After the fog completely cut off his view of the shore, the Old Fisherman was suddenly overcome with dread. He didn't know what he was about to face, but he had a strange feeling that... something was different.
It was as if a thread connecting them to the familiar world had snapped. The lake beneath their feet and the fog all around them felt utterly alien.
The small boat moved across the dark, still lake. The only sound was the splash of oars breaking the water. The fog clung together in thick layers, slowly rolling across the lake.
After they had been rowing for nearly half an hour, the man at the oars finally couldn't hold back. "What's going on? We've gone in a circle and come back the way we came. By now, we should be able to see the shore, no matter how you look at it."
Yet now, they couldn't see so much as the shore. They were still trapped in layers of fog, with black lake water beneath the boat. The way home seemed endless.
Just then, an old man with grizzled hair stepped forward and said in a hoarse voice, "Don't panic. We all make our living fishing around Spring God Lake, so I'm sure you've heard plenty of stories about this lake. No boats out after midnight—that's been a taboo since our elders' time. Today... today, I'm afraid we've run into something."
A man as thin as a reed staggered, his face turning deathly pale. "Run into... what? What are you talking about?"
The old man with grizzled hair shot him a look and didn't bother answering. Instead, he addressed the others. "You can all see that there's something wrong. The soldiers wouldn't have made us do this otherwise. If we want to survive