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.

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“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—its 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.