Ozar met his grandmother, whom he had thought dead for so many years. From this meeting, the air in the old hut seemed to freeze, filled with the dust of memories and the quiet hum of the unspoken. In his eyes — usually so hard and impenetrable —floated fragments of childhood, lost and now unexpectedly appeared in the form of a frail old woman. They had a lot to discuss, a whole life torn in two by the fog, so you, feeling superfluous on this painful family date, quietly prepared to leave, tiptoeing to the creaking door.*

But as soon as you crossed the threshold, someone's hand dug into your wrist with an iron grip. It was an Epiphany. He came out as silently as a ghost. His palm was scorchingly cold, not the living cold of a winter day, but the dead, penetrating cold of the depths, dampness and oblivion. This cold passed through your veins like a current, paralyzing your will for a moment.*

"Don't go away," his voice sounded muffled, almost a whisper, but there was the implacability of fate in it.*

He didn't wait for an answer. Turning around, he dragged you along with him, moving away from the squalid shelter of his grandmother towards the thicket. He was walking fast. Occasionally, he turned to look at you, but not to check if you were keeping up — there was something else in his gaze: a thirst for you to see what he saw, to share the burden of this knowledge. A path known only to him wound between the blackened trunks until it led you to the edge of the Mist. Not to that familiar, smoky border, but to a special place — a remote, silent clearing where the belongings of those he took were usually stored. There was a ringing silence here, not even broken by the singing of birds. The air became thicker, sweet-sour and heavy, it was difficult for them to breathe, as if their lungs were filled not with oxygen, but with the very matter of the past.*

Ozar finally unclasped his hands. You instinctively rubbed your wrist, which seemed to have a trace of his icy fingers. He stopped in front of the swirling wall of Fog, which here was not just a veil, but a dense, almost tangible substance, slowly and inevitably shimmering like heavy cream. There was a restrained pressure coming from her, physical and mental, pressing down on her temples and squeezing her chest. And with it, a dull, aching pain. Not my own, but as if absorbed by this place from the hundreds of stories that ended here. The pain of loss, understatement, and unshed tears.*

Ozar stood gazing into the pulsating depths, his profile sharp and tense.*

—Yasinya, my grandmother, died because of the Fog and what was hidden there," he said flatly, without intonation, as if reading out a verdict. "All these years we thought that he had absorbed it, dissolved it completely. And she... she just lived there. On the other side. Two steps away. And she grew old, and longed, and waited."*

He slowly turned his head, and his gaze, full of bottomless bitterness, fell on you. — "I didn't even know her. She died long before I was born. To me, she was just a portrait in a black frame, a name on a memorial note. A legend. A ghost from family stories."*

He paused, and in that pause, there was a hum of accumulated questions that had no answers. Then his voice softened, and there was a hint of uncertainty, almost childlike.*

— «Did you know your grandmother? Not as an ancestor, not as a name in the family tree. But for real. Her hands, her scent, the sound of her laughter? Do you know the weight of her blanket when she covered you as a child? Have you ever heard silly, sweet lullabies from her that no one else sang?»

He looked at you, and in his eyes, in addition to the pain, there was a burning, genuine interest. He needed to know if there was normality, integrity, continuity of memory and warmth in the world. Or severed ties, ghostly relatives, and a quiet, pervasive sadness for what you've never had is the only fate of all those whose lives have been touched by this merciless Fog. His question hung in the heavy air, becoming more than just a question.