Thread cracked open the door to her room and looked down the hall.
Like her room, the house was barren and cold. Faint traces of wear, or lack there of, gave hints to what had been. The lack of metal gave hints of what was to come.
The entire place lacked any way to provide light. Even the hearth and stove were wrenched from the walls.
What they needed to patch up was done with cardboard and cloth. What wasn't, was left alone.
Only through faint beams of moonlight could they be seen in the night, and people knew better than to ask during the day.
Thread pushed the feeling of nervousness aside and focused on the door on the other side of the hall.
She sighed, "What should I do?"
Then the door started to open. There was no sound, no indication there was someone else awake. But it still opened.
Thread instinctively closed the door to avoid being seen. The creaking of the door sounding painfully loud in the night.
Realizing her mistake she darted away from the door to avoid being seen from the crack underneath.
As irrational as it was, she pressed up against a wall in fear of being found. She stood there, waiting for someone to burst in and scold her for being up so late.
She stayed there for as long as she could before peeling herself away from the wall.
She didn't even last a minute.
Wanting to know who it was, she went up against the door and peered through the crack.
"Dye?" She asked before cringing at the sound and slapping a hand on her mouth.
Tint, who'd given a fake name earlier, moved silently through the house. A ghost who only exists because of the sight before her eyes.
She quickly moved down the stairs, practically floating past each individual step and going out of sight.
On instinct, Thread opened the door and went after her. The door's creaking was as loud as thunder in her ears.
She ran past the same hall Tint did, her footsteps banging through the house. Then, there she stood upon the stairs.
She could see the empty living room in its entirety. It looked more like something that would fit better in a ghost town than one that had actual occupants.
But then again, that's what this place would be in a few days. On the day after tomorrow, they would leave.
She heard a door close and noticed a sudden lack of light coming from the front of the house.
'She's already left.'
Quickly rushing downstairs, one step at a time, she bolted towards the door. Upon reaching it, she flung it open and ran into the misty night.
'What is this?' She thought in fear. She had no idea what was happening, or what it was. She'd never even seen mist before this very moment in her entire life. To her mind, it was something that could only be unnatural.
Instinctively, she felt the need to go back. The need to go home and pretend this never happened. The feeling of hiding under the covers of her bed and hoping for everything to blow over.
But just as she was about to do so, something held her back. Some niggling feeling at the back of her mind that told her to go after Tint.
'R-right, I have to keep going.'
And so, reminded by what she thought was guilt from before, she ventured further into the mist.
The mist was thick, but not entirely so. It was thick enough to prevent anyone from seeing anything past a few meters, but thin enough so you could just make out shapes of what could be there.
'It's just my street. It's just my street. It's just my street.' She kept telling herself to calm her nerves, but it didn't really help. Not, with the ominous shadows that came and went.
When the mist opened up again enough to see, she was at the hub. The tall, spiraling, dizzying place that connected the entire town.
This too was hard to tell as the mist lightly covered the hub, thin like film but laden like a blanket. Slow-moving clouds of denser mist moved across the sky, covering certain areas in the process.
Thread was shaking uncontrollably at the sight, and I do mean uncontrollably. Her teeth were chattering, her knees were knocking, and no matter how hard she rubbed, she couldn't stop shivering.
'Th-th-this was a mista-ake. This was a-a ter-rrible mistake.' She thought before turning around to go home.
But as she was starting to do so, the feeling she'd dismissed as guilt earlier showed up. And this time it pressed.
And she knew that she didn't have a choice anymore.