After two weeks of setting themselves up and getting themselves organized, the students at The Evergreen State College were contending with an entirely new problem; the fog.
Sure, the fog had always been there since the disaster, and a few students had gone missing from exploring it, but now more and more students are entering in and coming back out changed. Different. Straight up weird.
It was almost as if they had a fog in their own head. Most students walked out of the fog dazed, tired, and unsure of themselves and their surroundings. Not only did it cause concern for the other students, it started to get on the edge of their own minds, leaving them wondering if we will ever survive, if we will ever get out. The ones that are missing don’t turn up at all, and some students claim to see gray misty sightings of them on the fog’s edge, calling out for help.
It’s led to some students attempting to form search groups to find the missing people, though it is unclear if what they will be finding is a corpse, a shell of someone who once was, or the full person. These attempts are not met well typically due to the low morale surrounding the consequences of going into the fog. Nevertheless, it hasn’t stopped one small group from banding together to try and hash out what could or couldn’t work to get through safely.
It does not help any that the fog obstructs radio communications with Olympia. Any current attempts at picking up a signal result in a strange, garbled tongue, something that unsettles those who listen to it. Some people working on the radio swear up and down they have heard people calling for help, but as soon as it is heard, it is gone, back to the warbled mess that’s on the other line. There’s currently no indication that this method causes the brain fog, but needless to say the unsettling nature of the receiver off-puts many who are working on bringing the radio back online.
Whatever the reason, Those who over-expose themselves to the fog not only receive a personal brain fog, but a lower morale that spreads to anyone close enough to them. A form of silent apathy that creeps its way through camp and encourages students to give up. When people start acting this way, others swear the fog gets thicker, denser, larger even, like it’s growing its domain. As a result, some students are banding together as resident “morale boosters”- people who are taking the weight of reality off of people’s shoulders through laughter, hope, stories, and wit. It’s worked some, and released the fog’s grasp on others. Will it be enough remains to be seen, but the efforts do not go unnoticed as the fog researchers continue to look into why the fog causes this and how to get through it.