? ? ? ?

The smell of the Fog fades from my nostrils as I cut past the last threads of clinging reality and step into the Ugly World.

I miss home already. I miss the smell of it, and the quiet. I want to go back but I can’t. Father spent so much power to send me here. He’s counting on me to fix everything! He can’t send the others. They’re too old, too strong, and have too much of the Fog inside them to exist out here in the Ugly World for very long, and I don’t know how long this will take.

Only I can come out here.

I’m young, so I don’t have as much of the Fog in me. One day I will, though, and Father will be proud of me. He told me so.

My hand goes to my belt and brushes over the smooth bone handle of the knife that Father gave me when He made me new again. It’s cold and comforting, and the moment I touch it I can hear His whispers in my ears and all around me. Father is always with me, He always sees me, and He never forgets about His children.

Not even the worthless ones.

My jaw creaks as I grit my teeth in rage. I know what Father wants me to do, but I don’t know why.

Why does he want her back?

Why does she matter?

She left us! She stole from Father and abandoned her family in the Fog! And for what?! This place? She stole food from Father’s table, power from His grip, and a whole marble of reality! But Father still wants her back!

I blow out a calming breath.

Father wants her back because she’s His daughter and He loves her. That’s all. She doesn’t appreciate His love, but that’s because she’s stupid and mean and immature. She took advantage of Father, and anyone else would have thrown her out but Father is good and kind, and He loves His children.

I pull the knife from its sheath and hold it up to admire the fog-forged steel. I run my thumb along the edge, and a smile creases my face beneath the cold white mask.

Father trusts me. Father loves me. He needs me to do this right, and I will.

Find the Prodigal. Find the Harvester. Find the Thief. Find the Lock.

I let out another breath, this one shaky and cold as I sheathe the knife and take in my surroundings.

I’m right where I expected to be. Right where I always ended up when the Ugly World got especially ugly. Sweaters are still hanging from their old wire hooks, and the tiny space still smells like sweat and fear.

My sweat. My fear.

It’s a tiny space, maybe five feet long and three across. There’s barely enough room to fit anything of meaning in here, but before I was made new I was always so small and skinny. Frail and weak. I could fit easily.

After all, you can’t fit anything of meaning in here.

He always found me though. I always hid here, so he always found me, but there was nowhere else to hide, so he always found me.

Except… except once, when Father found me instead.

I don’t have to wonder why I came out here. Our memories are important, they’re powerful. Father taught me that. Memories are stronger than anything, they can change the world if you let them. My older brothers and sisters don’t have many memories left inside them anymore, but that doesn’t mean anything.

Their memories are outside of them now. They’re sunk into the coal-grit of the Ironworks, and the cattails of the Pale Rose. They’re in the long, empty streets of Haddonfield and the oil-soaked earth of the Scrapyard.

My memories are still inside me. They’re not in the Fog yet, but they will be, and then I’ll be stronger.

Til then, I still remember the little closet and the cramped room beyond. I still remember the sound of iron-hard fists hammering the door and the smell of alcohol. I still remember the empty-headed silence from the other room as she ignored everything.

Memories.

Father was right about memories. They’re very, very strong.

Taking one last deep breath, I put a black-gloved hand to the folding door of the closet, and push it open, and as I do I let the Fog fill my lungs, and bleed into my muscles and bones, from there I let it wrap around my heart and all of a sudden it goes still.

I’m not scared anymore, but all the same… please don’t see me.

I smile beneath the pale, silent scream of my mask. My new face that Father gave me. He told me what I have to do, and I’m so happy.

The room smells just like it used to. I wrinkle my nose in disgust. The smell of fear and rage is still staining the walls.

My fear. His rage.

I move past the bed, still unmade from the last time it was used. The desk is still messy with papers flung about when he threw me into it. Some of the papers are on the floor, and I lean down to collect them.

Stories. Just stories… meaningless words no one but would ever read or want to read. I run my fingers over the clumsy, hand-written sheaves, then tidy them all into a pile, set them on the desk, and turn the pencil cup right-side-up.

When I walk out of the room, the desk is tidy and pristine. All the papers, all the meaningless stories, are in order again and in neat little piles, and the pencils and pens are in their cups. I wonder what people will think when they see it after seeing everything else I’m about to do in this place.

The hallway is narrow and tight, but the whole house is cramped so it fits. Everything about this place always seemed like it wanted to close in on you.

I know it was built sometime in the sixties, so it’s not the oldest house, but it is probably one of the more poorly kept ones. It’s not really the type of house that’s worth renovating, and its owners don’t have the skill, the money, or the desire to fix anything. Nothing about this house feels like a home, and even ignoring the people in it I always had the feeling that this wasn’t a house that welcomed people to live there.

Before, that feeling had made coming back just one more weight dragging me down. Now, though, I kind of like it. The house… it really does resent us, and that appeals to me. It’s got a personality that says it ought to have been torn down decades ago and quietly begrudges us for not doing so.

Thick, glutinous snores come from the den at the end of the hall, and behind those sounds is the clinking of dishes and running water from a faucet with bad pressure coming from the kitchen beyond.

It’s quiet other than that, but in a bad way. There’s a lot of different kinds of silence, but the kind that always seems to hang around here is the tense kind. It’s the type of silence where you know something bad is going to happen, even if you don’t know when or what, or how bad it will be, you can feel it in the well of your gut and deep in your bones. You can taste it in the back of your throat.

I look over the living room, ignoring the snores and the muffled sounds of the news from the television that’s been turned down to a low volume so it won’t wake the fat man up. She always did that once he passed out. He’s easier to manage when he’s unconscious.

There are pictures on the walls, but only a few. and none of them are of me.

There never were, though. Not that I can remember, anyway.

I move past the sleeping man and towards the dull spill of fluorescent yellow light coming from the kitchen. Dishes are still clinking, water is still running, but she wouldn’t hear me anyway even if those sounds weren’t covering up my footsteps.

Momma’s very, very good at not hearing things, you see.

I step into the light and look into the kitchen. Momma has her back to me, her loose, ragged green hair, so much like mine, is up in a messy bun. Her shoulders are a little stooped, but they’ve been that way as long as I can remember. I never thought about it before but now I see it.

She’s beaten. Broken.

Empty.

I lay my hand on the handle of my knife, feeling the smooth bone of the grip through the unnatural fabric of the black glove, and slowly draw the blade loose. It doesn’t catch the light despite how bright it is. The blade looks like silver, but it’s not. It’s made from something else.

If momma turns around now, she’ll see me. She’ll see my new face, the face of her daughter’s Ghost.

But only if she turns around.

I tighten my grip on the handle. It’s so tight I can practically hear the creak of the grip. My memories are still inside me, and I hate them. I hate them!

She never looked. Never watched. Never stopped any of it.

My vision washes red, outlining her in bloody crimson. I can taste the Fog inside of her the way Father taught me to. He told me I would need the Fog to stay strong out here. I still need at least a little bit now and again, not as much as my older brothers and sisters would, but I still need it.

That’s why Father taught me how to see it. Then he taught me how to take it.

I could take her Fog. Spill momma’s memories onto the kitchen floor. Maybe she would want to stop the hurting then, huh? Maybe then?! WOULD IT MATTER THEN!?

Beneath my mask, I feel the moment I find the Fog. It’s a subtle pressure, a sense of knowing, and a taste like ash and copper in the back of my throat. Momma is glowing red. She’s so red, and her Fog is the reddest of all.

A muffled sob splits through my concentration and the red wash of light vanishes.

She’s shaking, I realise. Momma’s hands are shaking. One is gripping a filthy plate and holding it under the hot water, the other is holding a dirty sponge, abrasive side down, and she’s dragging it across the plate in jittery, halting motions.

I tilt my head, just a little.

Just enough to see all the bruises on her face.

She’s trying to cry quietly. She stays quiet because she doesn’t want to wake him up. I know exactly what she’s thinking too while she scrubs away at the dishes.

Please don’t see me.

For a brief, brief moment, my heart beats. Just once. A single beat strikes the inside of my ribcage as I turn away from momma and step out of the sickly spill of fluorescent light. I hear the dish clatter into the sink. I’m sure she heard the heartbeat, the thunder of a Killer’s heart when it’s so close to you is impossible to ignore.

“H-Hello?”

Her voice is familiar. A soft, squeaking whisper that’s so used to being quiet that I’m not sure she knows how to be loud anymore.

I listen for her footsteps and stay just out of her sight as she steps out from the kitchen and looks around. I stay around the corner, close to the back door where there are bags of garbage waiting to be taken out.

The gentle padding of her feet moves gingerly through the den. She won’t wake him if she can help it, so she moves slowly. Slowly enough for me to step into the kitchen from the side as momma goes to the back door.

It has a screen door that always creaks when it’s opened, so momma opens it slowly while I leave the kitchen and circle back into the den behind her. I listen to her pull the screen door clear and then open the back door, and as she distracts herself with that, I stare down at him.

This is not my father. My real ‘Father’ loves me. He made me strong. This thing snoring through a throat scorched with cheap liquor and cigarettes isn’t my father.

I find his Fog with that subtle snap of pressure. It’s red and clinging to his fat-caked heart. I know how to reach it and how to take it out of him. It’s not even all that hard, really. I put the knife to his throat, press hard, and with a single sharp jerk I take out the Fog.

Momma is still looking out the back door while the fat man twitches spasmodically in his favorite chair. He doesn’t thrash. He can’t. I’m holding him down because now… now I’m the strong one. I’m stronger than he is because I’m better.

Father made me better.

I pull the knife free. Wipe it clean. And sheathe it, breathing deep as I do to draw the Fog into my lungs, capturing it there for later.

I’ll have to take more eventually, but there are always more people like him.

Like the fat man who isn’t my father.

I step away from him, absurdly pleased that his ugly snoring is finally gone, and circle back around through the kitchen.

“H-Honey?”

She’s noticed that he’s stopped snoring. She’s scared he’s woken up. Scared that she woke him up. She leaves the back door open, with the screen door locked by the catch near the top of the doorjamb, as she goes back to check on him. To calm him down, get him another beer, and hope he passes out again. She’ll say she was just taking the garbage out, and apologise for waking him up.

I’m already out the back door by the time she starts screaming.

Maybe momma will be better now. Probably not, though. Maybe she’ll forget she saw anything at all.

She’s very good at not seeing, after all.

But I have a job to do. Father needs me.

The Prodigal. The Harvester. The Thief. The Lock.

I don’t know about the last two, but I might be able to find the first couple. The first one especially because even as much as I resent her, I’m looking forward to it a little bit.

Sunset Shimmer.

Author's Note

Follows the events of Please Don't See Me

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