London, 2:13 AM
The fog rolled in thick from the Thames, swallowing the lamplight and turning the streets of Whitechapel into a labyrinth of shifting shadows. Eleanor Graves pulled her coat tighter around her as she stepped off the night bus, her breath a ghostly mist in the autumn air. The streets were nearly deserted, save for the occasional silhouette vanishing into the murk.
She hated taking the late shifts at St. Bartholomew’s, but the hospital paid well, and in London, that meant more than a good night’s sleep. Tonight, though, something felt… wrong. The air was too still. The city too quiet.
Her flat was only a ten-minute walk from the bus stop. She passed a row of shuttered shops, their display windows dark and lifeless. The sound of her own footsteps was the only thing breaking the silence. Then—another sound. Light, almost imperceptible.
A whisper.
She froze. The voice was low, rasping, barely more than breath against her ear. Yet, no one was there.
Her pulse quickened.
Keep walking. Don’t look back.
She hurried forward, her boots clicking faster against the wet pavement. The whisper came again, but this time, it carried words.
“Eleanor…”
She spun around. The street was empty.
Heart hammering, she turned back to her path—only to find herself standing in front of a shop that should have been three blocks behind her.
She blinked, disoriented. The butcher’s shop. The old one with the rusted sign. But she had passed it already. Hadn’t she?
The whisper came again, but closer now.
“He is waiting.”
Panic surged through her. She turned on her heel and ran. But the street stretched unnaturally long before her, like she was trapped in some nightmarish loop. The fog thickened, curling around her ankles like grasping fingers.
And then she saw him.
A figure stood at the edge of the street, where the mist swallowed all light. He was tall, unnaturally so, his frame draped in a long, tattered coat. A bowler hat perched atop his head, obscuring his face. He did not move, did not breathe.
Eleanor tried to scream, but the sound lodged in her throat. She stumbled backward—
—and suddenly, she was in front of her flat.
The figure was gone. The fog had thinned.
Her hands trembled as she fumbled for her keys. She threw open the door, slammed it shut behind her, and locked every bolt. Her breath came ragged. She pressed her back against the wood, her heart threatening to burst from her chest.
She was home. Safe.
Wasn’t she?
5:47 AM
Eleanor didn’t sleep. The whispers had followed her inside.
They slithered through the walls, seeped from the corners of her bedroom, rustled through the curtains. She buried herself under the blankets, clutching the pillow over her head like a shield.
And then the whisper changed. It wasn’t breath anymore. It was a laugh.
Slow. Low. Coming from inside her room.
She shot upright.
The wardrobe door stood ajar. Just an inch. A crack of darkness wider than it should have been.
And within it, two eyes watched her.
Not human eyes. Black, bottomless pits, glistening with hunger.
Eleanor bolted for the light switch, flicking it on. The wardrobe was empty.
But the door… was open wider.
The Next Night
Eleanor did not go to work. She did not leave her flat. She barely moved.
The whispers had names now. They whispered of things she could not understand, ancient and foul. They whispered her name, over and over, each time from a different corner of the room.
By midnight, the voice was inside her head.
“He is waiting.”
She grabbed her coat and fled into the city, desperate to outrun the voice. But no matter where she ran, the fog followed.
She found herself on the same street as the night before. The butcher’s shop. The rusted sign. The impossible loop.
And the figure.
He stood in the fog, closer now. His face was still hidden, but she could feel his gaze, cold and ancient.
He lifted a hand and pointed at her.
The whispers ceased.
Silence. Total. Complete.
And then, Eleanor remembered.
She remembered the stories of Whitechapel, of the nights when the fog would come, and people would disappear. She remembered the old tales of the Man in the Fog—the collector of lost souls, the harvester of the forgotten.
She had stepped into his world the moment she had heard the first whisper.
And now, she would never leave it.
Two Weeks Later
The disappearance of Eleanor Graves was the latest in a string of missing persons cases. The police found no signs of struggle, no forced entry. Her phone was on her nightstand, battery dead. The food in her fridge had rotted untouched. It was as if she had simply stepped out and never returned.
Detective Alan Foster sat in her flat, reviewing her case. Something about it unsettled him. The neighbors had heard no sounds. No one had seen her leave.
Yet, one detail stood out.
The landlord mentioned that since Eleanor had vanished, an odd occurrence plagued the building. Tenants complained of whispers in the hallways at night. Some swore they saw shapes moving in the fog that clung to the street, despite clear weather reports.
As Alan prepared to leave, he took one last glance at Eleanor’s bedroom. The wardrobe door was open. Just an inch.
He stepped closer. The air in the room seemed… wrong.
The light flickered. A whisper brushed against his ear.
“Detective Foster… he is waiting.”
His blood ran cold.
Outside, the fog thickened.
And a figure waited in the street.
The city of London moves on, unaware. People hurry past the butcher’s shop with the rusted sign, never realizing they have passed it before. They whisper that something is strange about Whitechapel, but they don’t linger to find out why.
A month later, another name joined the list of the missing.
Detective Alan Foster was gone.
His colleagues searched for weeks, but no clues emerged. No CCTV footage. No signs of struggle. His flat was left undisturbed, save for one small, chilling detail.
His wardrobe door had been left open.
Just an inch.
The fog still rolls through Whitechapel, thick and swallowing.
And in the mist, the Man in the Fog watches.
Waiting.
For the next one.
