The fog roiled in slimy patterns around the ankles of the marching soldiers. Their footsteps were firm and rigid, each one hiding a shadow of a thousand practiced movements. Their bronze armour was dulled and their weapons chipped, but the glare of their eyes were just as steely as ever. The hundred or so soldiers continued on without any hesitation in their steps, no evidence of hurry or panic in their monolithic gazes.
Faded and tattered banners waved as they continued onwards, the runic symbol that once populated it have long been bleached away. But not forgotten. It still burned bright in the minds of each of those who carried the responsibility of history.
But force of will alone is never enough to conquer all odds. They could compel their bodies to move, for a time, but soon they would succumb to reality. Food, water, supplies, energy, morale. As it was, marching blindly into the ever-present mist, the only thing that propelled them was the will to fight and the hope to survive.
Occasionally, a bugle would sound out a distress call, but it would echo strangely muffled, as though the mists swallowed that sound with rabid hunger. Consigning them to rot forever, unseen and unfound, in its lifeless depths. And, every time, they would hear no response.
Each time, imperceptibly, the fire in these soldiers eyes would dim. Each time, the hope that burned bright would be darkened, the sharpness of their gaze dulled. Until they would reflect the state of their equipment: battered and weary.
Their once organised and militaristic steps having grown sloppy, dragging worn boots as though every step required a monumentous effort. Once, they saw the faint image of a shadow looming in the distance.
A faint and muffled bugle call sounded out from within the unseen depths, so familiar to those soldiers so as to jolt them from their trance-like state. It sounded jarring and out of place in that place of never-ending mists.
The soldiers rushed forwards, crying out their replies but the Mist that surrounded them seemed particularly malevolent that day, as if it did not wish for them to meet their goal. This only fed the flame of the soldiers and they rushed forward with even greater intensity, the most morose among them feeling that long-forgotten flicker of hope.
Yet, as if inevitably, like a mirage in the desert to the thirst-addled mind, the shadow that loomed and the ghostly bugle that cried out disappeared. They arrived, disturbing the pristine white blanket of fog on the floor with their entry, at an empty place, the same as all others in that forsaken Mist.
So familiar. So hated.
That high of hope reversed quickly into the trench of despair as several of their soldiers cried out rage and sorrow. But they rallied, their commanders gruff voices re-instilling the steel framework of routine and so their march continued onwards, into that ever-present Mist.
After that incident, the false facade of bravery of a few soldiers had cracked. Crying and muttering of their doom, of their inescapable fate, of shapes that loomed in their nightmares.
Soon, days had passed, perhaps even weeks. It was impossible to tell in that place, where the surroundings were ever unchanging. Stuck in that perpetual grey of all-encompassing mist and the roiling currents of fog around their weary legs. Soon enough, it became hard to remember where they had even come from. Why they even marched. If there was anything that could exist before, this.
Before? Before...what?
And yet, those gaunt figures marched onwards still. The once vibrant colours of their cloth and armour were now bleached completely, leaving it a dull and lusterless grey. The tattered banners still waved meaninglessly and those bugles still sounded out from greyed lips, though the meaning of the action had long been lost. Erased.
Their skin was so pale and lifeless that it seemed the same colour as the mists around them. They were nothing more than mindless drones now, their eyes empty and devoid of all feeling. Their minds had been eroded away by the gradual insanity of the Mist, gnawing away at all the sharp edges until only smooth uniformity remained.
It was not purposeful in its actions, the Mist. It simply was. And the fragility of the mortal minds that entered it could not endure its harrowing expanse. After an eternity, those grey soldiers, their presence almost as incorporeal as the Mist they once hated, came across another shadow in the fog.
This time, they did not respond, their minds having long since been ground down to nothing. Only the mindless actions of their bugles sounded out, an echo of a time when they hoped for rescue.
But it was too late. The fog that had roiled around their ankles had now reached up to their waists. With every step taken, it encroached further and further. The looming shadow responded with their own bugles, the faint cries of men could even be heard as they rushed towards the ghostly soldiers.
But it was too late.
With a silent finality, the fog swallowed the figures of those soldiers whole, and their bugles finally grew silent. Their ceaseless struggle finally knew peace. The fog then dispersed, leaving behind the void of emptiness, returning to its dormant position near the floor. The Mist was silent and watching.
A troop of soldiers, tattered and weary yet hopeful burst into view. Their gazes fell upon witnessing the empty field. The fog around their ankles roiled and bubbled unknown to them, lost in the valley of despair.
After a while, their commanders spoke to them and they straightened their backs, marching onwards, back into the Mist. Their figures retreated into the Mists, the sounds of their steps fading into silence.
The fog blanketed the ground in an unmoving curtain of white, billowing faintly under an unseen wind. The Mist simply watched.
***
All around that troop of soldiers, struggling fruitlessly to remain locked in their perpetual loop of erasure, the continuity of the Mist was absolute. That was, until, a single tear appeared. It lasted only a brief fraction of a second, but not before a tendril escaped. In that split-second, through the tear, a barren red planet could be seen. A cliff, a cave, a crater.
But the tear was soon shut, and silence was once again returned to the Mist.
A giggle echoed faintly before fading.
Then, for real this time, silence....
...really? No-one else has anything else to say? You sure? Okay then, ahem -
At last, with absolute finality, the comfortable stillness of Silence once again graced the pale embrace of the Mist.