Fields of Grey - WIP

Ch. 1 - Draft 2

Chapter 1

Killing one's self never sounds like a great idea, and for most people that's true, but I guess I'm just lucky. I've always been lucky, but without it I'd just be another dead guy...

Reed Wilder stood aboard the H.M.S. Restitution, along with 473 other souls, all clinging to the illusion of safety aboard 150 metres of iron and steel. Beneath them, the sea stretched black and infinite, its depths swirling with an unspoken dread.

The Restitution was one of the Navy's largest Patrolers, a vessel tasked with charting the farthest reaches of the Shrouded Sea, pushing the boundaries of where the known world blurred into the unknown.

The world, shrouded in eternal Fog, felt like a tomb. Darkness crept in from all sides, heavy and unyielding, as if the sky itself had forgotten how to shine. The only light came from the faint, ghostly orbs of the twin suns—one yellow, one red—hovering weakly in the heavens. Their glow was never more than a muted smear on the horizon, casting shadows that seemed to move on their own.

The further they ventured into that void, the more the crew felt it: a slow, creeping unravelling. Conversations grew rarer, laughter died, and an oppressive silence took root on board. It was as though the Fog was more than mist—something alive, sentient, watching. Even if the Fog wasn't alive, there were many strange and weird things in it that were.

Reed Wilder's dark eyes peered through the fogged glass of his helmet scanning the Fog. Beneath the helmet, his short black hair sat messily, untouched by the damp air, and his wiry frame tensed as he gazed out into the shadowy expanse of the Shrouded Sea.

At that point, Reed had been in the service for seven months. Seven months at sea, and he thought he'd seen it all—the relentless storms, the endless toil, the moments of camaraderie that made it all bearable.

He was just seventeen, barely more than a boy, and tonight he felt every inch of it. The stories he'd heard from the older sailors about the Shrouded Sea were playing on his mind—he couldn't shake the feeling there was some truth in the tales of old men.

H.M.S. Restitution was out on the Shrouded Sea, where the Fog was so thick and wet that it was impossible to see the man standing right beside you. They sailed perilously close to The End—the place where everything simply... ceased. No one ever returned from there. No one even knew if there was a return.

Unfortunately, thick fog was a common occurrence; the air was denser out there, and moving through it felt like physically parting a curtain that would swirl off the body only to linger for a moment before swallowing you whole. Reed had deck duty that night; the bell had just rung, marking another day gone by, and the sea was quiet.

As Reed looked out to the sea, he wiped clean some of the moisture forming on the outside of his helmet. There was a certain level of comfort the glass dome provided. The helmet, attached securely to his cobalt blue Fogskin, offered him a physical barrier against the encroaching Fog, eager to penetrate any cracks.

The Fog is harmful in ways we can't explain. Exposure to Fog is fatal after too long a time, and those that don't die are left changed—warped by whatever malevolent force lurks within, their minds twisted and their bodies marked with the scars of something far worse than death. Reed's breath fogged the inside of the helmet, a reminder that he was still inside, still safe—for now.

Eager to shake his nerves Reed called out to Jasper, stationed on the port side quarter, for an update. He was another young sailor, two years his senior, who had joined them when they last made port 2 months ago. He liked Jasper; they'd become decently friendly, often taking the same ship end on watch duty.