Sharp breaths paced his heavy footsteps. Behind him, among the crumbled skyscrapers, soared structures growing in an uneven ziggurat pattern. Structures of nearly dead organic matter created by the fungus that possessed Earth a few years ago. Their crooked peaks were dark cinnamon with tinges of yellow splashed over them manifesting grim positivity.

The city towered on an artificial shore, high above the seaside. Multiple levels were built over the decades as the need for housing grew, de facto creating a few cities stacked on each other. The architectural equivalent of a 3D printed shoe rack from the outside had many artistic areas and quality artificial sun—with just the right amount of UV rays for a rich skin to hold young—making life inside not only bearable in its efficiency but also highly comfortable. The real sky was mainly for the boring office jobs, supermarkets with mediocre, local climate-accurate merchandise. But that was several years ago.

He crossed the threshold of a dump. Out-of-order war machines laid there twisted over each other, forming piles of rusty mass graves. A reminder of times when war was still on someone’s mind. Normal times. Times before the fungus learned to convert electricity into energy and took over the modern world like a plague.

Humanity relied on electronics too much—from avoiding old age with bionic joints to voluntarily exchanging live limbs for specialized metallic attachments to keep up with the gadget fashion. The parasitic mold merely seized an empty, fertile niche that was presented to the world. Once it sprouted in one’s A.R.M. device, or another kind of battery-powered prosthetic, it was just a matter of time when the fungal hyphae crept up along the wires, past the flesh-metal junction and climbed their nerves, replacing brain neurons to make the body its own. Essentially creating vegetative human shells serving only as a spore spreader called a Fungal. The last survivors of this commerce metropole, once sheltering a population of a whole country's worth, prevailed for almost a decade, cornered from around and below in a cut-off part of the underground facilities closest to the surface.

The man’s peripheral blur changed from toppled buildings to gaping mouths of discarded canine-like battle robots whose innards dimmed out a long time ago. Finally, a safe place.

His lungs burned and the lining of his adventure hazmat suit scratched his cherries a little too far over the line of comfort, but he sprinted across the dump knowing he didn't have much time before the sporestorm began. Almost there.

The full-face oxygen mask beeped. The filters were reaching their clogging threshold. He needed to go faster. A scrap of metal fallen over from the trash heaps got in the way of his foot. He stumbled and wavered on his other leg. With a loud metal ‘clank’ he fell over, coughing, with a sudden, sharp pain in the hip. Sweat on his chin mixed with spit below the misty visor. Lying there, head on the dirt, he noticed a faint yellow hue covering the ground.

It was already too late, the spores had started to spread out. His stomach started spinning, and he realized this could actually be the end for him.

He pulled himself up and saw the dust tainted with a little pool of crimson liquid. No.

Down on his hip, the suit was punctured. His pale skin was tainted by the blood seeping through the ripped uniform.

Well, shit, Leo thought. There was no chance of getting inside the shelter now. A sprinkle of spores was fine; the specific enzyme shower can handle traces on one’s body, and the UVC lights take care of contaminated equipment; spores in one’s bloodstream were practically a death sentence.

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Even if the people inside of the shelter were all bionics-free, there was still too much important fine technology for the fungus to be able to live off. Now that the spores were in his bloodstream, he was a potential walking threat to everyone. 

A single thought overpowered his anxiety—delivering the package.

The bleeding wasn’t lethal, it seemed. He walked forward, pressing it down with one hand, without too much pain. Evading other obstacles, he tried not to look at the half-scavenged metal faces grinning at him from the afterlife.

He finally reached the vending machine at the far end of the garbage lot. It was sheltered in a concrete wall similar to a bus stop, but with no roads around, just more piles of metal claws. Pulling his trembling hand up, he ordered the playfully animated ‘Drink of the Day’.

“Coming right up!” Said the animated soda can, smiling on the display. He always thought that the most annoying things in the world were the ones he’d miss the most, but this cucklehead of a can could suck it.

The machine’s dispenser tray sprung out, and the soda’s voice jingled, “Thank you, Runner, please deposit what you collected into the tray below.”

Leo took off his backpack and with a bloody glove filled the drawer with bandages, various pills, salves, and tiny glass bottles. After emptying his bag, he took one last look at the goods and then at his wound. The worst bleeding had stopped, but still, a bandage would come in handy.

The tray went back in and was replaced with a new one after he hit the OK button. A man’s authoritative umber face appeared on the soda screen.

“Leo, why aren’t you coming in?” He asked, his black eyes frowned with concern.

The Runner grunted while putting his backpack back on. His voice was weak from the pain. What should he say? Now, when the medical supplies were delivered, Leo’s thoughts were racing. He knew Daizo would be the one looking over the delivery, but there was no time to prepare his words. He couldn’t come in and Daizo couldn’t come out. Moreover, there was little time before the vending machine would switch off for the spore storm.

“Hey, Dai. Uh, I tripped,” Leo said carefully.

“Tell me you’re alright,” Daizo waited with the answer, scanning what little he could see of Leo.

“Yeah, uh,” he swallowed the knots in his throat. “I mean, I’m fine, but… Do you remember when we watched Staying Behind?”

Daizo looked at the camera in confusion. “The one where I cried, and you laughed at me for weeks because of it? Vaguely.”

Leo smirked, “I laughed because I thought it was ridiculous. Leaving your boyfriend behind for a cultural difference just seemed too lazy.”

“What are you on about? The storm is coming, get in!” Daizo pressed a button on his keyboard, and with no delay the vending machine started to slide to the side.

Leo quickly pressed the ‘Return’ button. It stopped and slid right back to its original spot.

“What the hell, Leo?” His confusion grew, and eyes widened with looming panic.

“No, Dai, I… I can’t go down there…” The Runner showed his bloody hand on camera protruding in the top left corner of the machine.

The yellow layer on his clothes grew thicker during the shared silence. A flowing yellow cloud formed in the air around. Leo reached out behind his head and loosened the straps holding his oxygen mask tight in place.

“Wh- What are you doing?!” Daizo shouted at his end, standing up from his chair.

The visor came down and its digital markers went dark with a sigh. Leo’s young, sweaty face got immediately covered in pollen-like layers. “I want you to see my face. One last time, Dai.”

“Wait, what the fuck, Leo? We can figure this out! Put it back on!”

“I’m sorry, Dai, I was too late, you know how it works. Boss would never let me in, and… It’s for the better,” he forced a slight smile. “What was it the guy said to the girl in that movie? ‘Don’t leave, love can cross oceans,’ right?”

“Don’t say… Stop it!” Wet trails glistened on Daizo’s cheeks.

“I guess there’s a giant fucking mushroom in the middle of ours, Dai. I could kill you if we met again.”

He touched the side of the camera. He had to leave, he knew that from the first glance at his wound. It was strange how many feelings could fit into such a short amount of time. But his own emotional storm subsided and left Leo oddly peaceful.

“I love you, it’s not your fault,” he said at last and turned his back on the vending machine.

“Leo!” Yelled out Daizo, cheeks wet. “No, DON’T LEAVE ME— RE—“

The connection struggled and switched off as planned as the dump got quickly lost in whirling clouds of bright lemon dust with Leo somewhere in it.