FOG

Two

Mari, the chief elder's wife, let out a loud gasp and shifted backwards. She began to shake her head slightly, her lips quivering.

"It can't be." She muttered.

"We have to leave now!" The elder said, loud enough for his son to hear.

"Father, what is the matter?" The boy said, walking slowly towards his parents.

His father looked softly at him, crossing the room and walking over to his son.

"Amzhi, tell me, have you been having any strange dreams lately?"

Amzhi opened his mouth and then paused, he gritted his teeth and narrowed his eyes. The projector beeped and then buzzed quietly.

"Strange dreams?" He asked, looking at both his parents.

Amzhi took a step backwards and then thought of that night, three nights ago.

It had been a terrible dream, or so he had thought.

In the dream, he had seen himself carrying a jug towards a well to fetch water. This seemed relatively normal as it was a task he usually carried out on days when the city water supply was stalled.

The road leading to the well was a narrow, uphill dirt road which was littered with tiny pieces of blue and white gravel and solid lumps of clay; another abandoned project.

The walk up that hill, towards that well. would be tricky for any child on his first day. Especially on a raining day.

On this day, as he walked up that hill, it rained.

He remembered the sky being bright blue as he set out for the hill, and just as he reached the grassy field at the foot of the hill, the sky rumbled.

Walking up the hill with a sway in his steps, he suddenly noticed the darkness in the sky and the rumble increased as the sky opened up with warm showers.

The air suddenly smelled of freshly wet earth and the lumps of clay glistened and melted as the water touched them.

He knew he had to be extra careful now. He skipped past a lump of clay, his feet almost slipping. His brown leather sandals had turned darker from being soggy.

He had to be careful, but he wasn't. For a moment.

He was too concerned with the squishy sound between his feet and the sogginess of his sandals to noticed a glistening mound of a clay and gravel mix.

He may have seen it, possibly, and must have considered it a regular clay mound as he stepped on it.

Subconsciously, with the effort he'd put on his feet, he had expected the mound to crumble under his feet, but it didn't.

He let out a groan as he slipped and fell on his back, his jug rolling off his hand.

He grabbed his knee, wincing as he watched the rain run against the exposed pink bruise . It hurt and he had felt it. He knew it was a dream, but he really felt it.

He got up to his feet and limped tje rest of the way up to the Well.

As the rain kept falling, the red clay around the well began to wash away and he began to find it increasingly difficult to stand.

Suddenly, he slipped again, but this time he fell forward, into the well. He landed into the black water with a loud splash and then he began to cry for help.

His voice had been loud, very loud but the sound of the showers drowned out his voice and the water kept pulling him in. It was at that moment he'd woken up.

It had been a terrible dream, and would have also been a normal one except for the fact that he had found himself completely drenched, soaked through his sheets and unto the floor. And his knee was bruised.

Amzhi stared up to his Father, "I thought it was just a normal dream, but it felt....real."

Amzhi watched his mother gasp and place her hand on her chest. His father walked up to him, "I won't let them take you." He said and held the boy's shoulder.

As he said that, there came a loud knock at the front door.

"Members of this household!" A harsh voice filtered in.

"Amzhi! The back door, now!" The chief elder urged.

Another loud knock startled Amzhi and he stared straight at the door. He watched his father run up to the door and then turned to look at him.

"Now!" He whispered and Amzhi dashed to the kitchen and out through the back door.

The Soldiers were about to burst the door when it suddenly creaked slowly.

The leader of the soldiers walked into the house, nodding with disapproval and staring suspiciously at the two adults before him. They looked worried, the soldier noted, and failing at trying to seem otherwise.

He was familiar with that worried look, so he thought nothing about it.

The soldier also knew that this was the house of the chief elder; the only reason he had decided not to make anything out of the initial delay.

"Where is your young one?" The soldier asked with a husky voice.

The woman, he noted, was taking deep breaths and trying to look calm. Still failing at it.

"I..well, oh..yes, he is in his room." The elder mumbled.

The Soldier clenched his teeth, shifted his feet, and then he exhaled deeply. A drone was whirling outside the building.

"It is the day of Cleansing. All members of each household should be together in their living space until the exercise is over." The soldier dictated, just as he'd done a hundred times over.

He turned to his men, "Search the room and bring the young one here, now!"

Three of the Soldiers hurdled noisily up the stairway. There was a sound of creaking and crunching as they marched from room to room.

A few minutes later, the Soldiers came down with no one.

"There is no one up there. Its empty."

"What are you playing at, elder?" The Soldier asked, glaring at the elder.

The elder was about to speak when the noise of a crash, possibly from a wooden vessel, seeped in from the back.

The Soldier turned sharply to the elder and in that fleeting second, between when he shifted his head towards the source of the noise and when he looked at the elder, he noticed a slight change the elder's expression.

The soldier growled in realisation, "Out there. Now!" He commanded.

Right in the room, there were five Soldiers. Three of which were by the stairway, and the remaining standing two by the front door.

The elder noted that none of the soldiers were armed. It was the cleansing; no one ever resisted, that was the standard idea.

With that, the elder quickly reached for the huge cupboard beside where he stood and produced a beam gun.

A beam gun discharged large waves of UV light; enough to temporarily blind a victim.

He clutched the gun under his arm, the metal c****d against him, and positioned the gun towards the three Soldiers by the stairway.

"Close your eyes!" He urged his wife and without waiting, he squeezed the trigger. The house was suddenly lit up by flashes of light followed by the stunned screams of the soldiers.

A high pitched sound escaped from the gun as it quickly recharged.

The elder shifted quickly, turning to the leader who was closer to him and smacked him with the gun. The soldier grunted and fell to the floor.

Taking advantage of this and ignoring the other soldier, the elder dashed towards the back door.

A loud thud, and bang, as the door slammed behind the elder.

"Hold her!" The Leader growled and withdrew a small pistol from his pocket. He peeled off the mask on his face, an angry gleam on his eyes.

Amzhi sat nervously on a flat wooden board balanced on two drums.

His fingers fidgeted and he constantly rubbed the back of his hand over his forehead to wipe the glistening dampness from his sweat.

He'd heard about dreamers and knew what happened to them every year, his father was the chief elder so he had to know.

He knew about the cleansing only from his father's tale; neither dreamers nor the cleansing worried him, he'd considered it unfortunate for those who had been tagged dreamers but that was about it for him. Until the dreams started.

His first dreamer's experience actually happened about six months ago. The dream about the well was only the most recent of what he soon realised would be strings of dreams.

Six months ago, on a rainy night, just like any other night in the mid-season, he'd nervously prepared himself for bed. He was nervous because of the weather; he hated, or feared the rainy seasons.

On this particular night, he had decided to sleep early. His body felt unusually hot, like a fever was coming, so he'd decided to sleep it off. He wouldn't tell his mother anyways because she'd overreact.

The bed creaked lightly and the soft foam compressed as he fell on the bed. His windows were shut but he was still aware of the rat-tat-tat noises, soft rapping of the rain against his window.

His bed was positioned in such a way that he could stare out the window which was almost directly opposite him.

So he lay there on the bed, his hand gripping the bed sheets tightly, feeling uneasy as his temperature increased and as the room lit up from flashes of lightning.

He remained in that position, listening to the showers outside till he drifted off to sleep.

His eyes were suddenly open. He wondered if it was already morning, It certainly couldn't be because his room was dark, pitch dark. He felt for the bed covers but there was none, he shrugged, probably removed it while he slept.

Placing his feet on the floor and standing up, something didn't feel right. For one, the floor was sandy, as in covered in sand like in a beach. Odd. And second, he could hear the floor a few feet away creaking and voices, muffled voices. It seemed like people were moving up and down the hallway, even more strange because he couldn't remember his parents having any visitors.

Squinting his eyes and trying to get used to the darkness, he stretvhed his hamds ahead of him and groped for a doorway.

He turned to the direction he knew the door was normally located and began walking that way, his hand reaching for the air and feeling for any obstacles.

A loud bump and he groaned out loudly, his head and encountered a metal pole of some sort. He felt the thinness of the metal with his right hand and massaged his head with the right, wincing loudly and beginning to feel his confusion give way to fear. He wasn't used to being in the dark for so long.

Light began to seep in slowly as a door at the far corner, the opposite end of where he was, began to slide open.

Amzhi turned and watched the door, waiting for whoever was opening it to show up. He gulped, feeling his heart beat faster and completely forgetting the pain that throbbed in his head a few moments ago.

No on showed up. Not immediately. The door just slid up and light escaped into the room, but there was no sign of who opened it.

He turned around, he could still make out the light thudding of feet against the floor and muffled voices as they passed.

Heat, he felt it; a suddenly uneven burst of hotness on his neck just as if......he began to turn around slowly when he saw the dark figure with red eyes–like the one in the scavenger horror books he so enjoyed reading–breathing down on his neck.

His throat vibrated as his voice ripped through the air, and he found himself on the sand, a sharp splinter poking into his arm. That was when he woke up.

That had been the first occurrence, and the only thing that had bothered him that day, beside the fact that it was a terrible dream, was the throbbing pain in his head when he awoke and the open wound in his arm.

Amzhi tried to balance himself on the shaky wooden board when one end slid off the side of the drum and he crashed with it.

He was still trying to pick himself up and hope that the sound had not been too loud when he saw the flashes of light escape through a window.

He was just about to run back into the house when he saw his Father running towards him.

"Start the bike!" He yelled and turned to lock the door. He looked around and found a long rod which he used to hold the door.

Amzhi quickly rolled out the bike and pushed the ignition. The 2089 model Bike was ancient, according to him. It still used a push-button ignition when all other bikes are AI driven.

Luckily, his Father had taught him how to ride one.

He hopped on and wheeled the bike towards his Father.

Grabbing hold of the handle bars, he watched him leap unto the back seat. He pushed the accelerator and they zoomed off.

'The bike doesn't even have a holo cover,' Amzhi sighed.

They heard a loud noise as the Soldier burst through the back door and began firing rounds at them.

"Where to, Father?"

His Father groaned, "Just keep riding."