The Fog of Miscommunication

Christmas Day was getting dangerously close, and at less than a week away we only had half of the twenty-four hours.  Unfortunately, we couldn’t get to the Realm until Chaz could feel up to it.  There were also a lot of other factors.  We had made an illegal portal jump.  Just appearing, and with an extra traveler, was going to be difficult to explain.

Portal points were a lot like airport security.  Chaz had been able to obtain some killer passport because we had always been able to breeze through in the past.  The problem was that his passport only authorized himself and one other.  Mills wasn’t too keen on the idea of being left behind, not when the mess was partially his to clean up.  He really did have a great sense of duty.

“So, how are we going to do this, again?” I asked.

“I’ll have to sneak through,” Mills stated.  “I mean, I’ve already committed a major crime so getting past security isn’t going to add much more to whatever punishment I’ll get.”

We reached a portal point with Mills hiding behind us and then left him to try to get through customs on his own as we breezed through.  What felt like forever was actually about half an hour, but Mills finally joined us.  He was grinning like a fool as he showed us the fake passport he somehow obtained.

“My parents will totally kill me when they find out I have a girlfriend,” he explained.  “Not to mention one who was willing to fake me a passport.  I’m probably going to get grounded for a century.”

“Why would they kill you?” I asked, curious.

“They think I’m too young to do anything,” Mills sighed.  “I might as well be a new year the way they try to baby me.”

“They probably have a good reason,” I suggested.

Mills gave me a look that seemed to say ‘stop trying to ruin my angst,’ but then he laughed and we dropped the conversation.  We had to find twelve more hours soon or else there would be no Christmas.  Luckily, having Mills with us sure made things move faster.  As the grandson of Father Time he could cheat a little and speed up our walking pace without me having to walk faster.

It seemed that, given the amount of time that had passed, the hours were probably not going to move far from wherever they had rooted themselves unless someone else moved them.  So, if we wanted to find them we had to go looking in places that Chaz had not been able to investigate yet.  Mills, unfortunately, did not have some sort of time sonar embedded in his senses.  We were entirely dependent on Chaz to tell us if we were close.

Chaz suddenly stopped and turned around.  “Uh-oh.”

“What?” Mills and I asked in unison.

I kind of wish I hadn’t turned around.  It looked like a storm cloud was haphazardly rolling along the ground and straight at us.  Flashes of white and blue sparked across the monstrous fog.  The distant rumbled was getting louder as the storm approached us like a malevolent, ethereal freight train.

“What is that?” Mills demanded.

“You don’t know?” I asked.

“And you know everything about all the anomalies in the World?” he countered.

I don’t know if we would have kept arguing.  Chaz didn’t give us the chance.  He grabbed my hand and Mills’ arm and pulled us toward a dry river bank.  We hunkered down, but Chaz refused to let go of either of us.

“We’re going to have to wait this out,” he said.

“Well, we certainly aren’t outrunning it,” Mills grumbled as the fog barreled toward us.  “Can you let go?  Or at least loosen your grip?”

“No,” Chaz said gravely.  “What you see, and what you hear, might confuse you too much.  If you wander freely through the Fog of Miscommunication without being properly grounded…”

He didn’t finish his sentence as the fog rolled over us.  I now understood what he meant.  At first, there was a clamor of noise and emails, texts and letters swirled around my vision.  But then most of the noise subsided to the background and I realized the danger.  The fog preyed on us, trying to lead us astray with every form of miscommunication it held.  Ours included.