The woman had long brown hair and plain clothes. She was quickly walking towards the middle of the town. I called but she didn’t respond as if she didn’t hear me. Maybe she thought I called someone else?

I ran to her and touched her clothes lightly, excited to see a fellow human. She stopped in her tracks and turned to look at me, tilting her head. I involuntarily let go of her clothes. Right. This wasn’t the place I am from. I was too careless.

She continued to walk heading to the town’s center. After thinking for a moment, I decided to follow her, keeping polite distance. What startled me was not her silence nor that she continued to walk as soon as I let her go, ignoring me completely. It was her face. It was covered by a thick layer of mosaic, shading her eyes, nose and mouth, leaving but a blur.

Suddenly my eyes fell on a windowsill of one of the many houses this town had. A large golden butterfly was sitting there, fluttering its wings ever so slightly. So far I have seen a few passersby. All of them had mosaics shading their faces. However apart from this butterfly no animal was present in the town.

Then someone grabbed my hand. I turned around. He was about thirty years old. He didn’t have that weird mosaic on him, so I could clearly see his face. Cold eyes were looking at me through the glasses of his spectacles. Shaggy darkish hair. No beard nor mustache. Formal attire. A perfectly normal specimen of a human being. The perfect specimen was looking at me, frowning. He threw a single command, “Follow me.”

Such a curt command was all I received. Yup, it definitely didn’t quite feel like a request. What did it entail? Was it too dangerous to stay here? Or perhaps he had some secret agenda and following him would lead me to my doom? Well, I had already lost my body before, hadn’t I? That, the fact that his grip was too tight for me to break free without resisting with all I had, and most importantly the feeling that he might not know the whole truth about what’s truly going on, and I’ll get an advantage if I keep things like this, made me follow him.

I tried to savor that feeling. I didn’t remember it appearing before. It felt almost like a separate entity. Was it even a part of me, something I could and should trust at all? That I didn’t know. But I knew that I wanted to believe in it. After walking in the fog of ignorance for so long I yearned for answers more than ever.

We finally reached our destination. One of the rooms in the building that was located in the middle of the town. It had some chairs, most of which were already occupied and a blackboard in front. There I saw a person I didn’t expect to encounter at all. Witch Rita Knox. She was sitting on one of those chairs, and I noticed her face slightly twitch with surprise as I entered the room. There were also other people, none of which were familiar to me. Some of them had mosaics blurring their faces. I didn’t pay much attention to others though. Rita, she changed. Now she was covered by flimsy pink mist.

Guided by instinct, I chose a free chair. Finally the expression on the perfect specimen’s face loosened up somewhat. He took a chalk and began to write something on the board. I was somewhat curious and paid attention to what was being written there. An enormous amount of physical and mathematical formulas and equations soon filled up the board. I’m afraid I wasn’t strong enough in the subject to understand most of it. So instead I sat there with a smart look, nodding from time to time and feigning understanding. At some point the perfect specimen put the chalk down and left the room.

Immediately witch Rita rose up to her feet and headed in my direction. Instinct tried to take over, to give a hint of what to say but I dismissed it. It was my classmate, not his. When she got close she skipped the greetings and asked a question directly “Do you believe that I wasn’t the one who controlled unicorn Vlad?”

Instinct went on a rampage as if trying to warn me about something. I tried to force it to be silent. Why is it so nasty? Suddenly the flimsy pink mist which surrounded witch Rita dissolved in the air and she dashed out of the room leaving me with a bunch of unfamiliar people.

While I hesitated whether I should pursue witch, someone appeared in front of me. She was covered in thick magenta fog. It was as if Rita’s gossamer-thin mist had been increased manifold. She spoke, slight confusion and excitement evident in her voice, “Hey, didn’t you notice me? It’s me! Rachel! I was waiting for you to return! And… Did you know the girl from before?”

She clearly knew me. And she wanted my answer. Unsure of what to do, I resorted to the safest trick. I nodded. The blackboard on my left caught my attention. In it I saw my reflection. It wasn’t my face. In it I saw a complete stranger.

What sort of desire can be connected to a tree? Love for nature? Desire to grow up or perhaps desire to be left alone in silence? Whatever it was, it didn’t belong to me. I remembered Henry, the hazy shade and the humanoid creature I met. I looked at the girl in front of me. I made a decision. The secret will be only mine to know.

She continued talking “Who did you go out with that day? I have never seen that person before but something about them felt wrong. It was as if they weren’t human…”

Right. Whoever was that guy he wasn’t alone. What happened to the person who was with him? Are they dead or alive watching me? I remembered the arrow inscribed on the ground. I would need to be extra cautious in case they had means to harm me. Instinct helped me to answer once again, “It’s not the time to worry about someone who’s far away. Can you fill me in on the current situation?”

She consented, “A few people came in during your absence. First of all, a girl named Rita who you seem to be already acquainted with. Next are Irene and Gunter who seem to never be apart. Irene seems to be quiet and I can’t say much about her, but Gunter… I think there’s something wrong about him. I don’t think they will be able to stop our plan and if they try, I will personally get rid of them.”

I looked at the pair Rachel mentioned. Long fair haired girl looked somewhat indifferent. But what really caught my eyes was the boy standing behind her. His appearance wasn’t all that unusual. It was his eyes. He had the eyes of a dead fish. There was no fog around those two.

My conversation with Rachel got interrupted by the appearance of a boy, one of those without a mosaic. I didn’t instantly realize but it seems like he also had mist around him. But unlike Rachel’s fog and witch’s mist it was so thin that it was barely visible.

“I’ll show him the way” - a gloomy voice was heard. Bags under his eyes, ruffled hair – it seemed like that guy was tormented by some kind of a problem. He was drilling in me with his eyes, furrowing his brows as if he couldn’t understand something.

Rachel tilted her head, initially confused, but then light of understanding could be seen glimmering in her eyes. Rachel spoke softly, “Vincent is right. I’m sorry I have to say this, but your home was devoured as well. Lately, the day's duration has been getting shorter and shorter. Townline is receding like never before…”

Vincent looked at her in silence and then motioned for me to follow him. I glanced at the last two people without mosaics who were in the room. They were wearing wolf and rabbit masks respectively. What about mosaics? Alas, the more I saw them the less they reminded me of a human being. Yes, they definitely looked human but their motions seemed to be somewhat stiff and perfunctory. As if they were simply shells, shadows of their human selves.

I followed Vincent. Neither of us tried to strike a conversation and as such silence finally got interrupted only when we arrived in front of a low-rise building, “Why did you come here?”

Did that question of his mean I wasn’t supposed to come back? Would a nod work here? Didn’t seem to be the case. As such I answered truthfully, “I came in search of answers.”

He blinked as if he didn’t expect such a response, “And did you find them?”

I shook my shoulders, “I didn’t. Yet.”

He smiled, “I have been looking for a single answer all those years to no avail. Hopefully you’ll be more lucky in that department than I was.”

“YOU WILL,” my instinct told me.