Knots In The Fog

The fog in Veritus isn't just weather. It's memory.

It rolls in low and quiet, settling into alleys and stairwells like a secret that forgot how to speak.

I stepped out before dawn, coat zipped to the throat, scarf wound tighter than usual. Not for the cold — for grounding. The city feels heavier today. Like it's leaning in, waiting to see what I'll do next.

Something's pulling me again. But not like before. This time, it's not a flicker or a thread. It's a knot — tangled, tense, deep inside my chest. And I can't ignore it.

I walk, letting my feet lead while the buildings peel past like smudged memories. A bakery that still smells like someone's childhood. A postbox with half-written names scrawled in fading pen. I don't remember writing anything, but my hand itches when I pass.

Sector 7 fades behind me. I keep moving until the streets grow narrow and unfamiliar. Not dangerous, just… forgotten. Veritus has layers, and I've learned how to find the ones people stop looking for.

After a while, I reach an old overpass — rusted, cracked, eaten through by moss and time. Beneath it, someone once painted a mural. Only scraps remain: a sky that never existed, a smile no one remembers.

I stand there for a moment, unsure why I came.

And then I see it — a staircase. Half-hidden behind a crumbling fence, stone steps leading down into shadow.

The knot tightens.

______

It smells like damp paper and old iron down here.

The stairs open into what looks like a derelict rail tunnel, long since shut down. Metal tracks curve into the dark, choked by dust and silence.

But the air hums with something — a residue, a pressure. Not like the usual remnants I feel. This is older. Heavier. Like grief soaked into the stone.

I kneel by the platform edge and place my hand on the wall. It's warm.

A memory stirs — not mine. Or maybe it was, once.

A man crying into a book. The sound of footsteps walking away. A child's voice asking, "Do you still remember me?"

I flinch and pull back. My breath shakes. My vision blurs at the edges.

That knot inside me… it twists. This place knew pain. So did I.

And then I see it: wedged between the bricks of the platform wall, half-buried in soot and dust — a pendant. Small, rusted, shaped like a tear. Or maybe a flame. It's cracked down the middle.

I pick it up.

The moment I touch it, something sharp flashes through my mind. Not a vision — a feeling.

Loneliness. Raw, endless, hollow.

A voice whispering: "They said they'd never forget."

I grip the pendant tighter. My fingers tremble.

It takes everything I have to stuff it into my coat pocket and move on.

Further down, the tunnel curves. The light from the stairwell vanishes behind me.

I light a small flare from my pocket — dim, flickering, but enough.

I walk slower now. The tracks lead nowhere, but the walls… they're carved. Not graffiti — marks. Symbols. Spirals, slashes, circles, lines. Someone left a language here. Someone who needed to be remembered.

And then I find it — a room, or what's left of one. Half-collapsed, filled with broken shelves and paper turned to pulp. But there, at the center, something stands untouched.

A stone pedestal. Just one word etched into it, barely legible under grime:

"Keeper."

I stare at it, and the knot in my chest pulses. This is what I was pulled toward.

The flare sputters.

I reach into my coat, pull out a piece of chalk, and trace the symbol I've used since the beginning — a circle with a broken line through it.

But as I draw, I realize something.

This wasn't the first time I've been here.

I don't remember when. Or why.

But I know I've stood in this room before.

And I know I left something behind.

A sound breaks the silence — soft, like fabric dragging across stone.

I freeze.

A shape in the far corner shifts. Just a breath of movement. I raise the flare, but there's no one there.

Just the pendant in my pocket, warming again. Almost pulsing.

Then a whisper curls through the room, barely louder than the flicker of fire:

"You left."

I turn. Nothing.

I don't run. I don't call out. I just stand there, letting the words sink into me.

They weren't spoken aloud. They came from inside. From the place where memory used to live.

I leave the tunnel with slow, heavy steps. The pendant stays in my coat, a weight I can't throw away.

Back in the city, the fog has thickened. It coils around lampposts, crawls across rooftops.

Everything feels one step removed — like I'm walking through someone else's life, wearing a name that doesn't belong to me anymore.

When I get home, I don't go upstairs right away.

I stop by the old repair shop below my flat. The one that always forgets I exist.

The window's dark, but I write something on the glass with my finger anyway:

"Still here."

Then I climb the stairs, every creak in the wood echoing through my bones.

Inside, I sit at the table and open the journal.

June 6

Location: Unknown tunnel beneath Sector 9

Item: Broken pendant (resonant)

Inscription: "Keeper"

Status: Mental distortion increasing. Memory loop suspected.

I pause.

Then write one more line:

"Something is watching me remember."

I close the book.

Outside, the fog wraps tighter around Veritus.

And somewhere in the city, a forgotten name waits to be found.