《Mushroom Apostle》


 1. Mushroom Magic

    Chapter 1: Mushroom Magic


    What the fuck was in that drink, David thought to himself.


    Patrick had told him that he had prepared a ¡®super special birthday smoothie¡¯ for him and his mates to share. He wasn¡¯t much of a partygoer, and Patrick knew that, so they had compromised on more of a ¡®chillout with the boys¡¯ style birthday. David was beginning to believe that Patrick had a very different understanding of the term ¡®chillout with the boys¡¯ than he did.


    ¡°Twelve hundred milligrams of tetrahydrocannabinol, nine hundred milligrams of morphine, two hundred forty milligrams of dimethyltryptamine, six hundred milligrams of methylphenidate, twenty-four hundred millilitres of ethanol, sixty millilitres of petroleum, and a variety of other chemicals associated with dishwasher detergent, pancake mix, chilli powder, engine lubricant, and psychedelic mushrooms.¡± A voice echoed in David¡¯s mind.


    He looked up, the surrounding blue-green triangular grass that spanned out to infinity was replaced by millions of towering mushrooms that blotted out the sky.


    Chill-out more like freak the fuck out, I¡¯m tripping balls.


    ¡°Where are you?¡± David shouted into the wind, which suddenly increased in intensity.


    ¡°I haven¡¯t moved. I am still over here.¡±


    David turned to the voice, the towering mushrooms seemed to shrink down as he lowered his gaze. Standing before him was a large mushroom that was human-tall but more than human-wide, assuming you took the shoulder-span and not arm-span of a human as the measurement scale.


    As he stared in bewilderment, the strange organic patterns on the white cap of the mushroom shifted and suddenly took the form of black pupils. The mushroom cap was growing eyes.


    ¡°What are you?¡± He spoke.


    ¡°I am The Mushroom God, The God of Mushrooms, The Great Mushroom, The Mushroom Which Sees All, The Mushroom at The End of Time, That Which Heralds the End of Mushroom-lessness.¡± The God of Mushrooms replied.


    ¡°I see¡­¡± David responded.


    ¡°You have imbibed enough mind altering and potentially deadly chemicals to visit and communicate with me, impressive work.¡±


    ¡°Ahh¡­ don¡¯t mention it. Anytime.¡±


    ¡°No need to be humble, your duty is yet complete.¡± The God of Mushrooms continued.


    ¡°What do you¡­ mean?¡± David slurred. His eyes were bleary.


    David blinked and lost sight of the mushroom deity as though it were the olive oil in the cupboard, and he was trying to cook something.


    ¡°I mean many things; I can be considered an example of the natural tendency of the universe to create intelligent life for example. It is a product of the statistical nature of the universe that the semi-stable state of ¡®containing intelligent life¡¯ seems to spontaneously erupt from random stochastic processes. Perhaps it is inevitable that life should exist and should be capable of thought. Perhaps it is an exclusive property.¡± The God of Mushrooms answered him.


    The otherworldly creature had misunderstood him. Either that or it had suddenly decided to give him spiritual guidance, ignoring the context of his question.


    ¡°That¡¯s¡­ not really what I meant to ask.¡± David said, once catching sight of the being.


    The God of Mushrooms shivered, and a shower of glistening spores slowly gravitated towards the floor.


    ¡°I see.¡±  There was a pause.


    ¡°I see all things.¡± The God of Mushrooms continued.


    What? David thought. He heard what was said but didn¡¯t understand


    ¡°Here, my gift to you. The pure flesh.¡± The DMT entity spoke.


    The God of Mushrooms looked in all directions at once, and then all its eyes focused to a point in the air between itself and David. From this point emerged a white mushroom, it was beautiful in every sense of the word, unnervingly beautiful.


    ¡°Eat.¡± The God of Mushrooms commanded.


    David didn¡¯t hesitate, he had the munchies. He took a bite. The mushroom tasted unusual to him, but he didn¡¯t exactly go around eating raw mushrooms all the time, so he wasn¡¯t an expert. David swallowed and took another bite, which brought on a bout of nausea.


    ¡°To consume is the nature of life, you must consume.¡±


    David was struck with a sense of profanity, no, profoundness was the word, from the deity¡¯s speech. He was determined to eat the entirety of the white mushroom at whatever cost.


    This was the pinnacle of his life, his greatest moment. David took another bite and struggled to swallow it. Instead of taking a smaller bite, he shoved the remainder of the mushroom into his mouth and struggled to stop himself from spewing. It took him a moment, but he managed to swallow the remainder of the nauseating mushroom before his head began to spin.


    Since when was I spinning? David thought as the world accelerated.


    ¡°You are an apostle. Goodbye.¡± The creature dismissed him.


    ***


    David awoke to the sound of the screaming wind. He struggled to stand under the assault, so he settled with crawling on his hands and knees. A great open ocean was before him, huge waves rushed to invade the sand like ill-fated soldiers. The scene was utterly chaotic, and the cold wind numbed his fingers and threatened to topple him back onto the damp ground.


    Thunder cracked instead of rumbled, and the gentle sprinkling rain suddenly increased in intensity. The new rain was heavy, and it exploded against the damp sand, sending fragments in all directions. David couldn¡¯t feel the pelting rain on his back, only the heavy thumping which reverberated through his body. His back was already numb, so it wasn¡¯t painful, not yet.


    David knew that he needed to find shelter, or he would freeze to death. He looked away from the water. The coastline was eroding, the split between the foredune and the beachfront was a sharp incline of sand. On the higher ground, various plants grew in the sand, mostly beachgrass. Further away from the water, the plant life had more variety, with various shrubs and bushes. Those would offer little protection from the cold. Unfortunately for David, the cold quickly became a secondary priority.


    A chunk of ice slammed into the back of David¡¯s head, sending him scrambling for cover. It had begun to hail.


    David rushed for the bushes as fast as he could. The hail battered his skin through the weak protection of his clothing, the chunks were getting bigger, and heavier. He protected his head as best he could with his arms, but the wind necessitated that he use them to maintain stability as he climbed the foredune away from the waterfront. He sheltered beneath a bush, the stems and leaves of which managed to dampen the falling hail, if only slightly.


    ¡°H-holy shit¡± David whispered as he shivered.


    A big chunk of hail battered through the bush and cracked the back of his hand instead of his head. David scrambled deeper into the small bush. His hand ached, and once he had curled up, he brought it in front of his face and saw a nasty gash that bled slowly in the cold. The blood streaked across his skin, merging with the sand, dirt, and plant matter that covered his hand.


    The hail retreated, and David remained in the bush, hiding from the wind. He was still shivering, and he felt a deep ache in his gut that forced him to stay conscious. The wind gradually settled to a breeze, and the rain to a sprinkle. The sun poked its head from behind the clouds here and there, but never for long. Eventually the itching and scratching David felt from the moist mixture of dirt, sand and plant matter exceeded his tolerance level, and he made the effort to move again.


    David did not remember a time where the action of standing was as difficult as it was now. Not even the time when he had surgery on his leg. Rather than excessive pain, it was a mixture of weakness, lack of control and the inability to feel whatever he was touching that foiled David¡¯s first few attempts.


    He got on his feet and realised his entire body had begun to ache. Purple welts were emerging on his arms and legs. David lifted his shirt and was shocked by a sharp pain across his back. He pulled the back part of the shirt around a bit so he could see it better, it was wet and covered in mud, with streams of blood that slowly dripped from the bottom. His back had obviously taken the brunt of the hailstorm.


    Where the fuck am I? None of the others are here. He thought.


    David took a moment to consider just how lost he was. He had drunk the super smoothie, blacked out, tripped out and woke up in the middle of bumfuck nowhere. And now he was freezing and covered in bruises, not a great start to the day. But it was a start, and if he would be dead soon if he kept standing around.


    David was extremely glad that his shoes had come along with him as it made it much easier to move through the dense bushland, since he wasn¡¯t worried about cutting his feet up on sharp sticks. He hadn¡¯t found anything edible, but he had cleared a small area and collected some dry wood, which unfortunately wasn¡¯t very dry due to the earlier storm.Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.


    Fortunately, he could peel the bark off of dead tree branches, which removed most of the moisture from them. After some struggle with a variety of sharp rocks, he had scraped some tinder from the dry branches.


    While protecting the tinder from the rare droplets that fell from the wet trees above, David fashioned a crude bow drill with his shoelaces and a curved stick. He got to work in his attempt to light a fire, which was much harder than the survival guides he used to read had made it out to be.


    Once the tinder started to smoke, he blew on it and put it into his fire tepee. Thankfully, he had managed to get a flame going. He got to work drying his clothing and warming up.


    The warmth, while lessening the numbing fatigue that he felt, exaggerated the hollow feeling in his gut. He was starving. He took his wet shoes and socks off after remembering the threat of trench foot, and sat down on the cold dirt, warming his hands by the fire.


    The sun slowly fell below the horizon, and the chill in David¡¯s bones began to rattle again. After his clothing had mostly dried out, he had spent most of the afternoon walking around looking for firewood and anything to eat, but he couldn¡¯t find anything other than leaves, wood, and dirt.


    Now that the sky had dimmed, he sat by the fire watching and caring for his lifeline, feeding it slowly while he himself starved. He knew he had no chance at surviving the night without Prometheus¡¯s gift.


    David struggled to sleep through the night, awaking to nurture the fire when it got too cold or too dark. He didn¡¯t mind that though, he was more distracted by the lack of a comfortable mattress or pillow, the painful bruises on his skin, and the breeze which intermittently made him shiver.


    Even that was bearable, no, the thing which kept him awake was the crippling hunger in his stomach. Only forgotten in brief moments of unconsciousness.


    The morning was blissful and full of sunshine which threatened to lull David back to sleep. He was still hungry, but it was no longer an overbearing presence. Instead, a feeling of weakness permeated his body.


    David rolled over and flinched as he saw two people partially hidden in the bushes staring at him, one with a bow drawn in his direction.


    Holy shit. David thought, as he froze in place. He had no chance of running or fighting, not when he was lying down, starving, and injured. One of them, a girl, threw something on the ground in front of him. It was some sort of metal collar.


    Do they expect me to put this shit on?


    The girl snarled, hissed some sort of command in a foreign language and then pointed her spear at him.


    ¡°Hey calm down, I don¡¯t want any trouble. ¡± David spoke in an attempt to deescalate the situation. The girl stood for a moment before shouting at him again and kicking the metal into his face. It smacked into his nose, eliciting a groan.


    ¡°Go fuck yourself.¡± David said in response to the unnecessary aggression, but the comment irritated his throat and made him cough. In response, the girl waited for him to follow her command.


    Upon David¡¯s lack of movement, she approached him and struck his head with the blunt end of her spear. David curled up to protect himself from the beating, but the girl didn¡¯t relent. She cracked him over the head several times until finally he went limp and forgot about the waking world.


    ***


    David awoke for the second time since his birthday and was surprised to see bandages over his injured arms and legs, and a warm blanket on top of him. As he rolled on to his side, he was wracked with pain from the bruises. A sharp pinch on his neck made him jolt, and he touched the site of injury to discover a metal brace when went around his entire neck. Only then did he remember how he got into this situation.


    Ah shit. David thought.


    David sat up on the side of the bed while trying to avoid movements that caused him pain. It was difficult, as almost every part of his body was injured in some way or the other.


    He was interrupted by the sudden opening of the door followed by the entrance of three people. A girl dressed in some sort of maid uniform, a man in armour and a woman with a pair of glasses and some form of cultish robes. Was he going to be sacrificed?


    ¡°Suurei, atle ma suurei no teimate kishna?¡± The lady with glasses spoke while making eye contact with David.


    The cultists had their own cult language. David remained silent in response, which likely only served to annoy the visiting party. The man approached and grabbed him by the shirt, he lifted the visor of his helmet and stared into David¡¯s eyes and spoke what could be inferred to be a threat. The man then withdrew a large, brutal knife from his waistline.


    ¡°I get it.¡± David spoke, making a surrendering gesture with his hands. The man stared at him for a bit before making a satisfied smirk and retreating to his group.


    The lady addressed him again, with some variation of the same phrase she spoke before.


    ¡°I don¡¯t understand what the fuck you¡¯re saying¡± David responded. She stared at him for a moment, before waving her hands in a way that brought on a sharp burning sensation in David¡¯s neck. He grunted as the metal seemed to cook the soft flesh of his neck until suddenly the pain disappeared.


    ¡°Jei vou ma teshna kuvante?¡± She questioned him, with a tone and expression that seemed to convey ¡®how about now?¡¯.


    ¡°I don¡¯t understand you!¡± David shouted, exasperated at the lack of communication and definite violation of his human rights.


    She gestured to the maid, who rushed out and brought back a wooden platter in a timely fashion. On top of the platter was a bowl, a piece of bread, and a glass. The sight reminded David of the pang in his gut.


    The maid placed the platter on a small wooden table by the window, and then left the room. The lady gestured to David to eat. Once he was seated at the table, she pointed to the different dishes and spoke something about each that he couldn¡¯t hope to understand or remember. After she finished, he began to scoff down the food, thankful that it wasn¡¯t hot enough to scald his throat.


    The lady stared at him for a moment, her eyebrows raised in confusion, before her and the armoured man left the room. It was just him and the food now.


    The meal was some sort of meat and vegetable soup, with a side of bread and water. David loved it, hunger really was the best seasoning after all. The water had a softer taste than he expected, he was used to the harshness of city-water.


    He finished the meal and stared out the window. There was a grass courtyard that was bounded on two sides by the building that he was in and by a great stone wall on the other two sides. There was a gravel pathway along the inner edge of the wall that he imagined wrapped around the L-shaped building he was in like a perimeter surrounding the entire premises. In the opposing corner, a watch tower emerged from the stone wall which observed both the inner courtyard and the hills and grasslands that surrounded the facility.


    David took a moment to explore the rest of the room, there was a small closet on the right side of his bed which contained several sets of white shirts and pants. He had already seen the wooden table and chair by the window, which lacked curtains.


    David noticed that beyond the closet, the floor was covered in tiles, which sloped downwards towards a drain. There was also a ceramic toilet, attached to the wall and hidden from the view of the window by the profile of the closet. He couldn¡¯t find a shower or sink.


    David, upon the absence of any further contact with his captors, was reminded of how tired he was. The injuries had taken a toll on his energy level, and the bed was the comfiest spot in the room.


    He was awoken again in the evening by the maid, who entered the room alone, holding another platter and removing the old one. David went over to eat his second meal of the day when the maid once again entered, this time with a bucket filled with water, a bar of soap, and a toothbrush. She placed these in the tiled part of the room before leaving.


    After finishing his second meal, David cautiously approached the door and put his ear against it in an attempt to listen for anyone who might be guarding the outside. Curiosity eventually got the better of him, and he tried to open the door to find that it was locked.


    What did I expect? David asked himself.


    He tussled with the handle for some time before giving up and deciding to clean himself. The water bucket was still warm, which he thought made it more comfortable, but the abrasive cloth irritated the bruises on his skin.


    He discarded his old clothing, which was still dirty from storm and replaced it with his choice outfit from the wide selection of identical uniforms from the closet. He left his old clothing on the back of the wooden chair and laid down on the bed, eventually drifting off to sleep again.


    David spent most of the next few days eating and sleeping in the room, sometimes with the opportunity to watch soldiers in the courtyard practicing some form of martial arts and sparring with each other.


    The sparring was strange, some of the soldiers moved at ridiculous speeds, or jumped excessively high. Often some form of light would radiate from the soldiers¡¯ weapons when they collided or struck a surface. It was surreal, but less so than his meeting with The God of Mushrooms.


    All the soldiers had a device stuck to their right hip, the device held several tubes, he guessed four or five, which the soldiers would pull the caps off before sparring. David couldn¡¯t understand what they were used for.


    David was sick of sitting in the room all day. Exercising was painful, but it gave him something to do in the boredom. When he grew tired of that, he would spend his time watching the courtyard for any activity¡ªor staring into the prairies.


    Today a different group of soldiers were occupying the space. One of whom he thought he recognised from his night in the bushland. These soldiers had much lighter armour and used spears and bows instead of the large swords that the other soldiers did.


    For the more heavily armoured soldiers that sparred earlier in the week it was harder to tell gender, because most of their bodies were obscured. But for this group, which had much lighter armour, it looked as though the majority were women. Although at this distance, it was difficult to tell.


    The soldiers practiced their archery on small stone disks that flew through the air at random, defying the laws of physics. The soldiers fired in groups, and their arrows streaked through the air in an instant, rarely missing.


    The arrows were fast, but they didn¡¯t have much effect on the stone targets, which were obviously purpose designed for training. It was a very impressive display of discipline. David continued to watch until the commander, who was in a different uniform and hadn¡¯t participated in the training, shouted something.


    The soldiers returned to the sidelines in response, chattering amongst themselves and pulling arrows out of the stone targets which had lost their unnatural ability to fly, once more constrained by the law of gravitation.


    The commander spoke again, and the soldiers returned to their positions, this time with spears instead of bows. The soldiers cycled through different formations, usually in groups of three. Not once did David see the famed phalanx formation, probably because they weren¡¯t in Rome and the soldiers didn¡¯t have shields.


    The commander would shout out different commands, and the soldiers would perform different strikes or movements in response. The practice continued for some time until the commander divided the soldiers into pairs.


    The pairs then lined up and went through different exercises against their partners. David thought that this group was much less proficient in melee combat than the heavily armoured soldiers.


    The day continued, and the soldiers packed up all of their equipment and entered some other part of the facility, out of David¡¯s line of sight.


    ***


    Luthina was perplexed. A human had appeared on the Eurena coastline, hundreds of kilometres away from civilisation. Battered and bruised from the storm, the human had built a campfire that signalled his presence for miles.


    She had screamed at the mindless lieutenant that had brought him back to the base. It was an egregious breach of facility safety protocols; it would take only a single leak to sink this ship. Despite that, nothing had happened. The human did not speak in a language she recognised, nor was he capable of understanding her.


    He didn¡¯t even flinch at her warning that the food contained deadly parasites. It didn¡¯t of course, but the lack of response indicated that he was either a highly trained suicide agent, or really didn¡¯t understand what she was saying.


    Whatever the case, Luthina knew that she would have trouble explaining how the facility had failed its operational requirements for two months in a row. Another two of their subjects had died this week, giving no insights into development. They were running out.


    Luthina had a choice, execute the new human according to safety protocols, or use him as a subject in their research. Given the current agency director¡¯s opinion of her¡­


    It was an easy choice.

 2. Human Experiments

    David was just getting used to his room when he was once again visited by the robed lady and her armoured escort. At the robed lady¡¯s command, four of the heavily armoured soldiers from the courtyard entered the room. David didn¡¯t think there was much point putting up a fight, not when there was four of them and one of him, he surrendered.


    They grabbed him, one of them put a bag over his head and tightened it. Then they grabbed both of his arms and dragged him out of the room.


    David didn¡¯t know where he was being taken to, but he knew that they had descended at least one floor. He struggled to keep his sense of direction through the winding halls. His captors weren¡¯t gentle either, he struggled to keep his feet beneath him as they suddenly changed directions or stopped


    When they the movement had finally ceased, David was lying on a hard table with several people holding him down. When they removed his hood, he noticed that the cultist lady was no longer present.


    Holding him down were four of the heavily armoured guards. Another three people were in the room, two people in white clothing with a fabric cloth over their faces, and one man in the same uniform but sitting down next to him and preparing a selection of metal tools.


    This man spoke to the other two in a gruff voice, they began to cut off David¡¯s clothing in response. It seemed that the white prisoner uniform he was wearing was not very valuable. Once his shirt was off, the surgeon picked up a marker from his selection of tools and began to trace dotted lines across his skin.


    Are they going to cut me open? David thought in shock. He tried to speak to his captors, but they ignored him.


    The sensation of the marker drawing across his skin was an invasive one, and he struggled to break free.


    ¡°Jeiko no malim shurashni, ma atekai.¡± The male surgeon spoke in exasperation. One of the assistants responded in a feminine voice. She went to a drawer and grabbed a vial marked with some sort of text. She retrieved a syringe from another drawer and drew the liquid from the vial.


    The girl approached David and went to inject his arm. David struggled to avoid the injection, but one of the four guards forced his arm still. He felt a sharp prick in his left arm as he was injected with some form of chemical concoction. Soon he felt as though he were falling headfirst off the back of the table.


    ***


    ¡°You have returned early Apostle.¡± Spoke The God of Mushrooms.


    David turned his head, or his body, no, the world itself turned. Before him stood the otherworldly creature in all its glory. It was human-tall and probably human-wide if you rotated the human on its side and used that as the measurement.


    The creature was in the form of a dark grey mushroom stalk terminated by a white mushroom cap with wriggling black lines on its surface. The lines themselves seemed to swirl around like ink in water.


    Just as they had done before, the lines shifted, and pupils appeared. Eyes emerged from the cap, tiling the surface of the mushroom in an organic pattern with no care for structure, only density. White particles fell from the bottom of the mushroom in rhythmic pulsing as if it were respirating.


    The creatures voice hadn¡¯t changed, it was the same deep gravelly tone that resonated through the entire space as it was when he had first started this schizophrenic episode.


    ¡°This is probably the worst and longest trip I have ever had.¡± David commented.


    ¡°Do not disregard reality, you find yourself far from your mother world.¡± The creature responded.


    ¡°An error has been made; an unknown worshipper has pulled your descent away from your destination. You must follow the setting sun. Your destination awaits.¡° It continued.


    ¡°These crazy cultists have locked me up and are trying to cut me open. How exactly am I supposed to leave?¡± David questioned in an exhausted tone.


    ¡°All things in time Apostle. Time in all things. ¡± The being answered.


    ¡°You know you¡¯re not exactly¡­ helping me with these spiritual riddles!¡± David The Apostle responded, avoiding the use of a choice word.


    ¡°I see. I see that in time you will escape.¡±  The God of Mushrooms commented


    ¡°I understand that, but when will I escape?¡± David continued his attempt at extracting some semblance of meaning from the creature.


    ¡°All things come to an end; your imprisonment included. Freedom approaches quickly, four days at most. An unpredictable and unfortunate delay.¡° It responded. David nodded in response, thankful for finally extracting some useful information from the deity.


    ¡°Why do you keep calling me Apostle?¡± David asked after a pause.


    ¡°You have eaten the pure flesh, you are an apostle.¡° The otherworldly being responded.


    ¡°It seems, like all things, that our time has come to an end.¡± It continued, before the world shifted again. David¡¯s lucidity was lost, and he returned to the unconscious world.


    ***


    It was the third or fourth time David had awoken in captivity. He got out of the bed and was wracked with pain, just like when he had first arrived. He lifted his white shirt and saw a thin line of stitches that went up his torso, slightly left of centre.


    Another line intersected it in a curve, and several more branched off of this main structure. It was as if someone had lifted his skin off, taken a peek and stitched it back together.


    His torso wasn¡¯t the only victim, his left arm had the same treatment, with incisions branching from a line that went from the base of his wrist to his elbow and then to his shoulder. There was some bruising under the skin adjacent to the each of the incisions.


    David couldn¡¯t understand the purpose of such an invasive surgery. He felt a pang of hunger and looked towards the window. Unluckily for him, there was no meal waiting on the wooden table, the platter from his previous meal was still there, empty.


    Hopefully I still have my kidneys. David thought to himself.


    Seriously, capturing him, giving him some sort of remote-controlled pain collar, and cutting him apart? These cultists had no concept of human rights. And what was up with the magic super soldiers?


    David, upon recollecting his short meeting with The God of Mushrooms, couldn¡¯t help but still believe that he was stuck in some sort of drug afflicted hallucination. Despite that, he couldn¡¯t explain why he was so lucid, or why the reality he found himself in was so consistent.The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.


    Objects didn¡¯t disappear when he wasn¡¯t looking, the maid arrived twice per day, and when he scratched a word into the wooden window seal with his fingernails, it didn¡¯t spontaneously change after looking away.


    And that crap about being an apostle? I¡¯m not even religious!


    David exclaimed mentally, wondering what sort of apostles were used for human experimentation.


    If he was an apostle, maybe he had to preach about the God of Mushrooms? What had the glorified DMT entity even done for him? Stolen him away from his home and called him an apostle?


    The thing had told him he would be free in four days. That was it, he just had to hold in four another four days. Then he would be free. Free to roam the unpopulated grasslands, he supposed.


    Forget that shit, I¡¯m not getting cut open again. David thought, avoiding movements which irritated his stitched wounds. He looked around the room for something he could use but wasn¡¯t sure what he was looking for. A weapon probably wouldn¡¯t be much help against any of the soldiers, the non-combatants, however? Maybe he had a chance.


    He could probably break a leg off the wooden chair or table. A bit of sharp wood was probably the best he could hope for. The maid was his only guaranteed visitor, he could take her hostage. However, if his escape attempt failed, they might not even feed him anymore. It was something for him to consider carefully.


    David looked at the wooden chair, it was well constructed, and the wood wasn¡¯t weak. He didn¡¯t think he would have much luck at breaking it, and he had little chance prying the nails out with only his fingernails.


    He looked around the room again, the wooden closet had several shelves in it that he could easily lift out, and they were quite thin. Perhaps he could snap one into a smaller, sharper fragment.


    He removed the contents from the top of a shelf and lifted it out of the closet. This wood seemed older and weaker than the wood that made up the table and chair. He looked over at the table again. He also had a wooden spoon from the morning meal, the maid wouldn¡¯t remove it until the afternoon, when she would replace it with another one. Would she notice it missing? It would be better to stick to something less visible, David thought.


    He hadn¡¯t seen anyone restock the closet, and there were still around four unused outfits, so he guessed he had four days until anyone would. That would give him a longer period before anyone detected his plans.


    He took the shelf and slammed it down over his knee. David grit his teeth and grunted in pain as the shelf was much harder than it looked. He sat there for a moment, regaining his senses before he gave it another shot.


    This time it hurt even more, since his knee had just been injured from his previous attempt. He took another moment to consider his actions before he slammed his other, uninjured knee into the shelf with more vigour than before. It split into two pieces, but they were far too large to wield or stab someone with.


    He needed something small and sharp, similar to a dagger. Regarding daggers, he knew that the armoured man had a real dagger in his belt. Unfortunately, he didn¡¯t think that he would be able to pickpocket the massive, armoured man.


    David was tired from the surgery and sick of hurting his knee. So, he put the two halves of the shelf mostly together again and placed it back in the closet, obscuring the break using white uniforms.


    ***


    Another day in captivity had passed for David, and he had awoken to silence. The rumbling in his gut reminded him that the maid was still yet to return to his room. He didn¡¯t have the energy to scream and bash against the door. Instead, he looked back outside to see soldiers patrolling the wall in squads. Did he really have any chance of escape?


    David looked at the window seal, there wasn¡¯t any obvious way to open the window, it seemed to be built into the wall. At the top of the window however, there was an open portion with angled pieces of glass stuck into it like blinds that couldn¡¯t be rotated. That was evidently the source of ventilation for the room.


    David stood up on the wooden chair to try and get a better look at the angled glass, none of the soldiers below seemed to notice or care about his new vantage point, they were busy inspecting the wall and surveilling the premises.


    The glass was lodged in firmly, but with several wiggling attempts, one of the pieces dislodged. He held it in his hand, it would be easy to smash on the hard tiled floor across the room. Once it was smashed, he would be able to wrap it in fabric as a makeshift handle to prevent himself from being cut.


    David looked around the room again, now that he theoretically had a knife, he was looking for something to cut. The bedsheets, the clothing, and maybe the grout between the tiles, they all seemed like things he could cut.


    He looked at the door again, the hinges were on the outside of the door, so he couldn¡¯t try and dislodge them. There was no room between the door frame and the door to slip something through either, except at the bottom. Nothing to cut there, he thought. But there were more things he could cut, like himself, or the stiches on his body.


    He didn¡¯t see a point in committing suicide yet, so he ignored those. What about the metal on his neck? He felt its construction again, there was a hinge on the right side, and some sort of locking mechanism on the left side, but there was no way he could cut though the metal with his glass knife.


    David kept thinking, he could break glass, so he could break the window. He would just need to wrap some fabric around his fist and punch it hard enough. It would be loud though. Perhaps he could make some sort of rope to rappel down the side of the building with the bed sheets and clothing?


    He could break the glass and then climb down the side of the building. He would probably have to do it at night, so that he could hide in the shadows during his escape. He didn¡¯t know how quickly the soldiers might react to his escape attempt, nor whether they would send search parties after him. Regardless, the planning calmed him, it let him imagine that he had a chance in this crazy new world that wanted to cut him apart.


    David looked at the empty bowl that was still on the table, he was still starving. If he was going to attempt an escape, he would need to do it soon, before he lost more strength. It was more than hunger thought, David was parched.


    There was no tap or shower in the room. There was, however, a toilet which could be flushed. David considered whether he was thirsty enough to drink out of a toilet and decided that he probably wasn¡¯t. But it didn¡¯t stop him from investigating.


    The toilet was ceramic, and almost the same as those back on Earth, except that the top wasn¡¯t removable, instead the entire ceramic body was a single part. It wasn¡¯t very useful.


    It was getting dark, and David decided to make the glass knife that he had devised. He picked up the glass piece that he had left on the wooden table and went back to the tiled part of the room.


    He crouched down, turned his head away and closed his eyes before bringing the arm holding the glass down on the hard tiles. The impact sent a vibration through his arm, but it didn¡¯t break.


    David gave it another shot and was glad when it shattered into several fragments, one of which was the right shape, size, and sharpness for his intentions. He went back to the bed, careful to not step on the few glass fragments that he had sent around the room.


    He spent some time gathering the fragments into a shirt which he took from the closet. He didn¡¯t think he could flush them down the toilet, but he could easily hide them in the bottom of the closet, no one would notice until it was refilled.


    David got to work preparing his descent rope, he cut two long strips of fabric from his bed sheets. He twisted the two strips individually and then twisted them together into a rope. There wasn¡¯t anything to keep the ends together, so he made do with a simple knot on either side.


    The result probably did not adhere to international safety standards, but David hoped that it might handle his body weight. It was getting late, and he knew he couldn¡¯t possibly finish making the rope and escape the facility in the same night.


    Instead, he made as many fabric ropes as he could, hid them in the closet, and went to sleep.


    ***


    Morning came while David was sleeping. He was startled awake by the entrance of the maid. The same maid who had been missing for the past day or so.


    He quickly hid the glass knife, which he had forgotten about, behind him. If the maid was suspicious, or had noticed the torn bedding, she hid it well. Once the maid had left, David hid the glass knife in the closet, with the rest of his incriminating items.


    In response to his gut rumbling yet again, David sat down at the wooden table to eat. The food was the same as before, he couldn¡¯t understand why they didn¡¯t feed him yesterday.


    Once he was finished with the meal, and the water, David took a moment to stare into the distant plains that peeked over the stone wall that enclosed the facility. His peace was brief, however, as the cultist lady and her pet guard appeared yet again.


    They entered the room, and David thought of walking over to the closet and grabbing his glass knife, maybe he could kill the bitch before her guardian struck him down.


    He had no chance however, as the lady gestured, and David¡¯s neck lit up in pain. At the cultist lady¡¯s command, several soldiers entered the room as they had done before. There was no nonsense this time, they didn¡¯t give him any chance


    David was quickly restrained and removed from the room with a bag secured over his head. He was moved through the building again. He thought it was the same path as before, but he couldn¡¯t be sure.


    David furiously fought against his captors, but they didn¡¯t flinch, he was far too weak. He screamed but his throat quickly became sore. He wound up on the operating table again. This time, his captors moved quickly to inject him with the chemical cocktail.

 3. Sabotage

    The facility was a mess. The main salt reserve had been sabotaged, two staff members had been locked in a secure room, and the subjects hadn¡¯t been attended to in a full day with all the drama. Worst of all, she couldn¡¯t find the person responsible.


    She had her suspicions, however, and the most suspicious of all was the new subject, who Luthina knew she should have executed. There was a solution, however, she would get rid of the subject and gain some critical experimental data in one, they just needed to test their new bacterial payload on him. Two birds with one stone.


    Unfortunately, they had to surgically remove the fungal carrier agent that they were acclimatizing to his body so that it didn¡¯t interfere with the bioweapon. Their research was yet to discover a method of combining the two, a fact which would hopefully change once they broke the cross-species transmission barrier and developed a human strain of the fungal drone infection.


    A loud screeching siren blared through Luthina¡¯s office. The facility had detected a high-power spirit signal, indicative of a beacon spell. Had she guessed wrong? The newest subject should still be unconscious from surgery, so who had cast the spell?


    Luthina didn¡¯t have time to guess at the source. She had worked in the Aelfheim Special Defence Agency for more than twenty years, and in classified facilities like this, beacon spells had only ever meant one thing, a guided artillery strike.


    She rushed to the facility spirit core, as the second in command, she could authorise the facility spirit to raise a shield. Unfortunately, the facilities salt reserves had fallen below safe operation levels due to the sabotage, and the next shipment would not arrive for another week because of the sudden request.


    Luthina rushed into the secured room, five guards were already present at attention, the rest of the facilities staff would be either sheltering in the reinforced basement or securing dangerous experimental samples and materials for impact.


    The room was hexagonal, with one wall that was occupied by the door and the rest which were covered in recessed shelving that should have been full salt bags, instead only a quarter or so of the shelves were filled. An unfortunate distribution of resources, since this was the only reserve spared from sabotage.


    In the centre of the room was a pedestal which held a semi-transparent glass sphere. Around the base of the sphere was a channel carved into the pedestal and filled with salt, and surrounding the pedestal was a ritual circle carved into the smooth marble floor.


    ¡°Begin the shield initiation ritual. ¡° Luthina commanded. The guards started immediately, pulling bags of salt off the walls. They threw the bags into the circle in the centre of the room. One of the guards approached each of the salt bags began to cut them open. The mana absorption process was more efficient if the salt was open to the air.


    Luthina wasn¡¯t standing around, she was chanting under her breath and making gestures with her hands, causing the sphere to pulse in response. Each time the sphere pulsed, some of the salt on the floor would combust with a light red glow and a soft hiss. Luthina guessed that they had around five minutes before the artillery strike would impact the facility, the shield initiation ritual would only take three.


    Once the walls were empty, the guards moved to their positions around the circle to assist in the shield ritual. All the remaining salt would be used power the shield.


    ¡°Great spirit, we beseech you to offer your aid. Shield and protect this place from the approaching threats. We offer this salt in return.¡± Luthina chanted with the other five guards while holding her hands in prayer below her chin. Once the chant was complete, she knelt on her left knee and clapped her hands together.


    The sphere exploded with light for a moment before it settled to a strong glow, the salt on the floor began to combust with a red glow, and the piles began to disintegrate as all the salt slowly levitated up streams that emanated from the tip of each pile. Luthina knew that outside, a shimmering barrier would materialize into existence in the shape of a dome that covered the facility.


    What she didn¡¯t know was that high above the clouds, two shield breaker shells and one high explosive shell were approaching. For guided artillery strikes, this was an expensive one.


    The entire facility shook as the first shield breaker shattered the forming protective dome, earlier than expected. The second shield breaker, barely obstructed by the weak reforming shield, pelted the facility with thousands of glowing blue fragments that pierced through anything in their path. Without a shield to destroy, the second shell was an expensive waste.


    The artillery strike was obviously designed to impact once the shield formation was complete, not during its formation. It had been launched early, or the shield had been raised late. The third shell impacted the shield as it began to reform again, detonating it much earlier than intended. Luthina was as lucky as an artillery target could be.


    The explosion annihilated the above-ground portion of the facility, sending shockwaves through the ground, breaking parts of the hidden basement. The bright explosive light could be seen for kilometres, and heard even further.


    In the spirit core room, Luthina and her officers had escaped from the blast that destroyed the top side of the facility. Unfortunately, there was a safety oversight in the ritual¡¯s design. The ritual operators were within salt absorption range of the great spirit during the spell cast.


    This wouldn¡¯t have been a problem if enough salt had been placed in the ritual circle, or if the great spirit had been trained to not draw salt out of solution. Unfortunately, the effort required to train such behaviour to great spirits was great, and using mana links with safety trained normal spirits would reduce the speed at which spells could be cast. It was a design flaw that could only become visible in the most dire of circumstances.


    Luthina wouldn¡¯t have to worry about that, like each of her officers, her cells had been destroyed by osmotic shock when the salt inside was absorbed to power the facility shield.


    She died in an instant.


    ***


    David was sick to death of not waking up in his real bed. He had given up on the idea that he was still tripping a while ago, and most of his other theories like being in a coma were mostly disproven by the permanence of this world.


    Objects didn¡¯t appear or disappear at random, words didn¡¯t change when he wasn¡¯t looking, for all intents and purposes, the only unreal thing he had seen was the strange weapons and movement that his captors had. That and the strange device around his neck. Oh, and the mushroom god.


    He was up for a surprise today, however, since he awoke on a surgery table instead of a bed. He tried to move his head but was struggled to move against the drowsy weariness that permeated his body. Whatever drug they had injected him with was still wearing off.


    David looked across the ceiling, it was clearly damaged. There were holes where parts of the ceiling had fallen down, he was thankful none had fallen on him. He lay still for a while until he gathered the strength to move.


    David sat up on the edge of the table, he had no shirt, and his torso was covering in red tinted wound dressing, his blood had sept through the white cotton, causing it to stick to his skin. There weren¡¯t any bandages holding them in place. He peeled back one of the gauze pads and saw stitches that held his skin together.


    His torso, chest, and arms were all a mess of partially healed stitches and brand-new wounds. Thankfully, his back, legs, and head were untouched, and there was only a small wound on the side of his neck. After inspecting the surgeon¡¯s handiwork, David observed his surroundings.


    The floor was covered in tiles and tile fragments that had fallen from the ceiling, and there was a layer of dust that had lightly settled upon most of the surfaces in the room. David stood and walked towards the door, stepping carefully around the sharp fragments that would cut his feet.


    The door was closed, but the locking mechanism was on his side, so he could open it. Unfortunately, he would only be able to open the door open a fraction before it would be stopped by a large piece of debris on the floor. David knew he had no chance at lifting the debris out of the way without reopening his wounds.


    Instead, he decided to scavenge the room for items and information. On a bench next to the operating table was a variety of surgical instruments, several of which were sharp, and would make better weapons than his precious glass knife.


    David went to the drawers that lined the walls of the room, they were filled with different syringes, tools and vials. Most of the vials were shattered, but some survived. The chemicals pooled in the bottoms of the drawers, producing a pungent smell which quickly invaded his nose whenever he opened them.


    Some of the drawers were filled with less obvious equipment however, one of which was filled with small discs of a silver like metal that were engraved with strange patterns. Another was filled with what appeared to be tubes of some sort of white powder, it looked like table salt, but he wasn¡¯t going to do any taste tests.


    David, after exploring the room, looked at the door again. The hinges were on the inside, just like the lock. He could probably knock the pins out of the hinges and pull the door down, allowing him to escape.This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.


    David looked through the drawers again, he found something that looked like a big spike with a handle, and another object which was probably a paperweight. They would approximate a hammer and nail for the purposes of his escape. Thankfully, David was tall enough to reach the top hinge easily.


    He pointed the spike into the pin that held the upper hinge together and struck the handle of with his paperweight, it didn¡¯t budge. He tried again, and the pin moved slightly. He struck the handle several more times until the pin was halfway dislodged and the spike could no longer fit through the pinhole.


    ¡°Damn. ¡° David spoke aloud.


    He looked for a pair of pliers among the surgical instruments and found something that better fit the description of forceps but would hopefully function similarly. He gripped the bottom of the pin with the forceps and pulled downwards. After a bit of wiggling, the top hinge came loose. He gave the same treatment to the lower hinge, but it wasn¡¯t moving at all.


    David looked to the other edge of the door, which was sagging under its weight at the removal of the top hinge.


    Of course, there¡¯s too much pressure on the bottom hinge. He thought as he grabbed a rolled-up bandage from the bench and unrolled it a bit. He shoved the bandage under the edge of the door to prop it up, and with some help from his spike, which he used as a lever, the door was once again level with the floor.


    David tried again at removing the lower hinge and it fell out easily. He moved out of the way and pulled the handle. The door began to fall inwards, over the top of the internal debris. It crashed against the floor with a loud noise, but it was no longer preventing him from leaving the room.


    David went to pick up some sharp surgical tools before leaving the room. The hallway was dimmer than the surgical room, several of the lights were flickering, dim or broken. He only had a vague idea of where the exit would be.


    Time to get moving. He thought.


    ***


    David had come across several rooms now; he had seen one other surgery room and several storage rooms, each of which were mostly empty. Some of the rooms had reinforced metal doors which he was entirely unable to open.


    He was approaching the main corner, the underground part of the facility was in the same L shape as the aboveground part. On the inner side of the corner, the monotonous white tiling of the wall was broken by a large, reinforced door. It was secured shut like the other reinforced doors he had seen.


    David thought he was on the lowest level of the facility, since the two staircases he had seen so far didn¡¯t go down, only up. Unfortunately for him, both staircases were also obstructed with debris, so he couldn¡¯t traverse them. The only option was to continue down towards the other end of the basement, if the facility was symmetric, there should be a third and fourth staircase in that direction.


    He continued to walk down the tiled corridor, avoiding the sharp fragments on the tiled that patterned the floor randomly, and the sudden blue explosion of one of the lighting fixtures. Thankfully, the fragments didn¡¯t injure him.


    David¡¯s attention was captured by a reinforced door, this one had taken a much greater impact than the others, and the door was bent out where the ceiling had sagged downwards. The bending of the door opened a small hole through which David could see the inside of the room.


    He saw three of the lightly armoured soldiers in the room, their bodies were disfigured and. David guessed that there were more soldiers crushed under the rubble out of sight. An unfortunate fate, but he felt little sympathy for his captors.


    This side of the building was more damaged than the other wing, but that ended up being a benefit, since the fallen ceiling had produced a path out of the facility. It had fallen on David¡¯s end, but was still attached on the other, forming an inclined plane which could be traversed to escape the basement.


    None of the rooms beyond the fallen segment would be reachable, or escapable. David was thankful that he was operated on at the other side of the building.


    A metallic noise resonated through the corridor, making him flinch. He paused and strained his hearing. It was silent. The silence extended for a moment before someone shouted.


    ¡°Kliama! Kliama! Suteh jishna kliama!¡± Screamed a feminine voice through the corridor, there was no response.


    Heavy footsteps echoed through the basement, at least one person in the corridor wasn¡¯t barefoot, and it wasn¡¯t David. He decided he didn¡¯t want to be in plain sight when the captor turned around the corner, so he carefully opened the door to one of the non-reinforced rooms and hid inside.


    This room was some sort of cleaning cabinet, David imagined. There were a variety of mops, buckets and glass containers full of liquid. It wasn¡¯t important, as he was busy breathing slowly and staying still as the metallic footsteps continued.


    David leaned on the wall in the dark storage room, so that he could peek through a slit in the door. He saw the person who screamed earlier, she was injured, and another person, whom she was supporting with her arm. The second person was hopping, it looked like one of their legs was crushed.


    More than that, David recognised the second person, they had the same white clothing and body structure as the surgeon that had operated on him twice, although they didn¡¯t have a mask. David sneered in the dark.


    The girl hobbled to the large, reinforced door that he had passed earlier on the inner side of the main corner. She knocked on the door desperately.


    ¡°Kliama! Kliama¡­ klia-¡° she broke into a coughing fit as she braced her body against the door to stabilise herself. The surgeon tapped her shoulder with his spare hand and pulled a small, thin brick-like object out of his pocket. The girl recognised the object and used it to interact with the door, but he didn¡¯t see how she did it. There was a loud hum as the door reacted to the device.


    ¡°Aaaaagh¡­¡° the girl wailed as her voice broke. She couldn¡¯t muster the energy to shout in response to whatever she saw, but it wasn¡¯t what she had hoped.


    David hoped that more of her friends were dead, that would mean less people trying to cut him open. It was a morbid thought, but his face was contorted in disgust for the duration of the pathetic performance.


    He didn¡¯t have any sympathy for people who performed human experiments, particularly those who experimented on him.


    The girl stood for a moment in shock before she resolved herself and continued to stumble through the corridor towards the fallen ceiling. He remained silent and hidden as the metallic footsteps passed near him; the girl hadn¡¯t bothered to check any of the rooms along the way.


    The girl and the surgeon stood at the base of the collapsed ceiling, it would be difficult for the surgeon to climb with his injured leg. David had thought the girl was mostly uninjured from afar, but at this distance it was clear she was bleeding from her head, and the way she was moving indicated another injury that he couldn¡¯t deduce.


    David gripped the scalpel in his hand tightly, he hadn¡¯t let go since he picked it up in the surgery room earlier. Could he kill her before she could kill him? David didn¡¯t know, but he did know that he wouldn¡¯t be safe when reinforcements inevitably arrived. He couldn¡¯t imagine no one responding to whatever emergency had occurred.


    The surgeon was sat down and laid his head on his good knee. The girl leaned against the wall to catch her breath, facing away from David. He wouldn¡¯t get a better chance.


    David approached with the scalpel in hand. He was almost a meter away when the girl noticed his shadow, she turned in fright and struggled to pull her knife out of its sheath, it was stuck.


    The girl instead pulled the cap off a tube attached to her belt and gestured in David¡¯s direction, chanting something under her breath.


    The girl saw the collar on his neck and immediately changed her pace, gesturing something else. A red glow emanated from the tube on her belt and David¡¯s limbs locked in place for a moment as a searing pain spread across his neck. A moment later, the effect was lost.


    The girl looked down in shock, there was no more powder in the tube on her belt. She didn¡¯t freeze, immediately trying to draw her knife again, but it was jammed. It would take precious seconds to dislodge, seconds of focus, not panic.


    David made for an intimidating sight, his torso and arms were bloody, and his face was contorted in a vicious focus. He didn¡¯t hesitate for even a second, the adrenaline in his blood smoothing his thoughts into actions.


    He lunged forward and slashed the girls throat as she struggled with the knife sheath. She immediately tried to staunch the bleeding with one hand while she managed to withdraw the knife with her other.


    Her face mouth flapped open like a fish as she struggled to breath. She took wild swings at David, but he had already retreated away. He was content to stand back as she bled out. She became more and more desperate, slashing viciously at the air in front of her as more and more blood spilled through her hand.


    The girl¡¯s eyes were wide open, but she wasn¡¯t looking at him, her eyes seemed to lose focus as she stumbled forward. David moved back in response, the movement seemed to shock the girl into lucidity again, as she lunged forward in response, unable to reach him.


    She stumbled, falling against the wall which she slowly slid down as her feet scrambled to find purchase on the now-slippery floor. A gurgling sound emanated from her throat as she choked. Her hands were completely white, and she gripped her knife tightly even as she slowly lost consciousness.


    The girl sputtered, resulting in a spray of blood from her neck. Slowly, her eyes lost focus and she stared into the blank tiles of the wall in front of her.


    The girl had no final words.


    The surgeon hadn¡¯t moved much during the fight, he had a large piece of debris gripped in his hand, and he had propped himself up against the wall. David watched him with caution as he moved to pry the large knife out of the dead girl¡¯s grip. The surgeon sneered at him and spoke something that David couldn¡¯t hope to understand.


    ¡°Fuck you.¡± David snarled.


    The surgeon laughed, and a brutal grin stretched across his face. He gestured to his chest, pointing to imaginary stitches. Then, he brought his right hand up towards his left, and pointed to watch on his wrist.


    ¡°Tchik Tyokk.¡± The surgeon spoke before breaking out into a chuckle.


    David, enraged at the taunt, approached and kicked at the surgeon¡¯s good leg. The action sent a wave of pain through his stitched torso, which rejected the difficult movement.


    The surgeon was more stable than he thought, however, as the kick didn¡¯t knock him down. David went to kick again, but the surgeon held his debris threateningly, warding him away. He moved back and went to pick up his own piece of debris, a heavy rock.


    David pelted the rock towards the surgeon¡¯s head, who dropped his rock and moved his hands to guard his head in response. The throw broke a stitch on David¡¯s shoulder, which began to dribble blood.


    The surgeon, however, was much worse off. The rock had cracked him in the head, destabilising him. The surgeon was about to fall, so David approached and slashed with his new knife.


    The first slash lacerated the surgeon¡¯s hand, which he used to defend his head. David slashed again, cutting across the surgeon¡¯s forearm.


    This time, David stabbed. The knife penetrated the side of the surgeon¡¯s neck. He withdrew the knife and the wound spurted with blood in time with the surgeon¡¯s heartbeat.


    David took a moment to lean against the wall as he looked at the two people he had just murdered. An uncomfortable heat washed over him.


    He considered the possibility that he had deluded the entire scenario. What if the super smoothie had triggered some sort of schizophrenic psychosis in him? What if he was in a mental hospital and had just murdered two of the staff? It was a dreadful thought.


    David slouched down the wall and took deep breaths as if he was suffocating. He felt ill, the kind of ill you could only feel after you had just killed two people.


    He retched as nausea caught up with him, but there was nothing in his stomach. His head was spinning, so he laid down, adopting the recovery position. He retched again and an unnerving amount of blood spilled out of his mouth, it was mixed with strange black particles that he thought was mould.


    David wondered if, in the real world, he had just been shot. The amount of blood he threw up indicated a serious injury, but he hadn¡¯t been injured in the fight. It didn¡¯t make sense.


    He laid there as he struggled to keep himself together, his muscles cramped and seized, sending sharp pains through his body. He was choking on air.


    Then the moment passed, and his body relaxed.

 4. Faithful Unto Death

    There was a noise in the hallway. No, it was behind him. It was a voice, David thought. He strained his hearing faintly heard a chant. It was as if he was in a sports stadium and had just won the world cup. Something was repeated again and again, in rising intensity, but he couldn¡¯t make out the words.


    David turned his head and the voice moved, it wasn¡¯t behind him, it was back down the corridor. He pushed himself off the ground and tried not to slip on the pooling blood that now covered the floor.


    He stumbled down the corridor, eventually reaching the large reinforced door that the girl and the surgeon had opened. Inside, a translucent sphere was raised on a marble pedestal. Surrounding the pedestal was a wide circle of marble that slotted into the floor like a boundary around the pedestal. An unusual pattern was engraved across the circumference of the marble circle.


    Surrounding the pedestal were six corpses, David recognised the cultist lady, but the others were heavily armoured soldiers which he struggled to differentiate. The corpses leaked fluid from their facial orifices, and their skin was swollen purple.


    Other than the corpses, many empty fabric bags covered the floor. It looked like they had been cut open in a hurry.


    What the hell?


    The voice remained in the background, continuing its chant and luring him to a different part of the facility. David left the room and continued down the corridor. The voice was louder now, and he started to understand it.


    ¡°Mushroom! Mushroom! Mushroom! ¡­¡° The voice spoke. It was coming from one of the reinforced rooms.


    David couldn¡¯t open these doors before, but he had just seen the soldier girl manage to open the large one. He remembered that she had used a strange rectangular device to do so.


    He returned to the soldier girl¡¯s corpse to find the device. The girl had a small single strap backpack, which he imagined would contain the device.


    The sensation of rolling the girl¡¯s corpse over to get at the backpack was an unnerving one. David could only compare it to touching a live person, but live people moved with or against you. The corpse did neither, it was completely limp.


    David opened the zipped backpack and saw a variety of strange items. It was part survival kit, he recognised most of the items, items like bandages and gauze pads, small knives and other metal tools. A small collection of containers, and a large water bottle were also present. The bag also contained what David thought was fire starting lint and survival rations.


    He didn¡¯t recognise all of the contents however, as there were four silver-like discs with some sort of pattern engraved on them, and a silver rectangle which he expected was the door opening device. He took the whole bag, and the girl¡¯s knife sheath and belt, the latter of which only just fit him.


    David held the strange rectangular device in his left hand, and the knife in his other, as he returned to the reinforced door that was calling to him. He was more stable now that most of the adrenaline had worn off. His hands were still shivering, but David told himself that his lack of clothing was responsible.


    He approached the door and the chanting intensified, reaching a crescendo of noise. His own heartbeat was hammering though his skull, beating like the drums of war.


    He raised the hand that held the rectangular device, which was magnetically attracted to a depression in the surface of the door. He guided his hand towards the recess and the device snapped into place. There was a clunking noise before the wall began to hum, and the door retracted into the ceiling.


    ¡°Mushroom! Mushroom! Mushroom!¡± The voice was screaming now. David could see someone¡¯s bare feet on the other side of the door.


    The door completely receded into the ceiling and David stood in front human that had been infected by some sort of fungus. It was stuck behind a glass wall that divided the room into two parts. The creatures face was disfigured by a large mushroom which encompassed the majority of its head. Each word spoken by the creature sent a ripple of blue glow across its fungal surfaces.


    David stared in shock. The voice quieted as soon as he saw the creatures face. He glanced around the room, it was better lit than the hallway since none of the lights had been damaged. It was made of blank white tiles, the same as the corridor¡¯s, and the walls were covered in drawers, just like most of the rooms he had seen so far, except that these were transparent.


    Inside the drawers were all manner of vials and samples, but the more prominent items were petri dishes full of life and different terrariums of mushrooms. David felt as though he had a better understanding of the point of this facility now, it was some sort of secret laboratory.


    He looked at the strange mushroom creature again, its visage was otherworldly. David couldn¡¯t help but doubt his own reality yet again.


    He stood there for a moment in contemplation before the mushroom creature started to knock on the glass wall. After catching his attention, the mushroom creature gestured for him to approach.


    He did, fearlessly. If there was anything in this world that wanted to help him, it would have to be mushrooms, he was the mushroom apostle after all. Once he was close enough, the creature spoke again.


    ¡°My¡­ my prayer¡­ finally fulfilled¡± The creature spoke in a language which was foreign to him, yet he could understand nonetheless.


    ¡°So-so glad... to serve¡­ apostle.¡± It continued.


    A shockwave of blue colour shot across the surface of the mushroom creature, bursting open veins which began to spew blue glowing blood.


    The mushroom creature fell to the ground. David fell with it, as a mental energy swept him off his feet.


    His eyes rolled around in his head as he looked at the empty air. It felt as though his head was being compressed and expanded at the same time. Then, the sensation became painful, eliciting a scream that David fought with his teeth.


    Strange words entered his mind, words that he didn¡¯t recognise but could understand. Words that were unmistakably foreign to him. The pressure became unbearable, then, as quickly as it had started, the sensation receded, leaving him on the ground to catch his breath.


    David stood up again, bracing himself on the glass wall, and looked at the now unmoving mushroom creature.


    Shit. He tried to speak aloud, but he bit his tongue as he tried to pronounce two different syllables at once. It took him several attempts, but he managed to enunciate the word in both English and whatever language he had just learned.


    Somehow, the mushroom creature had taught him an entire language in an instant.


    For a while, David rested in the strange room, sitting on the floor with his back against the wall. He still felt ill, but thankfully he wasn¡¯t spewing blood again.


    The surgeon¡¯s brutal grin appeared whenever he closed his eyes, taunting him. Whatever the dead man found so funny, it made him uneasy. He looked at the mushroom corpse and hoped that he wouldn¡¯t be the next disfigured corpse.


    Whatever his fate, David remembered the mushroom god¡¯s advice to ¡®follow the setting sun¡¯. It was all he had to go on, unless he wanted to bunker down in the destroyed facility until eventual reinforcements came to lock him up or put him down.


    He hadn¡¯t seen any raining or bad weather while he was in captivity, but the super hailstorm that had almost killed him on the first day made him reconsider roaming the outside world again.


    If he wanted to survive, he would need equipment, and there was a whole, or at least part of, a facility for him to loot. In terms of equipment, the memory of the hailstorm made David desire a big metal shield.


    Once he had regained some strength, David grabbed his new single strap backpack and left the mushroom corpse and the reinforced room. He looked through the hallway for other rooms to open.If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it''s taken without permission from the author. Report it.


    He weighed the options in his mind, the reinforced rooms might hold valuable equipment, but they might also contain more survivors. After all, the last two reinforced rooms he could see into held corpses of his captors. The bent door and the pedestal room both.


    Despite the threat, David felt that he had a better chance against injured soldiers than he did against the wilderness. Plus, surely any able survivors would have assisted the soldier girl and the surgeon, meaning those that remained here must be incapacitated or dead. At least, he hoped.


    He approached the next reinforced door and placed the door opening device in its spot. There was a clunk and a hum as the door began to raise into the ceiling.


    This room was larger than the previous, there were more benches and draws, but there was no glass wall or mushroom creature. A pile of papers lay on one of the tables, David took a closer look and was extremely surprised when he realised, he could read them.


    One of the bundles was titled ¡°Cross-Species Transmission of Fungal Drone Pathogens: Selectively Breeding Fungal Drone Pathogens to Infect Humans¡±, and another was ¡°Civilian Targeted Biological Weaponry: Using Low-Fatality Pathogens with Highly Infectious Carrier Agents¡±.


    David read on for a moment.


    Traditionally, Aelfheim¡¯s biological weapons have been designed to target military personnel. Using traps and artillery, the dissemination of biological weapons against military targets has been highly effective in the past. Because of this, Aelfheim¡¯s biological weaponry has been designed to be highly fatal, resistant to treatment and difficult to detect during incubation. The most recent directive from the Aelfheim Special Defence Agency indicates a paradigm shift in the defence objectives of Aelfheim. Instead of targeting high value military personnel, A.S.D.A has determined that industrial capacity is the more critical metric to determine a nations military power. With this in consideration, this paper describes the methods in which currently manufactured pathogens can be reduced to less fatal variants and combined with highly infectious carrier agents to produce bioweapons intended to destroy civilian industries by maiming or killing entire human civilian populations.


    What the fuck?


    Disregarding the genocidal part, David noticed that the word ¡®human¡¯ was used. He wondered what other kinds of civilian populations there might be. Mushroom-people?


    His captors had certainly seemed human, but unless they were planning to destroy their own society, he couldn¡¯t understand why they would be developing bioweapons intended to do so. Maybe they could also inoculate their own population?


    He bundled up the reports and put them in his new bag.


    David ruffled through the draws along the walls of the room, they contained similar items to the last. Vials, jars of mushrooms, petri dishes, and strange silver disks could be found throughout the room. He found another drawer full of books, mostly related to biology. He read some of the titles: ¡®Human Anatomy in Depth¡¯, ¡®Natural Mycelium Hives¡¯, and ¡®Disease Identification and Treatment: 4<sup>th</sup> Edition¡¯.


    David wasn¡¯t interested in those, his bag was full already. There was a particularly interesting book in the mix, however, ¡®A.S.D.A Biological Weapons Manual: Dissemination Techniques¡¯. It was small enough to fit in his bag, and it sounded important. If there was anything valuable here, it would have to be the secret weapons manuals.


    He found more of the salt-powder tubes in one of the drawers. They were a different shape and colour to those that the soldiers carried on their belts. It seemed that the powder could be found in all throughout the facility.


    David scavenged through the remaining drawers and found nothing that would aid his survival. He didn¡¯t have a use for any of the scientific samples. He wanted clothing, waterproof tarp, rope, he wanted survival equipment.


    He left this room and opened the next reinforced door. This room was slightly larger than the last. It looked like an armoury.


    The walls had lockers, and the centre of the room was filled with sitting benches. The far side of the room held a mostly empty weapon rack. Only a bow and two spears remained. David tried to swing the spear, but it was too heavy and unwieldy for him.


    He could carry the bow easily, but he couldn¡¯t draw it, not without reopening his wounds. He also found a bag next to the weapon rack that was filled with strange arrows that had long cylindrical arrowheads.


    David decided to keep the bow and arrows. The next reinforced room he opened was another armoury. This one was stocked more than the last, unfortunately for David, the remaining items were a variety of heavy swords and armour pieces, none of which he could carry.


    He searched through the lockers, most of which were unlocked, and managed to find a full set of clothing. The shirt was slightly large, but it was better than nothing. Similarly, the pants were too wide, but they had pockets unlike his surgery pants, plus he had a belt, which would solve the size problem.


    David put the new clothing on, he now had pants, a belt and knife sheath, a single strap backpack, a bow, and a bag of arrows. Furthermore, the locker even had a pair of slightly large leather boots and socks, which David was extremely grateful for.


    He tried to pick up one of the remaining large chest plates as a hail-shield, but as he expected, it was far too heavy. The helmets were lighter, but they didn¡¯t fit and pinched his skin when he moved his head, he still grabbed one for cooking purposes however, a helmet would make a good substitute for a pot.


    He went to open the next reinforced room, but this one was visibly damaged, and couldn¡¯t open. David tried the last few reinforced rooms, but like the other side of the building, the doors here were broken.


    David went back into the surgery room, he wanted to bring some medical equipment with him, preferably clean wound dressings, scissors, and some sort of antibiotic or antiseptic. He wanted to be able to keep his wounds clean while they healed, assuming he lived long enough for them to heal.


    David opened the drawer that he remembered contained the vials of liquid. The chemical vapours quickly escaped the drawer, but he pulled out the intact vials quickly and closed it.


    Opening the vials, he smelt each of them, looking for the scent of highly concentrated alcohol. David did this several more times until he realised, he was able to read the labels.


    There were lots of medical terms he didn¡¯t recognise, and one that he did, isopropyl alcohol. David put that vial in his pile on top of the drawers, which he then added bandages, gauze pads, scissors, and scalpels to. He also found a large drawer of soap, a portion of which he added to his pile.


    At the end of this process, he had amassed a reasonably sized pile of items. He then went to search the other side of the room.


    He had previously avoided this part because the floor was covered in sharp fragments, but now that he wasn¡¯t barefoot, he could venture through.


    This side of the room had more drawers and some cabinetry. While most of the cabinetry was filled with different shapes and types of glass instruments, one of the larger cabinets held uniforms, they looked to be the same as what the surgeon and his assistants had been wearing when they operated on him.


    At the bottom of the cabinet was a large leather rucksack, exactly what David was looking for. He brought it over to the other side of the room and filled the larger rucksack with the contents of the smaller bag, and the new medical equipment.


    He wrapped the vials with bandages to stop them from clinking together or shattering. He did the same to the metal tools. David decided he would keep the small single strap backpack, and since it was now empty, he folded it up to put in the rucksack.


    The arrows would have no chance at fitting in the backpack, but he could attach their bag to it in order to carry them. For the bow, he could attach it to the backpack as well.


    David couldn¡¯t put the rucksack straps over his shoulders without rubbing his stitches, so he took his shirt off and wrapped some bandages around his chest and torso, covering the wound dressings, some of which had partially fallen off.


    He wrapped extra bandages around the parts which would come into contact with the straps in order to provide padding. Finally, he put his shirt back on and picked up his new repossessed gear.


    As he entered the corridor again, David thought that the next thing he would need is money, or things he could barter with. He had decided to bring a couple of the powder tubes with him in the hope that they were valuable.


    David walked past the room with the large pedestal again and paused. His face was wrinkled but his mind was torn. He was worried about looting their corpses because he didn¡¯t know how they died, and he was in a biological weapons laboratory. But could whatever it was that killed the cultist lady and friends really do more damage than whatever the surgeon had done to him? David didn¡¯t think so.


    He began to loot the cultist lady, but her corpse came apart like wet paper at the slightest touch, leaking organic fluid like a full sponge. David took her necklace and golden bracelet before he gave up on the disgusting endeavour.


    He didn¡¯t bother with the armoured corpses, on which he couldn¡¯t see anything of value. Instead, he wiped the organic matter off the jewellery and packed it in his bag. Gold was valuable everywhere, he hoped.


    It was then that he noticed that the cultist lady had unnaturally long ears hidden under her long auburn hair.


    Aelfheim¡­ elves¡­ of course. David realised. This wasn¡¯t just any biological weapons laboratory, this was an elven biological weapons lab, and one made to kill humans at that.


    Nazi elves, great. He thought sarcastically.


    It was time for him to depart, he had gathered as much as he could comfortably carry, and he wanted to be at least a couple of kilometres away from the ruined facility before sunset.


    He approached the fallen ceiling which provided a ramp to the surface. The soldier girl and the surgeon¡¯s corpses hadn¡¯t moved from where he murdered them. The scene sent a chill down his spine, but he didn¡¯t have the energy to think about it anymore.


    His hands, which had just stopped shaking, started again. Now that he wasn¡¯t scavenging, anxiety sprouted in his gut. It felt like every second he spent standing there was another second that enemy reinforcements approached. The feeling gained pressure, growing stronger and stronger.


    David wanted to get out of here, and fast.


    He placed his gear on the ramp before beginning to climb onto it. It was waist-height, not a particularly difficult climb unless you were injured, David was.


    Just before he lifted himself onto the ramp, David remembered that the surgeon had pointed to his watch. Watches were valuable.


    A grin spread across his face.


    Cheers fuckwit. David thought as he repossessed the war criminal¡¯s expensive-looking silver and gold watch.


    David couldn¡¯t recognise the surface of the facility. The ground was scorched and covered with debris from the destroyed building. Luckily, the perimeter wall had also been decimated.


    He set off into the grasslands.

 5. Pilgrimage

    David had been ¡®following the setting sun¡¯ for three days now. There hadn¡¯t been any hailstorms or elves this time round. It was going alright.


    He had refilled his water bottle several times now, he boiled the water from the stream directly inside the bottle, since it was made of metal. He had also washed his clothing and bandages with soap and boiled water and reapplied his wound dressings. Hopefully, he wouldn¡¯t get an infection.


    Despite being experimented on by biological weapons scientists, David didn¡¯t feel so bad. He wondered whether the surgeon was bluffing, but the black mould and blood he had remembered spewing didn¡¯t seem like a bluff.


    He had a lot of time to think over the past few days, and he felt as though he had finally gotten his mental affairs in order. At least, he had gotten them packed into a little explosive which he would ignore until he was out of the danger zone. Whatever this new reality was, he was determined to survive it. That was his only focus.


    He was surviving. He was healing, and since the survival rations had run out, he was eating various fruit and vegetables that he scavenged. He had even managed to kill a rabbit with an arrow that he had removed the strange silver cylinder from.


    Whatever he could find or kill he put in the stew helmet and cooked. He couldn¡¯t find a lighter in the equipment that he had scavenged, he realised far too late that he should have taken the glasses from the cultist lady. Instead, he had to make do with the same fire-starting technique he had used on his first night in this new world.


    David wasn¡¯t too careful on testing the vegetation for edibility, he did an edibility test that he had remembered from an old survival guide. Smell it, touch it, taste it, swallow a bit and so on. He hadn¡¯t had any troubles yet. In fact, David had been eating lots of mushrooms without performing the edibility test. How ridiculous would it be if the mushroom apostle died from eating mushrooms?


    His stew was edible, although he had thought that it was missing seasoning. In order to rectify this, David tasted a single grain of the salt-like powder he had brought with him. To his surprise, it tasted exactly like salt. Naturally, it was added to the stew.


    In other news, he had pried open the silver cylinder from the arrow and found it to be filled with more salt. David had no idea why someone would put salt in a can on an arrow. He decided to try one of the arrows without removing the cylinder.


    In preparation, David grabbed the dark wood bow and the bag of arrows. He left his temporary encampment, moving through the greenery that surrounded the small clearing.


    He arrived at the top of a small mound which raised out of the forest floor. The mound was at the top of an incline, from which trees could be seen stretching into the distance.


    A gust of wind sent a shiver through the forest. Thousands of leaves parted from the trees with a gentle farewell. Falling slower than gravity ought them to, the golden leaves set sail through the air. It was autumn.


    David strained to draw the bow, his injuries had healed more than before, but they were still sore. He released the arrow into the air. For a moment there was a whistling noise, but it was quickly obscured by another gust of wind.


    David couldn¡¯t see exactly where the arrow landed, but he heard it. It was a loud crack that resonated through the forest, as if a bullet had been fired.


    It took him about half an hour to find the site of impact. A tree had fallen, its trunk was riddled with holes as if it had been sprayed with high velocity shrapnel. David couldn¡¯t find any of the fragments that tore through the wood, and none had been in the cylinder that he had opened.


    How strange. David thought, he decided to jump to conclusions and call it magic.


    There was no doubt that the arrows were powerful. They were probably valuable as well. The question was whether they were considered military technology. He needed money more than he needed firepower, and there was no use trying to sell missiles as a civilian unless you wanted to be interrogated.


    Another day had passed, and there was still no sign of civilisation. Whatever the God of Mushrooms directed him towards, he hoped it was nearby. David had acclimatized to the metal collar during his imprisonment, but now that he was out and about the metal was chafing against his skin.


    He remedied this by sliding a bandage under the collar, it stopped the metal from pinching him as well, which was a bonus.


    He was interrupted by a strange lizard. It had two pairs of green butterfly-like wings on its back. The critter was the size and shape of a gecko and it was bright green with red dots. David had seen these creatures buzz between the trees throughout the day, although they were most active in the early morning.


    He called them winged lizards, and this one buzzed onto his forehead from a branch hidden in the tall grass. David yelped, and fell backwards off his sitting log. The creature buzzed towards the half-finished stew which had spilled out of his cooking helmet and onto the dirt.


    ¡°You little bugger.¡± David spoke to the lizard as he sneered.


    The critter had ruined his meal, and he had half a mind to make a new stew, with a new, flying ingredient. But it was kind of cute. It could stay for now.


    The creature finished its feast and buzzed away without saying thank you.


    The next morning David packed up his camp again, he was thankful that it hadn¡¯t rained yet, since he didn¡¯t have any tarp and was sleeping in the open. He had created a trail of campsites along his journey, although they were tens of kilometres apart.


    David would walk for six hours each day, starting in the morning. He would eat twice a day, once at night and once at midday, after he had finished setting up camp for the night.


    Today was the same as the day before, he packed up camp and began his trek, hoping to find some kind of destination. He hadn¡¯t seen the winged lizard from the prior night, but he had seen a pack of flightless birds. They looked like brush turkeys, except that their wings had eye patterns on them, and they would flare them out if you approached them.


    That had been the most significant thing he had seen today. At least until the dim forest floor changed in scale. The trees became much taller and thicker, the ground became sparser, with only small bushes and thin grass filling the empty ground. The sunlight lost its influence here, only peeking through when the wind allowed it.


    Mushrooms began to overtake the scenery, growing from the ground and the trees. Some of the mushrooms were glowing in different shades of blue, purple, and green. The most breathtaking of which were large toadstools which stood taller than him and seemed to hum a deep tone.


    The large toadstools glowed from beneath like streetlamps, David continued to venture into the mushroom land when a pack of dark silver wolves appeared from behind the scenery and surrounded him. The wolves had small glowing antlers that stuck out the back of their heads and pointed behind them. He would have called them horns, but they branched like antlers did.


    The wolves didn¡¯t attack or approach him, they simply surrounded him. When David moved forward cautiously, they moved in tandem, as if they were in formation. How unusual. David continued to venture into the mushroom territory when a deep voice reverberated through his skull.Stolen novel; please report.


    ¡°Welcome apostle.¡± Spoke the voice.


    ¡°Hello¡­¡± David said in response.


    ¡°Since the dawn of my existence, creatures have searched for meaning, for purpose.¡° It continued.


    ¡°I see¡­¡±


    ¡°I ask you this apostle, do you realise your purpose in coming here? Do you realise your purpose in existence?¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m not sure that I do.¡± David responded, unsure of how to converse with the ethereal voice.


    ¡°Then, you will be guided, as the great one has guided.¡±


    ¡°Uh, thanks.¡±


    ¡°Life competes with life. Gravity with gravity. Everything in the universe is in constant conflict. Deities are not exempt, stuck in perpetual competition. You are no different. As an apostle, you must compete with the apostles of other deities. Competing over fragments of the world soul.¡± The voice clarified.


    ¡°And how do I get these fragments?¡± David asked.


    ¡°The divines extract fragments the wounds in the world. Fragments are limited, each zone can become exhausted of them. You must defend zones from other apostles as your deity extracts the fragments. For the deeper fragments, a longer period is required. Beware, the extraction process shines like a beacon to other apostles.¡± It continued.


    ¡°Why do I need them?¡±


    ¡°Deities are limited in their influence on free worlds. The more fragments held, the more influence gained. They will empower you. Should an apostle die, their fragments will return to the world, a few may be captured by their slaughterer.¡±


    ¡°Fair enough.¡±


    ¡°Like all things, guidance comes to an end.¡± There was a pause.


    ¡°It is surprising, that you are already learnt in the tongues of the world. The world rebels. It is unfortunate, that you are delayed. But my duty is yet fulfilled, this land is a wound in the world, prepared for your arrival. Rest here for the night, your wounds will be tended to. The great one will extract the fragment through your vessel.¡± The voice continued.


    ¡°Sounds good. What are you? By the way.¡± David questioned.


    ¡°Here lies the living and the thinking. Fewer things exist that are similar than different. The earth, the trees, the creatures, all combined. The pure flesh permeates all of this place, merging with the meat and plant.¡± The voice responded.


    ¡°Okay, got it.¡±


    David could only extract a minute amount of meaning from the spiritual response, the being claimed to be some sort of hive mind. He remembered that the papers he had stolen from the laboratory had some hive mind related terms, something about mycelium hives and fungal drones. Maybe the wolves were drones? He hadn¡¯t had much time to read during his journey, he was busy surviving after all.


    He hoped that him and the wolves were on the same side if he had to sleep here. The voice had told him that he needed to stay here for a day and a night, so twenty-four hours, before the fragment would be extracted. David got to work gathering firewood.


    The strange mushroom biome didn¡¯t have much in the way of dry wooden logs, but he had managed to find some large sticks which could be used as a substitute. His next priority was food, since his water bottle was still full.


    David ventured through the mushroom territory. The glowing scenery was beautifully eerie, although the sunlight sometimes strayed its way through the tall trees diminished the effect.


    At night, this will look completely magical. He thought.


    The antlered wolves were still following him in formation, and he had managed to get close enough to one to realise that the antlers themselves were glowing mushrooms. There weren¡¯t many other creatures in sight, although he had spotted the occasional bird in the tree canopy above.


    The mushrooms that grew from the huge trees had long wispy strings that fell from them, swaying gently in the wind. There was a heartbeat to this place, glowing ripples that propagated through the white veins in the earth that were ever so slightly visible at the surface.


    Nearby mushrooms would flare with colour as the heartbeat passed nearby them. He could hear the it faintly, a rhythmic beat that invoked in him a sense of enormity. It was slow, but steady.


    It didn¡¯t feel right to pluck the glowing mushrooms from the ground. To eat them felt like a sin, a wasteful destruction of beauty. Some mushrooms called to him, however. Mushrooms that seemed to be designed to be eaten. He had seen the wolves nibbling on these. David gathered several in his shirt.


    David returned to the rock he had designated as his seat and prepared his firepit. As he was lighting the fire, the voice once again reverberated through his head.


    ¡°The flame is a simple creature, it thinks not, it loves not, it dies. The flame spreads the quickest, yet it lives the least.¡° It spoke.


    Then, once the mushroom mind had completed its sermon, the fire ignited spontaneously. That is so much easier, he thought. Who knew sentient mushroom hiveminds could light fires with their minds? David did.


    The day had rushed past him, and the sun was slowly setting. David made salt and mushroom soup for late lunch and dinner. Then he slept, surrounded by glowing mushrooms and glowing mushroom wolves.


    ***


    The world shifted around David. His hands were now yellow, the sky was yellow, the asphalt road was painted with yellow lines. The asphalt road seemed to continue into infinity, with infinite lanes.


    Someone had reminded him to buy milk today, but that person had become a dotted line marking the road.


    A grand mushroom sprouted from the asphalt, and all the road markings rotated to point towards it. It spoke, with the same deep gravely tone which resonated through the entire space.


    ¡°Greetings, apostle.¡± The God of Mushrooms spoke.


    ¡°You again¡­¡± David responded dejectedly.


    ¡°Frustration, anger, confusion. Your mind rejects my greatness. Why?¡± The being questioned him.


    ¡°If it weren¡¯t for you, I wouldn¡¯t have these stitches, I wouldn¡¯t have killed two people¡­ and I would still be back on Earth enjoying the fruits of civilisation. Instead, I¡¯m stuck in this shithole, my feet are aching, and I was literally a victim of human experimentation!¡± David was shouting.


    ¡°It is regretful. This mushroom grove was prepared, yet you were stolen away by the false creatures.¡° The creature explained.


    ¡°That¡¯s it? That¡¯s your apology?¡± David asked.


    ¡°Great effort and resource was expended to prepare your descent, yet faults are inevitable in matters such as these. I apologize.¡± There was a pause as David considered the apology.


    David grinded his teeth together and sneered at the deity, his yellow hands balled into fists. He rolled his thoughts around in his head, then, he rolled them up into a little ball and packed it away to be ignored. There wasn¡¯t much he could do at the mercy of a literal god.


    ¡°Alright then, why am I here?¡± He inquired, adapting a relatively stoic expression.


    ¡°The world soul is torn asunder, a fragment claimed by the mushrooms!¡± The God of Mushrooms rejoiced. David raised his eyebrow as he waited for the deity to explain further.


    ¡°Tell me, what do you desire?¡± The mushroom paused.


    A long, thin mushroom-like finger grew from the ground in front of him, it pointed to his left eye. ¡°To see the truth?¡± The mushroom deity questioned.


    The finger moved to point towards his right eye. ¡°To see the distant?¡±


    The finger touched his forehead. ¡°Or to see the future?¡± The God of Mushrooms asked.


    Deciding to humour the god, David thought carefully. Seeing the distant probably meant some sort of scrying ability, he hoped that it wasn¡¯t just good eyesight. Seeing the truth was obvious, and seeing the future was similarly simple.


    He wondered what situation would require him to see the future. Seeing the future itself must change it, since the event of viewing the future would not be included in the future that was viewed, unless there was some sort of paradoxical time-travel going on.


    David couldn¡¯t think of what seeing the future actually meant. Would his right eye always show a scene from two seconds into the future? Or would he be able to imagine how things would play out over the next two minutes? Maybe he would always be ¡®in the future¡¯ and his body would follow the actions he saw himself do, allowing him to ¡®reverse time¡¯ when he stopped looking into the future? He didn¡¯t know.


    What would happen if he saw the future where he was looking into the future, would he be able to extend how far forward he could see? Could he create an infinite loop of looking into the future? There were too many unknowns. In comparison, seeing the truth was more obvious.


    David assumed seeing the truth was being able to tell when someone was lying. In that case, he would be able to buy and sell things at the best prices, tell when people were conning him, and easily interrogate people. It would be a powerful ability.


    In comparison, while seeing the future might be able to let him take action to avoid bad outcomes, it might be weaker than he expected, perhaps limited to only a few seconds. Also, the gestures made by the mushroom-finger implied that he might gain a third eye, something which would definitely make life more difficult.


    After some more consideration, David decided.


    ¡°I¡¯d like to see the truth.¡± He spoke.


    ¡°To see the truth!¡± The mushroom deity spoke in agreement¡ªits cap seemed to nod in agreement, but it was hard to tell.


    The tens of eyes that covered the mushroom cap of the creature stopped wandering the scenery mindlessly to stare at David¡¯s left eye. He felt a burning pain as his eye seemed to vaporize and then re-materialize. As the pain receded, David removed the hand that had instinctively covered the eye and saw a thin film of blood.


    ¡°As all things do, our time comes to an end once more¡± The God of Mushrooms spoke before vanishing. The yellow road markings disappeared and the asphalt road reformed where the deity had been. Then, the hallucinatory world faded away.