He immediately ran up to the man, throwing his backpack onto the ground and opening it up to rummage for his first aid kit and cell phone. "Oh my god," he breathed, "what happened to you, sir? Do you want me to call an ambulance?" For a fleeting moment, Jason thought Selena might be right about the mist monsters, and wondered if one of those creatures had caught this man and attacked him.

The man knelt in front of Jason and nodded, reaching one hand towards Jason for support. "Yes," the man gasped, "please..."

[Thunder]

The man's hand touched his shoulder, and suddenly, there was a flash of bright light. Jason fell over onto the ground and scrambled backwards, screaming. The man had vanished and was replaced by something that looked like a luminous sphere with wings. It was rushing towards him. Quickly.

He tried to get up and get away, but the sphere was too fast, and it slammed into him with another burst of light. Jason felt something lurch inside him, and he fell back down to the ground, clutching his chest. Dizziness filled his head, and his vision began to blur. Soon, the world went dark.

[Thunder]

He came to some time later, his eyes slowly fluttering open.

Jason groaned and rubbed his forehead. His surroundings gradually materialized back into view. The weird discomfort in his body was gone, but he felt different, in a way he couldn't quite put a finger on. He pushed himself back up into a sitting position and saw that he was still in the graveyard, with the mists still present. The injured man was gone. His backpack was where he had left it. He got up and went to retrieve his backpack, fishing around inside it for his phone, hoping that no one had made off with his belongings while he was unconcious.

[Thunder]

He found it, and tapped the screen to bring up the time. His eyes widened. 2:13 PM. When he got to the cemetery, it had been 1:13 PM. He had been knocked out for an entire hour. That was a lot of time for Selena to have gotten herself into trouble, and renewed panic rose up inside him. But Jason found that he couldn't concentrate on thinking about his friend. After all, he had no idea what the hell just happened to him.

[Thunder]

He zipped up his backpack, swung it over his shoulders, and then went to sit on the stone wall at the cemetery's perimeter, head in his hands. Was the mist actually having some kind of effect on his mind, now that he had been among it for a while? There was no way a man could just turn into some weird ball of light and then disappear. He had a mist-induced hallucination, amplified by his nervousness about the graveyard. Yes, that must've been it. And the lurching and dizziness and fainting, too, must have been caused by the mist as well.