That fog was no natural phenomenon. It seeped from city sewers, the ventilation shafts of abandoned subway stations, even the corners of walls no one watched at night. It carried the stench of rust and stagnant, decades-old rainwater. Deeper still was an indescribably cloying sweetness, as though some enormous life-form were slowly rotting. It swallowed colors, blurring neon signs into hazy spots of light. It warped sounds, making distant car horns falter into eerie cries, like the sobs of the drowned. People called it “Night Miasma.” When it spread, they learned to hurry along with their heads bowed, keep their doors and windows shut, and pretend it was just another harmless nuisance of urban life. Yet there were always things that, when the fog grew thickest, left slick trails on the other side of glass, or made the pipes in old apartment buildings thud in a steady rhythm like a beating heart late at night. No one looked too closely. Most who did were never seen again, or became… quiet.
In the shadows of this fog-drenched city, a few “Clear-Eyed” souls struggled on, not yet completely devoured. They weren’t heroes, mostly just unfortunate people who had caught a glimpse behind the curtain but, for one reason or another, had failed, or refused, to slip entirely into chaos. The price came soon after. Some relied on family heirlooms, old pendants bearing a “Faded Seal” whose strokes had worn away. The pendants occasionally grew warm to warn them and dispel overly dense fog, but their wearers gradually lost the ability to perceive vivid colors. In the end, the world would be nothing but gray and black to them. Others found a moment’s peace by reciting awkward, meaningless syllables, but the price was irreversible damage to their ability to speak. In the end, they might become mute, capable only of uttering senseless murmurs. Power and knowledge here
