He rested his arms across his knees, his right hand clasping the wrist of his left as he silently looked out over the quiet, grassy land. The breezes created gentle waves and undulations along its surface.
Derek slowly released his hold upon Kent, his voice coming low and much more gently, “Okay? Are you with us now? Come on, keep your cool now. We are going to need you.”
Though a few tears had escaped and left tracks down his cheeks, and although he choked back a couple of muffled sobs, Kent at last nodded in agreement to Derek’s words. Janus was watching out of the corner of his eyes, and he breathed a sigh of relief as he saw the reaction. Kent was still in a fragile state, but he was anchoring himself.
“Sit down, and get your breath,” Derek advised Kent, gesturing towards the ground.
Kent took a seat near to Janus’ side, and took several deep breaths as he struggled to regain his composure.
“No matter what, we’ll have to deal with what we know, and what we have to work with,” Derek iterated to Kent, sitting down to the other side of Janus.
Derek’s words made good sense. No matter what, even if they were somehow sharing a strange dream together, they found themselves in an entirely unfamiliar location. Janus was not quite ready to accept what his heart was telling him, hoping instead that a rational explanation would emerge at any moment.
If Janus’ first impressions, those resounding in his heart, were accurate, the lands around him were located nowhere within the state that he and his friends resided in.
The impenetrable fog that had covered their passage into this strange place was entirely dissipated, and Janus had no intimation as to how they could return back to the lake and the boat, much less his home.
In other circumstances, the extraordinary hue of the sky above them would have been a thing of majestic beauty to gaze upon, and the strange, lizard-like animal an object of great fascination and interest. As it was, Janus was far too unsettled to appreciate the unusual sights.
Even more daunting to their immediate prospects, they had no supplies of any kind, or even weapons.
Until something, or someone, familiar manifested, they had to act as if they had been set into the middle of a foreign wilderness, without any foreknowledge of its contents or environment. They had already seen a representative of the local fauna, and it was not illogical to believe that there might well be other unfamiliar species lurking about, perhaps some that were very dangerous.
At the moment, any signs of civilized society would be extremely welcome. An airplane in the sky, power lines, or even the sound of a car engine would be glorious music to Janus’ ears.
The troubling prospects left him feeling very naked and highly vulnerable, as he sat in brooding silence with his friends on the grass, each of them trying to collect their thoughts together.
Janus did not try to interrupt Kent, and nor did Derek, even when they noticed that he had closed his eyes, and that his shoulders bobbed up and down with silent sobs.
The outpouring of emotion was no sign of weakness, nor any indictment of Kent’s strength or courage. Janus knew in his heart that Derek did not hold it to be such either.
Kent had been fully and brusquely immersed into an incomprehensible and overwhelming situation when he had been separated from the others. If anything, Janus was astounded that Kent had not entirely lost his mind. The mere fact that Kent was holding somewhat together, albeit shakily, instead testified to a considerable strength within him.
As Kent let his terrors and panic ebb through the sobs and tears, Janus contemplated Kent’s ordeal.
Kent had entered this strange new place entirely alone when he had walked up the shore and away from the boat. He had endured a brief period where he had not known whether Derek or Janus would ever be reunited with him. For all Kent knew, he had been cast suddenly into an entirely strange place, and abandoned to face his fate alone.
If there was one small comfort remaining to Janus, it was that he and Derek had not been severed from the sense and bonds of familiarity and friendship that they shared with each other. In an inexplicable experience such as the one that they were now facing, such bonds were a tremendous boon, if not vital.
Janus knew that their bonds of friendship would now be about the only thing that they all could grasp onto. It was a very sobering realization, and it was abundantly clear to Janus that the welfare of the other two was indispensable to his own continued survival.
Reaching over, he patted Kent gently on the back.
LEE
“It’s all around us now,” Lee observed with fascination.
The fog had fully enveloped Lee, Ryan, and the entire restaurant. Looking behind him, Lee had been slightly unnerved to discover that he could not see the front facing of the restaurant anymore. There was not even a hint of it, walled off as it was by the opaque mists.
“It’s so thick,” Ryan commented. “Think that you can even drive in this stuff?”
Lee glanced over Ryan with an expression of disbelief. “Drive? Are you crazy?”
“Probably,” retorted Ryan, laughing. “And if you are too afraid of a little fog, Lee… if it scares you too much, I would be glad to drive us out of here.”
“Great idea. Turn my only car over to you,” Lee replied with a tenor of sarcasm. “Have your license with you tonight? Oh, I forgot… you don’t have one, do you?
“Hasn’t stopped me in the past,” Ryan shot back, giving Lee a wink.
“No, and one of those trips got you a nice visit to court,” Lee retorted. “We don’t need any more of that.”
“Hey, with fog this thick, the cops won’t even be able to see us driving out of it,” Ryan said. “Don’t think they’ll take too much notice of me.”
“Not until we find ourselves crashing right into a cruiser, at least,” Lee said, shaking his head. “That would be my luck if I ever threw you the keys.”
“You have such little faith,” Ryan said, chuckling.
“Not a matter of faith. I know you too well,” Lee responded, grinning widely.
“That, you do, Lee,” Ryan concurred, laughing.
“Well, what do you say? Instead of arguing about whether you or I drive, I think we should just wait this out for a little while back in the restaurant. If you are hungry, I can whip something up really quickly,” Lee stated.
“It’d be lot better than standing out here,” Ryan replied.
Lee and Ryan turned to go back to the restaurant. Lee was simply glad that he had only walked a few feet away from the building, continuing to be astounded at the sheer density of the fog. He stepped slowly, putting his hands ahead of him so that he did not walk face first into the facade of his restaurant.
Lee had traversed only about four short strides when he heard the ground crunch beneath his feet. Looking down, he saw the unmistakable appearance of a forest floor beneath his feet, solid earth covered by foliage debris and grass. He took one tentative stride directly backwards, but the soles of his shoes met more soil, leaves, and twigs, instead of pavement.
“What?” Ryan whispered at Lee’s side. He had drawn to a halt and was also staring down at the ground.
Lee was confounded. He had walked those streets every day, and knew that there was nothing like what was now beneath his feet within any short distance of the restaurant.
The ground that he could see slowly started to grow, and all of it resembled the initial patch. Bringing his gaze back up, he saw that the fog was beginning to dissipate everywhere.
He took a deep breath, filled with tension as he waited for the fog to roll back and reveal the dark, starry firmament of a night sky. He knew that everything would be as it was once again.
There was a simple explanation. He and Ryan had somehow gotten misdirected in the fog, to where someone had dumped a pile of excavated dirt and debris. Lee must not have taken notice of it during the day, which was not a surprise as he always had twenty things on his mind at once.