Chapter Two: Eyes In The Fog
1049 Words
Chapter One: The Girl on the Cliff
Grayridge, Oregon – October 24th, 2022. 6:42 AM
The fog returned heavier the next morning, like it was trying to hide something.
Nora Haines woke before sunrise, sitting up in bed with the cold feeling already coiling in her chest. It wasn’t intuition. It was dread—the kind she hadn’t felt since the last time someone whispered Emily Holloway’s name into a police scanner.
She hadn’t slept well. After leaving the station, she tossed on her couch, replaying everything Emily had said, hadn’t said, and the way she stared at that mirror like she could see right through it.
Now, the sky was bruised gray and purple, the wind clawing at the windows like it wanted in. Her phone buzzed.
Unknown Number
She hesitated, then answered. “Sheriff Haines.”
The voice on the other end was low. Male. Breathy. "She's not alone."
“What?”
Click.
Silence.
She stared at the phone, heart thumping. She didn’t recognize the voice. She didn’t recognize the number. But she recognized the chill it left in her bones.
Ten minutes later, she was back at the station.
Emily was asleep in one of the temporary holding rooms—a blanket drawn up to her chin, face peaceful. Too peaceful. Nora stood at the door for several minutes, just watching her breathe.
Keene approached, holding two coffees. “You didn’t sleep either?”
“No.”
He handed her a cup. “Phones have been ringing off the hook. Everyone in town thinks it’s a hoax. Or a miracle. Or both.”
“It’s neither,” Nora said quietly.
“You think someone’s messing with her?”
“I think someone’s messing with all of us.”
Keene didn’t respond.
They both stared through the glass. Emily shifted in her sleep.
“She said she saw someone in the fog,” Nora murmured.
Keene nodded. “Yeah, I read Wren’s notes.”
“Too tall. Not supposed to fit here.”
Keene grimaced. “That’s the kind of phrase you don’t forget.”
Nora drained her coffee. “I got a call this morning. No ID. Said ‘She’s not alone.’”
“Emily?”
“She’s not the only one who came back.”
---
Across town, in a creaky two-story house on Larch Street, Theo Holloway stood staring at the silver locket that now sat in a ziplock bag on his coffee table.
He hadn’t opened the door when Keene came by last night. Didn’t want to see the badge. Didn’t want to hear the impossible. But Keene left the bag anyway, with a note:
She’s alive. She’s not okay. Call Nora.
Theo hadn’t called.
He didn’t need to.
He’d known. Somehow. He’d felt it.
Last week, he’d dreamed of her. Not as she was, but as she should have been. Grown. Changed. Crying in a hallway of mirrors.
Now, she was back—and none of that had happened.
He picked up the locket. Cold.
He hadn’t seen it since the night she vanished. The cops had returned it, saying it was found on the windowsill. Inside was the same photo of their mother, smiling with sun-kissed cheeks and windblown hair. Emily had worn that thing every day since Dad died.
He sat on the couch, staring at the fog through the window.
He didn’t want to believe it.
But he knew what the locket meant.
Emily had come back.
And the town was about to bleed all over again.
---
Ava Torres had never met Emily Holloway. But she’d seen the missing posters. The newspaper clippings. The shrine someone still kept fresh near the cliffs.
She wasn’t from Grayridge originally—she moved here three years ago, when her mom took over the library. Ava was curious by nature. Too curious, according to her teachers.
Which was exactly why she was sitting outside the station in the fog, sketchbook in her lap, watching people come and go.
She saw Nora. Saw Deputy Keene. Saw a man in a hat smoking too quickly and looking over his shoulder twice.
She didn’t see Emily.
But she felt something change.
The air thickened. The wind stilled.
Something was shifting in Grayridge. Something old.
Ava flipped to a blank page and began to sketch.
She didn’t know why, but she drew a spiral.
Not one she’d seen before. One that came from nowhere.
A spiral in the fog.
.........
Back at the station, Emily woke with a sharp inhale.
The room was cold.
Colder than it should’ve been.
She sat up slowly, the blanket slipping to the floor. Her eyes scanned the room, and for a moment, she felt the urge to run. Then she remembered: she wasn’t at the cliffs anymore.
Or was she?
She placed her feet on the floor.
And the moment she stood—she heard it.
The ocean.
Not crashing waves. Not gulls or boats or wind.
A hum.
Low. Echoing. Familiar.
It was inside her now.
Like something had followed her back.
She turned to the mirror.
And saw not her reflection—but someone else standing beside her.
A boy.
No. Not a boy.
A shadow.
Tall. Twisted.
Smiling without a mouth.
Her scream never made it past her lips.
.......
Outside, Nora jolted up from her desk.
The lights in the hallway flickered.
Keene stepped out from the break room, with a coffee mug in hand. “Power’s glitching again?”
“I don’t think it’s the power.”
They both heard it—the hum.
Barely audible. But definitely there.
It was coming from the holding room.
They ran.
Emily was on the floor, curled into a ball, her hands pressed to her ears.
Nora dropped beside her. “Emily! What’s happening?”
“Make it stop,” she whispered. “Please—make it stop—he’s here—he’s not supposed to be here—”
“Who? Emily, who’s here?”
Emily lifted her head, tears streaking her cheeks.
“Something followed me,” she whispered. “It found the crack.”
Nora’s blood turned cold.
“The c***k?”
Emily’s eyes fixed on the mirror.
And for a moment—Nora swore she saw a figure behind the glass.
Watching them both.
- Writer
