I first noticed the mist because it arrived like a bad idea: quietly, confidently, and with no interest in leaving.
We were somewhere off the North Pembrokeshire coast, where the sea looks perfectly reasonable until it very much isn’t. The kind of place that makes charts feel like polite suggestions rather than rules.
I was on deck with a Pink Gin in hand—purely medicinal, obviously—when I saw the world start to dissolve at the edges.
“That,” I said to no one in particular, “is either weather or a narrative decision.”
Pedro, the hamster, was inside a mug again. He had developed a habit of becoming a floating moral compass whenever things got interesting. At this point I suspect he was more nautical than most of the crew.
Up in the wheelhouse, Dame Twinkles Toothpick III—Twinkie, if you value your eyebrows—was already in full operational mode.
She had spreadsheets open, charts layered, and what I can only describe as a “financial weather interpretation system” that involved coloured tabs and quiet judgement.
“We are,” Twinkie said without looking up, “temporarily surrounded by atmospheric indecision.”
“That’s one way to say haunted fog bank,” I replied.
She adjusted a figure on her ledger. “If it is haunted, it is not cost-effective. Spirits rarely submit invoices on time.”
That’s Twinkie. Always thinking about overheads, even in supernatural conditions.
The mist thickened.
It wasn’t normal fog. Normal fog doesn’t feel like it is listening.
Visibility dropped to the point where even confidence started to feel optional.
From somewhere aft, I heard Jack muttering about tidal drift and “predictable systems behaving unpredictably,” which is his way of saying he is deeply unimpressed by reality.
Pedro squeaked once, which I believe was his contribution to situational awareness.
Then the sound started.
Not loud. Not dramatic. Just… present. Like distant rigging moving on a ship that shouldn’t be there.
I looked toward the mist and immediately regretted it, which I consider a strong indicator of something important happening.
“Do we have traffic?” I asked.
Twinkie finally looked up. “We have no scheduled traffic. Which means anything approaching is either lost, fictional, or financially inconvenient.”
“Comforting,” I said.
The wheelhouse light flickered.
Twinkie frowned. “That is not budgeted behaviour.”
Pedro, in his mug, rotated slightly. I took that as him preparing emotionally for existence.
Then something passed in the fog.
Not seen. Felt.
The water alongside us changed texture, as though another vessel had moved through it—but without announcing itself properly like a respectable boat should.
“Okay,” I said slowly, “either we are sharing space with another vessel or the sea has developed a sense of theatre.”
Twinkie was already checking allocations. “If it is theatre, I will need to reclassify it under entertainment expenditure.”
Jack’s voice crackled from below. “Current is inconsistent. I don’t like inconsistent.”
“Join the club,” I muttered.
Pedro squeaked again. This time with what I interpreted as optimism, or possibly gas.
Then the mist shifted—just slightly—and for a second, I saw lights.
Not navigation lights. Not anything sensible.
Just a vague suggestion of structure where no structure should be.
I took a sip of Pink Gin. It did not help.
Twinkie closed her ledger with the calm of someone who has decided that reality is temporarily insolvent.
“Right,” she said. “We will assume nothing is real until it provides a receipt.”
“That seems wise,” I said.
The shape in the fog did not return.
Instead, the sea settled—slowly, reluctantly, like a story that had decided not to continue.
The wheelhouse lights stabilised. Jack stopped muttering. Pedro stopped squeaking and returned to passive existential buffering.
Twinkie made a note. “Unverified maritime anomaly. Non-repeating. Probably uninsurable.”
I leaned on the rail, watching the mist thin out as though it had simply lost interest in us.
“So,” I said, “normal day at sea, then.”
Twinkie adjusted her frills and sighed. “If it happens again, I am charging it to miscellaneous chaos.”
And somewhere below, Pedro finally fell asleep—confident, as ever, that whatever was out there would not be filling in forms properly.
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