“You’ll be promoted by the end of this month.”
“Look at him being a Site Director already, starting to act the part too, don’t you think?”
“You should be more proud of your new position. Others can only dream of holding such a high-regarded position, you know.”
”Damn liars, what would you bastards know about responsibility and hard work anyway!” - That was my thought when I remembered the hollow congratulations my colleagues spat out, the same hypocrites who eagerly pushed me onto the bus to my hometown in Mujin. They weren’t at all happy for me; that much is obvious from their tone. Those dog snouts of them are only sniffing profits in the air, waiting to scavenge the Deputy Director position I had held all these years.
My situation reeked of irony now that I thought about it. I had to flee from my hometown and serve this god-damned Foundation for decades, only to realise at the end that returning was the best choice to make. My entire life had been spent racing against others, but that ended now. All the dreams and aspirations I had dissolved like fog; maybe they were already an illusory fog, it just took me this long to notice. But on the bright side, being a Site Director in my forties was an accomplishment, even if it was for a Site in a remote location, surrounded by fog all year round.
Mujin didn’t seem to change at all after so many years. The same rows of houses still lay there near the sea, drowning in waves of sea and fog that mixed together to crash upon the shore, swallowing Mujin bit by bit, gradually submerging it in a hazy ocean. Human silhouettes sparsely appeared; they drifted on the roads, flickering in and out of existence as if they had never been there; a life so grey and bland it erased all traces of the living. To live in Mujin is to have one’s mind dulled to the point that they can no longer see a future in sight, only a labyrinth of colourless fog with no escape. People have no choice but to wait for a chance to be scooped from this shallow seashore and thrown into the big open ocean. Mujin’s fog is akin to an invisible wall obscuring one from the mundanity of the outside, yet also imprisoning them within a hopeless confine. And that was the reason why I left Mujin, following the call of my youth’s desires.
Speaking of the devil, the Mujin’s fog was already greeting me from afar. It's still unclear when or from where it came; the fog simply descends without warning when someone enters the domain of Mujin. It had always been that way; Mujin’s fog always had its own will and consciousness, just that the locals had lived with it for too long to notice. The day I left, it seemed like the fog had waved me goodbye from a distance, and now, it once again appeared to welcome me back.
I should have realised sooner that I wasn’t being discarded by the Foundation when they sent me to Mujin. They would never throw away a useful pawn, and out of date doesn’t equate to out of use. The fog slowly parted, giving way to the bus carrying me into the stomach of the invisible beast guarding Mujin. Before me, the sign “Welcome to Mujin” slowly appeared amidst the fog, welcoming me to my personal hell.
Dead empty.
That was my first impression upon arriving at the Site’s parking lot. It was understandable, given that the big layoff occurred since the world transitioned to a new era of normalcy without many incidents occurring. The poor living and working conditions didn’t help either, as new personnel flocked to the key Sites in Seoul. And only a few got the jobs, either through direct employment offered by personal connections or as a referral from other important facilities.
This was especially true for Mujin, where the population had barely shifted despite the years. Four, that was how many people I had seen since the bus crossed into town. It would be five if I count the one standing in front of me, who seemed to be my guide for the Site’s tour today.
“Welcome, Director Jo. Your journey seemed more exhausting than expected.”
I shook his outstretched hand. He wasn’t much younger than me, but his trendy clothes certainly helped.
“I’m Su-ho, sir.”
“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Su-ho. And well, yeah, you know how long-haul buses are like.”
“I suppose that the Foundation would have used a more pleasant method if they could, but you already saw the condition our Site is in.”
Looking at where he signaled, I finally saw how run-down this place was: The walls in the parking lot were peeling, revealing half of the brick inside, fog was leaking in through cracks and the entrance, making the inside nearly indistinguishable from the outside. I let out a sigh and motioned for him to lead me inside.
“How long have you been working here for, Su-ho? Were you directly hired, or reassigned here like me?”
“About seven years, sir. My cousin got me in right after I got my bachelor's degree. I’ve been filling his old post every time he was promoted. It’s been fine so far. What about you, sir?”
“I was employed three years earlier than you, formally hired, but at the Seoul branch. Took me two years of grinding to secure a stable position, then it was all about clawing my way up to my current one.”
I left out the part about high-ranking members using cheap tricks to undermine each other. We continued walking toward the Site’s elevator.
“Of course, competition varies from place to place, with the biggest difference being the headcounts. In Seoul, Sites operate constantly, with hundreds of personnel on-site at all times. You’ll probably like that place. This place, well, is more reserved.”
“I guess I’m not suited to the lifestyle in the city, Director. It’s a bit boring here, yet the work is kinda leisurely, there’s nothing too stressful that we must do. Perhaps even the gate guards have more things to do than we staff.”
The elevator doors dinged, slowly slid to the sides. Su-ho gestured for me to go in first, then he slowly followed me and pressed the number four on the four-button panel. The fog on the door of the parking lot waved for the last time as if to say goodbye to me before the elevator doors shut.
“Not to mention, even if I asked, I probably wouldn’t get transferred to work in Seoul. Besides the severe shortage of staff here, the Mujin fog itself still needs to be monitored.”
“What do you mean?”
“You know just as well that Mujin’s population hasn’t grown much over the years, right? Some people from the environmental research department think it might be due to the fog’s anomalous properties.”
“You mean the fog is eating the residents of Mujin?”
“Or maybe it’s kidnapping them, hiding them away in some other dimension, or using them for some kind of sacrificial ritual. The point is, Mujin itself is just as suspicious as anywhere else—maybe even more so. But no one ever pays attention to a city that’s always buried in gray fog.”
The elevator gave a slight jolt as it reached the floor, then slowly opened its doors to let us out. Inside, the office revealed itself in a pale ivory hue, with rows of empty desks stretching into the quiet space.
There wasn't a single soul in my sight.
Before I could open my mouth to ask, Su-ho had already turned off between the rows of long desks. Less than a minute later, he returned from the far end—this time with three others. A young woman and two men, all of whom appeared to be Site personnel. They each introduced themselves to me, but none of the names stuck, so I didn’t bother remembering. Let’s just call them A, B, and C.
A was notably petite, even for an adult woman. She spoke in a mousy whisper through clenched teeth, like a rat's squeak. Other than that, she wasn’t particularly memorable—in fact, if anything, she looked a bit worse than average. B was a fresh intern, barely out of college. Besides his awkward demeanor, what stood out was his patchy, black-and-blond hair—hastily dyed, it seemed, in a half-hearted attempt to look presentable in a professional setting. C lit a cigarette and took a long drag after greeting me. He looked to be around my age, but something about him felt much older: the dark circles under his eyes, the worn-out posture. He unsettled me in a way I couldn’t quite place—like a reminder that at any time, under the wrong circumstances, I could easily turn into him.
“All right, everyone, back to work,”
Su-ho said, waving the others back to their places before turning to face me again.
“Normally, there would be a few more people here, but since the fog is thick today and the others live quite far from our Site, they’ve asked to work from home until the weather clears up.”
I didn’t think much of it and simply nodded, continuing to follow Su-ho’s directions down a narrow, separate hallway to a room at the end. The door gradually opened as Su-ho turned the key. Inside was an office that looked quite similar to my old deputy director’s room. A desk lamp and a personal computer sat atop a minimalist desk — the kind of setup you’d expect in an old-established facility. The difference was that, back in Seoul, this would’ve been a standard workspace for any employee, unlike the rows of desks outside. How should I put it? The change felt rather exciting — like being king of my own little kingdom.
“Well then, make yourself at home. Have a pleasant evening, Director.”
Su-ho said as he tossed me the room key. He strode past the layers of glass doors dividing the hallways, his figure slowly fading behind each one. Back then, I didn’t suspect a thing—but that image of his back as he left would haunt me for days to come. But now, though, my mind was filled only with bright visions of the future, as I slowly placed my old belongings onto the shelves around the room.
The fog is getting thicker.
In the days that followed, the fog thickened relentlessly, no longer just slowly creeping through the cracks between the bricks of the Site’s parking lot, but now pouring fiercely through every crevice of its windows. It spread like a silent tide, swallowing the lower floors whole, with no hint of mercy or end in sight.
It took less than a month to engulf the three lower floors of the building, even though outside, the fog seemed to barely rise above a person's head. An anomalous phenomenon that should have been reported to the Foundation headquarters as soon as possible. But we were one step behind “it,” and now we were just fish on a chopping board, waiting to be devoured by “it.”
On the day the Site was locked down without warning, A, B, and C suddenly barged into my room. They told me that there was something inside the fog—something that had caught, and possibly killed, one of our staff. The others had already sealed off and evacuated the Site, but the three of them were trapped here, unable to escape. The only conclusion we could draw so far was that we were safe outside the fog’s cover… yet the fog was creeping closer to the hallway door.
Shock and dread left us reeling for half a day, especially after I discovered that the monster within the fog had torn someone in half and devoured their remains near a camera on the second floor. My phone couldn’t connect, and the radios were rendered useless by relentless static. A creeping despair weighed on my mind every time the fog’s silhouette slipped into the corner of my eye—whether through a camera feed or a windowpane.
No. It couldn’t end like this. I thought, staring at the emergency exit on the first floor. I had to get out of here. I had just begun to carve out a place of my own—there was no way I was going to lose it in some senseless, pathetic way. I would do whatever it took to escape. ”Yes, anything…” I thought, as I watched the chances—no, the survivors—step quietly into my office to take shelter.
“I was planning on working for another ten years, but I guess I'll have to retire after this. How about you, senior?”
I took out a cigarette and offered it to the man in front of me. C looked at it suspiciously for half a day, but in the end, his craving won. Without waiting for him to light it himself, I quickly pulled out a fancy lighter from my coat pocket and held it to the tip of the cigarette—an action I’d grown all too familiar with.
“This one is good, even the best cigarette I can buy around here doesn't come close.”
“This is the most popular brand in Seoul—my friends all use it too.”
I spat out a blatant lie without a blink. I’m not the smoking type, nor the type to have many friends. Business partners, sure, I have, but not a single real friend. I only keep this pack of cigarettes and the fancy lighter to offer to my superiors when their hands are full. It’s an incredibly effective way to make a good impression.
“I probably won’t get to retire anyway. Born and raised in Mujin—seems like my whole life is meant to serve Mujin. At best, I just wish for a little time off to travel and clear my head. But the station’s always short-staffed, so I just keep working overtime.”
“Actually, if we prove that Mujin has a potential anomaly, we might be able to request for backup from the center Sites. Then maybe both you and I can finally take a break. Step aside and leave the rest for the younger ones to do the work.
I leaned in and whispered to his ear sugar coated words.
"It’s a bit risky, but if we can make it to the elevator, we should be able to get out of here easily. Except for the problem on the second floor, the other areas seem completely empty. You get my drift?"
I slipped a clip-on camera and a walkie-talkie into the old man’s jacket pocket, then gave his shoulder a reassuring pat.
“You just need to quickly run over there, find the way down to the parking lot, then use a resident’s phone to call for backup. I will monitor and guide you through this camera.”
"But what if there are monsters out there, too?”
"I just looked outside earlier, and the fog out there looks pretty much normal. Probably only our Site is affected."
It took him quite a while before he finally took the bait. He stood up, took a long drag, then threw the cigarette butt into the ashtray on my table. He looked at me with a weary gaze, grabbed the camera, and stepped outside. Just before he left, I quickly slipped the pack of cigarettes into his pocket.
“Here, for you, consider it a gift for your happy vacation.”
Without bothering to explain to the two pairs of eyes staring wide at the old man’s apparently suicidal action, I rushed to the computer to keep track of him. The old man walked along the corridor wall, passing by the workspace now shrouded in fog. With each glass door he passed through, the fog thickened until he could see only a hand’s width ahead. Fortunately, he easily reached the elevator and went down to the ground floor.
“Okie doke, you just need to get to the far end of the parking lot to get outside. The pedestrian emergency exit is at the furthest corner from where you’re standing. Just keep to the right along the wall and you’ll be fine.”
The old man slowly walked towards the exit, each footstep sounding more muddy than when he had just stepped off the elevator. But what was even more striking– and apparently ignored by him– was the fog slowly curling into an unnatural shape, forming what looked like an eye staring straight at him. Strands of fog twirl into a giant mouth, wrapping around the floating eyeball, deadly fangs replacing where eyelashes should be. The mouth kept opening and closing as if it were speaking, while the pupil remained fixed, glaring forward.
“I’m exhausted, too.”
“What’s going on, senior?”
I whispered quietly into the walkie-talkie, lowering my voice as much as possible so as not to alarm the two others in the room. The old man didn’t even bother to pay attention to my question, aimlessly continuing to walk forward.
“Yeah, a nap/sleep would be great..”
“Hey. Senior? Senior?”
“And a long vacation.”
“Hey! Old man.”
I almost shouted out loud but held myself back, only yelling silently into the walkie-talkie, yet he still ignored my words.
“Why am I still here? Oh, right, I’m on my vacation, I need to rest.”
…
“But why am I still here?”
…
“…why am I still here…”
He kept mumbling without letting any of my words reach his ears. Giving up, I stopped calling and let him continue toward the exit. He walked on, the eyes in front of him still staring intently, the mouth wrapping around it opening and closing. Then, without warning, the mouth suddenly gaped wide and swallowed him whole. The last thing left on the screen was a glowing pupil made of fog.
“Need to rest.”
The old man’s distorted voice seemed to dissolve into the fog, then completely faded away, vanishing into nothing.
It took a while until I regained my composure; it appeared the old man wouldn’t reply to the walkie-talkie anymore, all I heard on the other side was just growling wind. The fog, which seemed to be conscious of my audience, slowly covered the parking lot, leaving nothing but a field of grey in the camera feed. The fog outside the room also drew further into the glass frame, filling the hallway right outside the door. Luckily, the anomaly didn’t seem to show any other changes in behavior.
Two chances left, I sighed while turning back to the pair in the corner. Actually, it was only B who was making all the noises, A almost stooped herself right in the corner, and only replied with hems and haws or head movements without a full sentence spoken.
Both of them ignored me completely. Well, the young man was too absorbed in talking to A, while A seemed to care for nothing around her. I slowly approach the pair, tap B on the shoulder to get his attention, then pull him to the other corner of the room.
“Hey, I’ve been watching you the whole day, kid. You like her, don’t you?”
“Well. Uhm. We are only friends. And she, uhm. I mean- she is my senior. I am her junior, so I’m taking the rare chance to ask her about work stuff.”
The lad's face turned fiery red. To be honest, it was way more interesting than the other dull and boring colours in Mujin, and was also more attractive, especially to the monster lurking outside. I put my arm around his shoulder and sat down, pulling him down with me.
“Don’t lie to yourself, she wasn’t talking the whole day, you’re the only one spouting nonstop nonsense, no? Don’t think my eyesight worsens just because I’m old.”
“I have no such intent, sir.”
“Come on, out with it then, I might even be able to help.”
“Please stop teasing me like that.”
“Well then, must just be me.”
I started standing up, acting like I was leaving. A almost flinched while not looking directly at us. Clearly was watching but acting like she didn't give a damn.
“Or she could be into mature people, like the old man. They are both the silent type, both are workaholics, and they might be more in tune than you are. Or maybe she has already-”
The lad pulled my sleeve, tearing up and begging me with his tear-filled eyes.
“Please help me….”
“Should have started with that.”
I plopped down again, put my arm over his shoulder, and patted.
“Here’s the thing, the fact that the lass likes the other guy or not is not that important. What really is important is how you look in her eyes, right? Right now, however, you are just a loud-mouthed junior, no more, no less. So in comparison, the mature, experienced, a little hard-working even, man would be way more attractive. Shy and quiet girls like her usually fall head over heels for the cold and boring type like him, anyway.”
“Well…uhm, well…yes….”
I grabbed both of the lad's arms and pulled him up straight.
“Lucky for you, the circumstances may fall in your favor. Truth be told, I just told the old man to get out of the Site to call for backups. However, our connection got interrupted the moment he got out of the parking lot. If you manage to contact the backups before he does, you could become a hero in the eyes of a certain somebody, right? I only need to say he got out alone and left us. Two birds with one stone, am I right?
The lad just stood there, acting like considering the offer but constantly glancing over at A, lips tightened to hide his rejoice. I threw him the walkie-talkie and the bodycam.
“There’s an emergency exit on the third floor. If you head that way, you can cut through to the front gate without running into the old man. I’ll support you from here, got it?”
The kid quickly nodded, grabbed the walkie-talkie, and took off running, leaving A staring after him in confusion. I didn’t think much of it and turned back to the desk, watching as the kid rushed toward the fourth-floor stairwell, then darted down to the third floor and continued along the glass-paneled hallways.
“Beyond that door is the way out!”
B quickly flung the door open and dashed down the stairs. However, what should have been the outside was instead shrouded in fog, starkly different from the view I had seen through the window. It wasn’t until the kid reached the bottom of the stairs that I realized this place was filled with fog because he had just stepped down to the third floor.
“What is that?”
“That’s strange. This must be its true anomalous property. Try doing exactly what you did earlier.”
“You mean running to the exit again?”
“Just try again. It could just take a few times to work.”
The lad started running again, and again, and again. The fog grew thicker every flight of stairs he took.
“I swear if this thing happens again.”
But then, something weird happened on the fourth time, the hallway seemed narrower, the desks were all out of place, and the walls felt bumpy and uneven as if there were things on them. The fog had grown way thicker, gathered under B’s every step. Until the exit door opened, the fog had already turned into a standing pillar that flowed from an undetermined source right in front of B. The walls, uncovered from the fog, then appeared with chock-full rows of eyes. Seemed to be taken aback by the creepy room he was facing, the lad completely stopped responding to me, almost shouting into his walkie-talkie.
“Why was I here?”
C's unexpected voice froze both me and B.
“Why was I here?”
The voice continued, the flowing fog suddenly twisted to it, and a familiar form appeared, an eyeball wrapped around by a giant mouth. It flared a scarlet red, then flew at B.
“Run!”
I yelled into the walkie talkie again, startled the kid and made him run. Just before he reached the stairs, the monster sped up and jumped in between, as if understanding his intention. B made a sharp turn towards the desks, then circled back to shake the monster off, then rushed for the stairwell, running back upstairs.
My voice almost got drowned out by the noise of the monster crashing and bumping into stuff from the walkie-talkie. It chased B from floor to floor, row of desks to row of desks. Every time the lad climbed up a floor, the monster caught up and blocked his path. It kept chasing to make the kid tired. Luckily, maybe because of youth, or maybe because of the rushing adrenaline, the lad managed to keep his pace and reached the highest floor, turned and ran through a hall of glass doors. He headed straight for the furthest room at the end of the hallway, the only room.
“Hey! Hey! What are you doing?”
I shouted as I shot up to block the door, but as the door in front of B opened up, the monster’s jaw widened from the other side, catching him and stopping the camera transmission right then.
I sank back into my chair, growing hopeless in my unsolvable predicament. I was left with nowhere to escape, no way to retrieve, and no more chances to waste. I sat there for half a day, aimlessly staring at the blackened bodycam feed, so aimlessly focused on it that I almost missed the wide-open exit on another feed. Of course, I still have one last chance, I thought to myself as I turned to the person sitting in the corner.
It didn't take too much effort for me to "convince" her to leave; my small actions were enough to make her panic. Looking at her made me think of those snarky women in Seoul, it was a world of difference.
"Take it. The other two have already left the building through the third-floor emergency exit. You should leave, too. I'll guide you by radio."
She kept flinching as I threw her the camera and the intercom, not moving an inch.
"Hurry up, or do you want me to leave you behind?"
I growled. The girl was startled and rushed out of the room.
How pathetic.
I thought as I began to guide her down to the third floor. She had the same situation as the B boy, but with my reassurance, it didn't take her long to reach the exit. In front of her was now a clear sky, with mist hovering deep below; a sea of fog extended all the way to the horizon.
“Wait, I'm comi—”
Before I could finish speaking, the monster had already jumped up from beneath the emergency exit and then ran toward A. Surprisingly, she reacted instantly and ran back, though not fast enough to escape from the monster.
I closed my eyes as the monster prepared to take away my third chance, giving up my hope to the mist. A continued to run away from the monster by weaving through the rows of tables, but then, instead of rushing toward the stairs, she turned and rushed into the bathroom, locking the door.
“Okay.”
She whispered, stepping back, grabbing the fire extinguisher in the corner of the room, and trembling as she looked toward the door. The monster slammed itself against the door, making a loud bang and powerful gusts of wind. Again, again, then again. Suddenly, it stopped for a long time, and the mist obscured the camera outside the bathroom, making me unable to see what was happening. Until, in complete silence, the mist began to flow through the crack in the door, twisting itself into a huge figure, with a face having an eyeball wrapped behind a large jaw.
A pulled the pin and blasted the extinguisher straight into the monster’s face, blowing it apart into a cloud of mist. She kept spraying until there was nothing left of the monster, then she burst into tears. Before she could catch her breath, the mist beneath her feet gathered again like a miniature tornado. She sprayed it over and over again, but the mist wouldn’t go away. She kept spraying desperately while the mist continued to form into the shape of the monster, emitting a red hue that only it had.
The monster, unconcerned by the foam spraying into its face, eye, or mouth, lunged straight at A, knocking both itself and her through the glass door behind them. The mist burst out, merging with the air outside, making the entire third floor a bit clearer, though a thin layer of fog still covered everything.
I sighed, then took a deep breath. I slowly lit a cigarette to calm myself. At least there was a chance for a proper escape now. I stood up, looking at the third-floor one last time. If only I had looked more closely, if only I had paid more attention, I would have noticed the wisps of mist coming from the cracks of the wall around the emergency exit door. But I no longer have the mind for that; the exit was the only thing in my mind, and I walked to the door. Throwing the cigarette butt into the ashtray on the table, I took another deep breath, then opened the door wide. I flicked the cigarette butt into the ashtray on the table, took another deep breath, then swung the door wide open.
Useless, I have to do everything myself.
.
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