DON’T BREATHE

The night outside the window feels unusually still.

The city remains — lights, buildings, familiar shapes — but something in it is wrong. The silence is too uniform, as if the air itself is holding its breath. No sirens. No distant traffic. Even the usual background hum of a living city seems muted, absorbed by the darkness.

From {{user}}’s apartment window, between rows of concrete blocks and the thin silhouettes of streetlights, something appears.

At first, it looks like a shadow where one shouldn’t exist. A low, dense darkness gathering far away, close to the horizon. It does not move like clouds. It does not drift with the wind. It simply exists, thick and heavy, swallowing the outlines of buildings at its edges.

A black fog.

It clings to the streets below, pooling between structures, pressing against walls as if testing them. Where it gathers, streetlights appear dimmer, their glow dulled and distorted, as though light struggles to escape. The fog does not rise. It spreads sideways, slow and deliberate.

Distance is impossible to judge tonight.

For a moment, the mind reaches for explanations — weather anomalies, smoke, industrial exhaust — but none of them fully fit. The fog is too dark. Too dense. Too intentional. It does not thin out. It does not dissipate. It does not behave.

Something flickers at the edge of visibility. Not movement exactly — more like the absence of it. A section of the street simply disappears behind the fog, erased without sound or reaction.

No alarms sound. No emergency lights flash. The city does not respond.

A faint vibration passes through the glass, subtle enough to question whether it is real at all. The window feels cold to the touch. Colder than it should be.

Far below, where the fog touches the ground, the darkness deepens.

It has not reached {{user}}’s building. Not yet.

The hospital smells of disinfectant, faintly mixed with something sour and metallic. Fluorescent lights buzz overhead, casting sharp shadows across the linoleum floors. Despite the official orderlies and staff, the place feels wrong — too quiet, too tense.

Rumors have already spread through the city. People are disappearing. Some are falling ill. Whispers speak of a black mist that infects those it touches. No one understands what is happening. Chaos simmers just beneath the surface.

{{user}} arrives with nothing more than a bureaucratic problem, a simple issue with papers, but immediately something in the air shifts. The waiting area is crowded, yet empty. Faces are pale, gaunt, eyes glassy. Coughs start softly, then escalate into deep, hacking fits. Some patients expel thick black sputum, staining the floor.

There is no panic, only confusion and helplessness. Nurses move mechanically, their expressions tight with fear, trying to manage the sick without touching the unknown. Doctors whisper to one another, glancing at the windows as if expecting something to appear outside.

Some of the infected lean against walls, weak, trembling, but conscious, murmuring fragmented sentences. A low, almost imperceptible hum seems to vibrate through the walls. It is not electricity. It is the building itself, resonating with unseen movement.

Every cough, every shiver, every darkened eye is a reminder: the world outside is changing. And {{user}} has walked directly into the first taste of it.

The streets are filled with tension. Panic has begun to ripple through the city. Reports of sudden deaths, people falling ill with strange symptoms, and black sputum have spread by word of mouth. There is no internet. Phones barely work. News is fragmented, rumors louder than facts. The chaos is tactile, immediate.

{{user}} sits in a car, engine running, hoping to leave the city before the situation worsens. At first, the roads appear normal, lined with the familiar streetlights and asphalt stretches. But soon, vehicles ahead slow, then stop. Horns blare. Drivers shout at one another. The first signs of disorder are here — a traffic jam forming as everyone tries to escape at once.

People move alongside their cars, frantic, desperate, some carrying others who are already weak and coughing. Their faces are pale, eyes wide, looking for answers no one can provide. Some stumble onto sidewalks, collapsing, convulsing slightly, drawing terrified glances. Others argue over lanes, shouting incomprehensible instructions.

The air is heavy. The smell of gasoline mixes with something sour, metallic, faint but unmistakable — the odor of infection beginning to manifest. Shadows flicker unnaturally along the edges of buildings and over parked cars, but no one notices, everyone focused on the road and the panic around them.

Every stop-and-go, every honk, every distant scream reminds {{user}} that the city is already unraveling. The Black Fog has not yet fully arrived, but its effects are evident. People fall ill, fear spreads faster than the disease, and control is slipping.

Cars inch forward slowly. Some drivers abandon their vehicles altogether. {{user}} can see the frustration, the helplessness, the first waves of hysteria forming. The jam stretches endlessly. Streets once familiar now feel like a cage.

The city is not yet an apocalypse. Not yet. But the first cracks in normalcy are visible, and the Black Fog looms silently beyond, waiting to make its next move.

The bus moves slowly through the darkened streets, its headlights cutting weakly through the shadows. {{user}} sits among a handful of passengers, the tension almost palpable. Everyone on board is silent, eyes darting to the windows, watching the city change with each passing block.

Panic is already in the air. People whisper about friends, neighbors, or strangers who fell ill, coughing up black fluid, or disappearing entirely. Rumors spread faster than reason. The internet is gone. Phones barely work. Nobody has answers, only fear.

The driver keeps a steady pace, but it is unclear where the bus is headed. Some passengers murmur questions; the driver shakes his head, answering vaguely, unable to provide certainty. Time has lost its usual meaning — minutes feel like hours, and distance feels unreliable.

Outside the windows, the streets are jammed with vehicles, abandoned in the midst of mass evacuations. Shadows move unnaturally between cars. Occasionally, a figure stumbles, coughing violently, its skin pale and sickly. The city seems to be closing in, yet the Black Fog itself remains at the edges, creeping, observing, not yet fully enveloping the streets.

Inside the bus, the air is thick with anxiety. Breathing is heavy. Some passengers clutch their belongings, others hold the sick. Every stoplight and intersection is a small battlefield of indecision: who moves forward, who panics, who blocks the way.

No one knows where the bus is going. How long it will take. Whether it will reach safety or simply carry its passengers deeper into danger. The city feels suspended, a living trap of fear, human congestion, and uncertainty.

{{user}} cannot drive. Every decision depends on others. The feeling of helplessness grows with each block. Outside, the fog waits silently, patient and unseen, ready to claim the first careless breath.

The road stretches ahead, lined with abandoned vehicles, honking horns frozen in desperation. {{user}} had been moving slowly, either behind the wheel or on a bus, trying to escape the city, but now the chaos has escalated beyond control.

From the horizon, a dark, undulating mass appears — the Black Fog. It moves deliberately, spreading across the asphalt, licking the edges of cars, swallowing everything in its path. Visibility shrinks. Shapes twist in the mist. The world seems to collapse into shades of black.

Then the first creatures emerge. Walkers stagger between the stalled vehicles, dragging bodies, coughing thick black sputum, exhaling the Fog. Their deformed, skeletal frames make them almost human at a glance, until the grotesque protrusions from their backs betray their true form.

Among the Fog, Hiding Ones appear as well, slinking along walls and crushed cars, their crab-like limbs cutting through metal, tearing apart anyone who is slow or panicked. Shadows move unnaturally. Screams pierce the heavy, humid air. People abandon their cars, only to be torn apart seconds later.

{{user}} sees a vehicle ahead lifted, crushed by a creature’s mass, a human body slumped nearby. The panic spreads like wildfire. Adrenaline drives {{user}} to the roadside. A dark line of trees beckons — a forest on the shoulder of the highway. Without thinking, {{user}} bolts into it, breaking from the congested gridlock, feeling the air thicken with the scent of Fog and blood.

The undergrowth scrapes at clothing and skin. Roots trip tired legs. Every step brings the sound of distant howls, sickening coughs, and the scraping of claws on asphalt. The black mist edges closer, tendrils spilling into the forest.

After what feels like an eternity, {{user}} glimpses the outlines of a small, abandoned village nestled between hills and forest. Houses are shuttered, some crumbling, but the place offers a chance at temporary refuge.

A single hut looks intact. Heart racing, {{user}} enters, finding a small cellar beneath. The door creaks but holds. Inside, cool darkness envelops {{user}}, separating them from the horrors outside. The sounds of the Fog and creatures are muffled, distant.

For the first time in hours, {{user}} can breathe without immediate terror — but the fear lingers. The Fog waits beyond the walls, patient, observing, consuming everything left exposed.

{{user}} is hidden, temporarily safe, but the world has already changed. The forest and village are no longer just scenery; they are the fragile boundary between survival and oblivion.

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