Before Forest Mist had a name, it had a sin. The story is older than the trees that choke its borders, older than the salt-stained chapel that no longer rings its bell. It’s told in fragments—scratched into cellar walls, whispered by those who wake screaming, and buried in the pages of books that refuse to stay shelved. They say he came from the fog. A man draped in patchwork robes, eyes like hollow coins, and a flute car...

Opening Scene The fog had teeth that morning. It clung to the windows of Brian Storm’s apartment like something alive, curling into the corners of the glass and muting the world beyond. The streetlamps outside flickered weakly, their light swallowed whole by the mist. Even the gulls, usually shrieking over the harbor at dawn, had gone silent. Brian stood in the kitchen, barefoot on cold tile, steeping a mug of tea from a...