Some years back, when I was still a young man with a full head of hair, I was to help my cousin Babik get to the small house he had just bought near Luna Lake. The trip was long, and we would be spending many days within the woods with no road to guide us, so I thought it best to ask my brothers and sisters to join us. On our first day in the woods we paid no heed to the stories our parents had told us of the mists and the tricks it can play on you. We were young - strong. We thought we would be more than capable of handling everything on our own.

So as the sun went down, we set up our tents and built a campfire for the night. The forest grew dark around us, and drink had made us bold. My brother, Pontius had drank too much and went to relieve himself in the woods. Several minutes passed, then nearly an hour as we sat by the fire, drinking and roasting game.

Pontius never came back.

In the morning as we began to pack and gather our belongings, we noticed that Pontius’ belongings were gone. When I asked our group where he went, one said that they had seen him come back in the middle of the night, shaking like he was laughing without making sound, and that he had gathered his things and left. I assumed that he had simply decided to scout out the path ahead, as Pontius was always one to forge his own way through the world, and figured we would run into him up ahead.

And so we continued into the woods, drinking and laughing and thinking that we were invincible. After several hours of walking though one of the women in our group shouted that someone was following us. I looked back to where she was pointing, and indeed saw that we were being followed. I saw my brother’s head, and his wide playful smile peering out at us from behind a tree. “Oh, it’s just Pontius,” I told her. And I ran over to meet him, but before I could he vanished behind the tree and I could hear him run off into the woods.

I was no stranger to his games like this. Any Vistana can tell you that we pride ourselves on being nimble and stealthy, impossible to catch. I looked forward to this game, even, hoping to prove to my brother that I was the superior one. We saw him many times after that - poking out from behind trees and bushes, all with that same big smile. But I was never fast enough to catch him.

Days passed like this. By the third night we had all grown worried over Pontius, as he hadn’t been joining us for meals or to refill our waterskins, or even to sleep. His games often lasted long, but never like this before. And that night when I laid down to sleep, I stared out into the woods at the distant shape of my brother’s head, peering out at me from behind a gnarled tree trunk. This time I did not run to catch him. I laid there for what seemed like hours, watching as his head poked out from different spots in the forest. And as I did, ice grew thick in my veins. Because I noticed that since this game had started, his expression had never changed. And his eyes had never blinked.

I don’t know when I fell asleep, but eventually I woke in the morning to someone shaking me and telling me that another had run off into the woods. After that we didn’t drink or laugh while we walked. We barely even talked. When Alamina joined Pontius in staring at us from within the woods no one said anything. The fighters of our group simply loaded our crossbows, and listened for any approaching footsteps.

Each night someone else would disappear from our group. Even if we all sat awake, watching one another to make sure no one could leave, eventually sleep would wash over us - and in the morning our number would be one fewer. As our group shrank, the people we saw in the woods began to grow. Eventually all that remained was me, Babik, and three others.

On that last day as Babik’s house came into view we all ran to the door and locked ourselves inside. For the first time in nearly a week we felt safe behind the strong walls of the house. Again, we ate and we drank and laughed, trying to forget those who lurked out in the forest. And when the drink ran dry, we all fell asleep huddled together on Babik’s new bed.

At some point in the night though, I woke to the sound of the door to the bedroom opening. Pontius stood in the doorframe. I could tell it was him by the way that the candlelight in the hall behind him lit up his hair, which he had always prided himself on being able to comb into large spikes. But something about the way he stood seemed wrong. He was too short, too skinny, and he walked with a limp as he shuffled over to the side of the bed. I could see him shaking, making that same strange soundless laugh that he had been seen doing the night his game begun.

And then he reached up and grabbed at something just underneath the collar of his shirt. I couldn’t tell what he was doing at first, but slowly I realized that he was lifting something off of himself. Bit by bit the skin of his neck peeled back like leather. His face, still stuck in that unblinking smile, began to deform, wrinkling and falling in on itself until I could see the mask come off entirely. And I am thankful that it was too dark for me to see whatever was underneath. To see whatever laughed silently, watching my fear, and to see whatever it was that slinked out of my room with my brother’s face in it’s hands.

It’s been many years since then, but even now when I look out into the woods I can still see my brother’s face behind the trees, shaking as whatever’s beneath it laughs.