The Buried
 

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Part 1: The Middle

 

The mist had long settled over the town by the time I noticed it. It came slowly, lacing its white fingers casually through the wet blades of grass, as a familiar hand does through one’s own. It may have been a fortnight ago, or perhaps more, since Agnes and I have been able to recall a time other than the present. Our past has been smothered, the future made defunct; all that is left is the dream state that is the current moment. Like comatose patients, the air finds its way in and out of our lungs blindly, with neither strategy nor enthusiasm, and expels itself into that thick mist.

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What else, I wonder, has been lost to the white stillness that lies just outside our thin stone walls? It drank not only our memories, but our will, like a man dying of thirst. Next to me, Agnes sat quietly in an old wooden rocking chair. She rocked slowly, forwards, then backward, with a patience that implied eternity. I watched as her gaze encountered our surroundings so passively, lacking any real concentration. Does the absence of thought constitute a lack of personhood? Has the Agnes that I once knew, whoever that was, faded slowly into obscurity? I wanted–no, needed–to know. I must have raised myself, with loud complaints from my aching bones, because the next thing I knew, I was outside.

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Enjoying the dew-soaked edge of morning, I attempted to inhale the chilled air, only to swallow a mouthful of bitter fog. It had a certain quality that stung not only my throat and nose, but also rooted itself deep into my lungs. Though I could not see it, I knew our neighbors were lining up to receive their rations. A creak from behind called my attention, and Agnes emerged from the dark mouth of our home. 

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Her white hair seemed to recede into the crisp morning breeze; I couldn’t tell exactly where she ended and the mist began. The blue of her eyes pierced my own, colored like the sky just before a storm, and her thin pink lips curled into a smile that, for whatever reason, invoked a profound sense of sadness within me. Silently, I took her hand, and we began our long walk to the village. The road was winding and trailed along a rushing river, requiring a certain concentration during especially foggy days–like this one. In a way, it has granted me a new appreciation for our environment: how the jagged rocks hug the wet, cold earth, the long grass that feels like the thought of touch, or even the difference between the way sunlight and moonlight brush our skin. Now, the early morning sun could barely penetrate the thick mist.

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Behind our home sprawls an immense and dark forest. The only entities that reside there are ones of savagery and evil. I’ve even heard whispers among my neighbors that an ancient witch has used the fog to quicken the loss of our memories in hopes of one day infiltrating the town. Between our door and that wretched place, there were only a few hundred yards. Agnes told me that while she sleeps, she can hear the woods calling out to her. 

“The trees whisper to me at night, husband. Their leaves rustle with intention, bony branches snapping in quick succession, and I can almost hear their words,” Agnes said darkly one morning, on another one of our walks to the center of town. This time, though, I spoke.

“Agnes.”

“Yes, dear? This walk is so lovely. Have we never taken this path before?” Her voice had the cadence of a young butterfly.

“Wife, we have walked this path hundreds of times. Every morning and night, when we wake from our rest and return from our work. Don’t you remember?”

Agnes stopped, placing a hand on her chin thoughtfully. “Now that you say so, Wilbur, this route does feel rather familiar,” she chirped, and carried on walking. Her thin, spindly fingers trailed thoughtlessly along the tips of tall grass. Each blade she touched bounced forward, then backward, swaying lifelessly.

 

Has the mist stolen even our most casual moments? If these daily walks have faded, secretly, into placid nonexistence, can I be sure that other, denser junctures have not also been lost? I wonder about the merit of shared fondness if every second feels like one’s first; can joy be felt if sadness is never remembered? The thought wrinkles my bones. 

 

“This fog,” I said, “isn’t right. Ever since it emerged from the woods and sank its teeth into our tender flesh, cold indifference has spread like an infection through our town. Just a moment ago, you thought we had never taken this path before. Our feet trod on this earth twice per day, morning and night!” My words escaped me fervently, leaving my mouth with a vitality I didn’t know I still possessed. Agnes was silent.

Finally, we reached the center of the village. Our neighbors crawled like a dying colony of unhoused ants over the sheltered pavilion; directionless, ambivalent. Wooden tables sparsely populated the area, with an even sparser population of people. The food stand loomed over the rest of the area with authority: behind it sat the distributor, Paul, who gave the town life through nutrients. Like a worm to the earth.

 

He did not even afford us a glance up from the wooden object used as storage for our

morning meal: hot cabbage soup. Though winter’s teeth sank heartily into our harvest, having no care for the emptiness in our stomachs or hearts, we still were fed well by the town. Agnes and I approached the stand with care and awaited our two hot bowls. Instead, Paul slid a singular serving towards us. Waiting patiently for the remainder of our breakfast, I glanced at Agnes indiscriminately. 

 

The expression she wore on her face was one I’d never forget: the frailty woven into her skin, each cell held together passively, as if she could unravel at any moment. I feared one gust of wind would unbraid her soul. Her eyes, too, seemed to force me out of my skin: the whiteness had faded to a sort of dull gray, the way a shirt does when it has been washed too many times. 

 

A deep, throaty growl wrenched me from my trance, “Is something the matter?” Paul’s eyes seemed to see through us, and I glanced over my shoulder instinctively: all I saw was the mist. 

“Hello?” He said, with more urgency this time, “Your soup will chill. This white mist brings a steady cold.” 

“Sorry,” I replied, “We only received one bowl.” Paul glanced slowly downwards, then upwards again. 

“Yes,” the word came out smoothly, with no fight from his tongue. Puzzled, I glanced at Agnes. Thankfully, she also seemed thoroughly confused, with a furrowed brow and an intention in her eyes that I hadn’t seen a moment ago.

“We usually get two,” Agnes remarked sharply, holding up two fingers to emphasize the importance of the number. Paul just shook his head.

“You’ve always gotten one bowl. I gave you two spoons.” The words hung starkly against the cold air, like they’d been there for some time now, yet I had just noticed them. Agnes opened her mouth for a moment, then closed it apprehensively, moving her glance between me and the soup. 

“Your soup will soon chill,” said Paul, with a tone that implied dismissal. Slowly, I picked up the bowl (with two spoons), took Agnes’s hand, and led her to an almost empty table. 

“Do we normally get one bowl of soup, husband?” Agnes asked carefully, as if she was already starting to believe it. I looked at her cautiously.

“No, Agnes, that would be insane! One bowl for both of us, morning and night, is not enough to sustain our bodies. This is what I was referring to–” 

I was interrupted by the cheerful, yet shrunken, voice of our neighbor, Jill. “Hello!” she chirped. She sat down with her husband, Alexander. They each had a bowl of soup.

“Hello,” I replied quickly, “Do you see this? Paul claims we are only to receive one bowl for the both of us.”

Jill blinked, looking back at her husband, then at me. “Yes,” she said, “Isn’t that all you need?” 

 

My mouth hung ajar, just for a moment, before I found my voice again and replied, wanting to change the subject, “This fog,” I said, “it’s gotten quite thick.”

“Yes,” chimed Agnes, chuckling, “I can barely see my own two hands in front of me!” 

“Now that you mention it,” replied Jill, “I have noticed.” Alexander’s gaze cut through her like a crack of thunder in a silent sky. As soon as the words left her mouth, it seemed as if she wanted to swallow them back up. “This time of year usually brings a dense fog,” Alexander said, disinterest richly coating his voice like a thick blanket of snow, “I’ve seen nothing out of the ordinary.” I wondered, then, if I was the only person awake in this town. I glanced over at Agnes. She was eating our soup.

When the sun had sunk below the horizon, though the day’s work was all but finished, Agnes and I returned to our house atop the hill. Nightly, we sat together on the porch, under the milky cloak of moonlight, speaking of things that normally remain shrouded in silence. 

“I worry, wife, for not only our minds, but those of our neighbors. Walking through life as if in a dream, the air they breathe honeyed with some benumbing poison. Nothing we say seems to shake them from their trance.”

“What do you suggest, Wilbur?” I thought for a moment, staring at the waxing crescent hung so low in the sky, and responded, “We need to leave.”

 

Part 2: The Beast

 

Dawn had just begun to swallow the sky when Agnes and I left for the woods, a steady chill creeping into the morning air and finding its way under our thick, wool clothes. The trees stood next to us, not like friends, but voyeurs. Pale, warped bark tightly wound its way up the thick trunks, ending in spindly, naked branches that seemed to scrape the outer edge of the sky. I wondered if our departure from home would prompt the retrieval of our memories. 

 

“There is a witch that lives in the heart of the woods,” I said to Agnes, walking along a worn dirt trail that was barely distinguishable from the rest of the earth. “We follow this path until we reach the clearing–walk along the edges; do not enter. We are safest under the cover of the trees. I’ve heard tales of mischievous birds roaming the empty skies. Then, we continue north until we reach an old hut. It is empty, so we can rest there for a while. Finally, we walk northeast until we come upon a large cave. That is where the witch will be.” 

 

She stared at the ground, nodding along, though it seemed in reference to something else, a sound I could not hear. Perhaps the trees.

“Agnes, do you understand? When we find the witch, we must question her about the fog. Beg her to use magic to grant us respite from this dream.” She looked up at me then, with those eyes that I know I have loved for years but cannot recall experiencing, and I felt as though everything would be alright.

 

The forest thinned suddenly, and then the clearing was upon us. The grass grew pale and long from the earth, reaching up toward the cloudless sky. Starkly, the mist hung hard in the cold air, with no trees to penetrate its thick body. It seemed a living thing: moving with intention, charged with a certain electricity that danced on our skin. I clasped Agnes’s hand in mine and carefully tread along the line between field and forest, just like we balance between waking and sleep.

“Wilbur!” Agnes whispered urgently, “Do you see that, in the middle of the clearing?” We stopped, and I concentrated my gaze intently on a dark mass dead center of the field. Before I could reply, Agnes’s fingers slipped from my grasp, and she was crossing the threshold.

​

Her form had just begun to dissipate in the mist when I regained my senses and started after her: it was unusual for her to wander alone like this. “Wife! Wait for me!” I called, a slight tremor seizing my voice, “We must not linger in the clearing!”

Agnes was hunched over, with her back facing me, concealing whatever had caught her attention. I approached cautiously, placing a gentle hand on her frail shoulder, and breathed, “Agnes? What is it?”

“It’s hurt,” she cooed, stroking the beast’s long, bloodied mane. I lowered myself to the ground to look closer: it lay in the soft grass, breathing hoarsely, as if each action was an intense labor. A deep gash penetrated its body from the neck to mid-stomach. Its hooves quivered inanimately, accompanied by a series of anguished neighs. The horn, though caked in mud and filth, stood intact at the center of the beast’s head. It protruded distinctly, long, and ended in a sharp point that could draw blood. The eyes, though, were what invoked a sense of indescribable dread that bloomed deep within my chest: they had a certain awareness about them, a sentience that seemed superior to mine, even all of humanity’s, and when our gazes met, I felt that the beast could see into my soul.

“We must kill it,” I whispered. 

 

Tension filled the air as the somber sound of my voice faltered. I knew she would not want to kill the beast; she was too soft for it. The act of taking a life went against everything she stood for: her purpose was to nurture, to create, to spread the sweet seed of her soul into the hearts of others for just a chance to lighten their life.

“Kill it?” she whimpered, a pitiful sound, like that of an injured deer.  

“Yes, my love, it suffers. It is the merciful thing to do.” I rubbed her shoulder reassuringly, hoping a familiar touch would be enough to convince her.

 

A cloud of darkness in the shape of wings descended from the sky and landed atop the beast. It was the largest crow that I had ever laid eyes on, at least bigger than a fox. Its feathers were long and looked as if made from the clouds of the most violent storm: soft, yet containing the capacity for unadulterated chaos. In its eyes was the very same consciousness that I saw in the beast.

 

And then, it spoke, in a voice soaked in authority, “Does death wear the sweet face of mercy?” it declared, sure as the sun in the sky, despite its question.

“Wise crow,” my wife said, “Is it not sinful to take a life, even if it struggles so?”

“It is a beast,” I interjected, staring at the crow, “And it brushes shoulders with death.”

“But our village is only a half-day's walk away,” she replied. “We can take it to the medicine woman.”

“No,” I barked, still looking at the crow, “We have no time for this; we must kill the beast–it is the right thing to do–and resume our journey towards the witch.”

“Clouds of old loom low in the sky,” said the crow, “Enriching our souls with the ease of non-existence.” Agnes nodded enthusiastically, placing a thoughtful hand on her chin, the other on the beast’s chest. I stood up, wiped the earth from my aching knees, and whispered, “Wife, listen to my words.” I looked at her, and she at me, and in her eyes I saw the unfamiliar determination falter, fading into the blunted indifference to which I was accustomed. The crow took off, then, ascending intently into the twilit evening, flapping its wings with a grace that seemed nurtured by the sky itself.

“Husband,” Agnes said, petting the beast’s head, “I could not see this poor creature die.” I placed a loving hand on her shoulder, a flimsy, easily broken-in thing, like a dried leaf, and replied, “Come, let’s depart, Agnes, and let nature take its course. We have much more forest to traverse, and the light wanes quickly.”

 

Part 3: The Ogre’s Home

 

I felt Agnes’s bony hand slip from my own just as the house came into view. There seemed to be a distance between us since we had departed from the clearing, though I had already begun to forget why. 

 

Night’s dark sky seemed to envelope the house in a tight embrace, though not tighter than that of the thickets of vines and branches interlocked across its surface, bound together like stitches in skin. Years of neglect and subjection to nature’s wrath had imparted on the place a lonely atmosphere; it was almost as if Agnes and I were the first civilized people in ages to have wandered by. The entrance was primitive, barely discernible if not for the insubstantial hole in the shrubbery that had been erected. Even still, the vines sought to impede our entry, requiring one of us to hold them aside for the other to fit through.

 

The interior was damp and quite cold, despite the little furnace that hissed quietly on the west wall. Rusted pots and pans caked in a strange substance towered tall, grazing the low ceiling and begetting a doubly cramped atmosphere. An ancient three-legged table stood precariously in the center of the hut, accompanied by two old wooden chairs. There was no layer of dust that coated the objects, only sporadic, dark stains. Still, they called to us sweetly to us with their promise of rest. In the corner, a large, filthy stack of hay gave the impression of a bed.

 

I had just lowered myself into my seat when a faint scratching broke the soft shell of silence. Out from the stack of hay emerged a large cat with striking green eyes; its fur smooth as black marble, seeming to absorb the little light that did fill the room. Agnes extended an arm out to stroke the creature, but before she could, a voice as silken as the finest linens remarked, “Are you comfortable?”

“Yes, quite!” exclaimed Agnes happily, allowing the cat to rub against her small hand. 

“Then I hate to disturb you,” the cat said, “But the occupant of this house will be back before the moon reaches its peak in the sky.”

“No,” I replied, “Look around, no one has lived in this hut for years.” 

“I apologize, travelers, but falser words have not been spoken.”

“Who lives here, sweet animal?” my wife cooed, and as the cat purred under her touch, it answered, “Why, an old ogre does. I’m sure I saw him leave this morning just at dawn.”

“An ogre?” I shouted; the idea was so frightening I almost leapt from my seat. “They are a vulgar and violent breed. We must be going, wife!”

“But, Wilbur, there is plenty of space in here for the three of us. I am sure the ogre will have the sense to understand. Besides, my mere sluggishness has matured into absolute fatigue; I question how much further my old limbs can endure.”

 

She was right. The long walk had begun to settle deep into my muscles, and I predicted that their condition would only worsen with more activity. But ogres have an instinctual malice that shortens their temper and predisposes them to a violent nature; it is common knowledge that to interact with one is to invite injury–or even death. I rose from the chair, reluctantly, and gestured for Agnes to follow. The cat had crawled into her lap.

“Wife, we must depart. The moon rises quickly.” 

​

Two pairs of eyes met mine, Agnes’s and the cat’s, both with the same fleeting sense of inscrutability, like they were looking at a crooked stranger, or even some sort of beast.

A violent gust of wind shook the branches outside, and just like that, the familiar vacancy entrusted itself once again in her gaze. The cat slipped out of her arms and slowly retreated once again to the darkened corner. 

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Her fingers met mine in a cold embrace, made ever colder by the howling wind. Each step felt like an affront against nature, a battle for the right to simply walk through this forest. Agnes trailed just a touch behind me, and as the light emanating faintly from the ogre’s home slowly receded into the distance, I felt her heart do the same.

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Part 4: The Cave  

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Its mouth was wide, stretching at least twenty yards, though quite well hidden under the thick shrubbery. The stone underneath was smooth and black, only accentuating the utter darkness that seemed to shroud our surroundings in a perpetual shadow. Agnes stood out so distinctly against the background, almost glowing in her cream dress and long white hair. Our environment seemed at odds with her appearance. I picked a stone off the ground, as smooth and black as the rest of the place, and threw it with as much force as I could into the cave. It seemed to echo infinitely.

 

Agnes and I sat cross-legged on the soft forest floor, padded with moss and other flora I could not recognize, and ate hard salt beef in silence. I wanted to say something, to break the hushed disquietude that had made itself so comfortable between us, but no words felt right on my tongue. Without warning, she rose and approached the cave.

“Agnes,” I breathed, “Where are you going?” I did not receive a reply; only a continuation of her path. Hastily, I stood, following a few feet behind her. I called after her again, only to elicit no response. Suddenly, reluctance replaced the conviction that had fueled my journey here. The cave seemed ambivalent to my presence; a certain hesitance to even acknowledge my feet on its earth. I began to wonder about the merit of this quest, how it had only served to widen the rift between Agnes and me. We were happy before, were we not? 

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“Agnes,” I repeated, “Is this journey worth the perils that may lie within this cave? Witches are not known to be generous with their magic. What if the ghastly woman uses her powers against us, not in aid?”

 

While she stood silently, the starlight threatened to spill into the darkness around us, venturing to illuminate things that had long been held in shadow. The light seemed to dance around her thin frame, using her body as a vessel for its transference. Without even affording myself a glance, she was absorbed wholly by the inky blackness of the cave, seeming to vanish so thoroughly that even her footprints in the muddy ground had disappeared.

“Wife!” I called, “At once, return to me!”

My words echoed longingly. I waited for a few moments, hoping that I’d see Agnes’s white form emerge into my sight, but there was no such luck. I would have to enter the cave.

 

My feeble candle was not enough to dispel the deep shadows around me; I feared how Agnes would manage with no source of light at all. My footsteps echoed distinctly, filling the empty silence with the sound of my uncertain shuffle. What felt like hours had passed as I traversed ever deeper into the cave. I cried for my wife, for the witch, for anyone who might have lost themselves as I did in this infinite void. There was no such response. 

 

It flew across my vision so quickly I thought I must have imagined it; but then a soft light materialized just around a bend in the stone walls, and I knew it was real. My feet moved with unconscious determination, as if they were a separate entity from my mind. Light in a place as dark as this could only be indicative of another human presence; I thought of Agnes just a few steps away, and my heart leaped.

 

When I rounded the bend, I came upon a small campfire that filled the dank air with hazy smoke. Someone was sitting cross-legged on the smooth floor, facing towards the fire and away from me. Their form was quite obscured by the fire’s fumes, but who else could it be other than my Agnes?

“Wife, I thank God to have found you. This cave creeps endlessly: I fear its leads to the underworld itself. We must be leaving, now.”

The figure did not reply; it only continued sitting completely still in front of the flickering fire. The air was so thick with smoke that it was becoming hard to breathe. I approached who I now realized did not possess the familiar outline of my wife’s small form: this person was wider at the shoulders, with a stout build and a hunched posture, as if they were about to fold in on themselves. I placed a reluctant, even fearful, hand on the person’s shoulder. It was tense and hard. I could only manage to croak a few weak syllables before the face I was met with sucked the little remaining air out of the room, “My wife–”

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Even through the almost opaque veil of smoke, recognizing the eyes that found mine was no challenge: they had the familiar monolithic darkness that emulated the cave walls, deeply set in an aging skull, that possessed a tone of presumption and overconfidence. I was looking at myself.

 

A thin smile stretched across my double’s face, showing a row of rotted, brown teeth. I recoiled instinctively. Then, he spoke, in a voice so similar to my own, yet tinged with a certain bestial timbre, “Does your own appearance invoke such hasty revulsion?”

A million words hinged on my lips, none capable of containing all the confusion and distress that wrenched my heart from its place in my chest. I could only stagger backward, allowing the smoke to once again cloak the man in obscurity.

“Or is it that you cannot recognize yourself following the descent of the mist? It does have an…” the man paused, slowly advancing towards me, “...amnestic quality. But that is what you desired, is it not?”

“I? Wish for the mist? I–we have traveled all this way to search for a cure for the incognizance that has plagued us!”

“We?” he smiled. “Are you not alone in this cave?”

“No, my wife, Agnes, entered just before me. She cannot be far ahead.”

“My friend, this is as deep as this cavern goes.”

“Friend–I am not your friend! And you must lie, for I watched her walk into this place myself!”

“But, friend, I am you. Is yourself not your closest confidante? Is yourself not the one entity who can never abandon you?”

I blinked and opened my mouth to speak, only to choke on the noxious air. He–or I?–crouched just an inch away from me, lowered his face to mine, as if I was being reflected in an invisible mirror, and asserted, “So you concur–then, trust me when I say, friend, that you do not want to clear this haze from your town’s mind.” 

“Why is that?” my voice escaped in a frail whisper, nothing more than a curl of steam released from boiling water. My double placed his hand on my forehead and, without warning, reality hardened into crisp remembrance.

 

I was angry, ardently so, yelling with such conviction and force that I thought the roof of our bedchamber would collapse. Agnes sat facing away from me, on the edge of our bed, seeming not even to register my incoherent fit of fury. I could not, either; I was but a passenger in my own body. My body dragged itself in front of my wife, an inch from her thin face, and spat out vile curses I could not reconcile with falling from my mouth. In a flash, I struck her, hard and fast, and, giving her no moment to recover, continued my onslaught of abuse. I sat within myself, horrified and unable to link my mind with my fists, until our neighbors–Jill and Alexander–burst in and pulled me off of her. She lay limp and unconscious on the bed, like waste paper that had not been disposed of properly. Blood gushed from her nose and mouth, spreading fervently over our white bedding. As I was dragged out of the room, I saw her sit up, and a brief relief washed over me.

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“You came here after that and wished for everyone in your village to forget your misdeeds,” my double stated, removing his hand from my forehead. I could not manage a reply, only a series of sputtering, rasping coughs that shook my whole body. He continued, “Yes, the air is quite hard to breathe with such a thick substance occupying it. But you are used to it, are you not? And so is our dear Agnes.”

 

I looked to my right, black spots clouding my failing vision, and saw a frail female form strewn across the ground a few feet from me. I used my last remaining strength to drag myself across that short distance, dragging myself so hard that I broke my nails against the unforgiving stone. Just an inch away, my fingers grazed her brittle hair that was caked with soot, and I felt my very soul be ripped from my body.