I blinked. The brightness of the skies over the Forgotten Sands had collapsed into the dimly lit, spore-spritzed halls of the Self Help Group’s abandoned ward. I yelped in surprise—and not just at the sight of Brand’s transformed body staring at me a couple inches from my face.

The next thing I knew, an arm pried the two of us apart—much to our hyphae’s dismay—and I found myself staring at Dr. Horosha’s panicked face.

“Dr. Howle!”

Suisei thrusted a console into my hands, which immediately fell because a startled Genneth was very much a klutz. Fortunately, I managed to stop it from hitting the ground at the last second with a well placed spurt of psychokinesis that lifted the PortaCon back into my grasp.

It took me a second to realize it was, in fact, my own PortaCon, and then a couple more seconds after that for me to notice the commotion around me. The incompletely refurbished ward reverberated with a frightened polyphony of gasps and whispers.

“There has just been an explosion in the Ward E’s reception lobby,” Suisei said.

“What!?”

Brand turned to me, his eyes bulging on his burgeoning snout. “Looks like you were right.”

“Right about what?” Suisei asked.

I got up off the stool. “It’s a long story.” I started to walk away.

“What are you doing?” Suisei asked.

“Saving the world,” I guess. I shrugged. “C’mon,” I waved my hand, “let’s go.” I narrowed my eyes at Dr. Horosha. “Also, your days of keeping secrets have ended.”

One of Suisei’s eyebrows crested up behind the visor of his PPE. “Oh really?”

“Yes, really,” I said.

Feeling a frigid, spectral hand tugging at my shoulder, I turned around to see Andalon staring me straight in the eyes, trembling in wide-eyed terror. “It’s coming,” she said. “It’s coming!”

“Is it Andalon?” Suisei asked. He must have seen me staring at nothing.

“Yes,” I answered, glancing away from Andalon for just a moment. “Just hold on.”

Andalon floated out behind me, sitting down on the vinyl floor next to Suisei. She paced around, phasing through the three of us, shaking her hands in distress.

“Andalon, please, talk to me. Use your words.” I swallowed hard. “This incident in the lobby is the darkness, right? The fungus has struck?”

She shook her head. “Nuh-uh.”

“What?” I said.

Suisei looked at me in alarm, but I raised my hand to shush him.

“I thought you said the fungus was coming?” I said.

Andalon nodded. “The darkness is comin’. But it’s not here yet.”

“It’s not here yet. Does that mean things are going to get worse?” I asked.

Tears trickled down Andalon’s cheeks as she nodded vehemently.

Fudge.

My tail twitched with fear—which felt really darn weird, what with how my tail now felt more like my legs than my legs did, which didn’t feel like anything at all.

“What is it?” Suisei asked.

I gulped. “It’s only just begun. The darkness hasn’t arrived yet.” I looked at Andalon askance. “But it soon will be.”

I turned back to Suisei. “Let’s go. You can fill me in on the way.”

“Wha abou me?” Brand asked, pointing at himself with a claw.

“Stay here, and stay safe,” I said.

And with that, we were off. Suisei took the lead as he. After all the time I’d spent inside Lantor, the fleshy reality of being back inside my transforming body hit me like a sledgehammer. If it wasn’t for my perfect wyrm memory, I don’t think I’d have remembered how to walk with the sketchy, stilt-like set-up Brand had arranged for me and my new hazmat suit. Fortunately, I did remember how to do it, so I wasn’t helpless, I was just miserable.

Suisei moved much more quickly than I ever could, and that was before my legs had gone down the tubes. I had to put even more oomph into the psychokinesis I’d woven around my body—to keep myself from falling flat onto my face, and to speed my waddling walk—just to keep up with him. Andalon had much less trouble, following alongside both of us with ease.

I pushed forward until I was abreast of Dr. Horosha. “Alright, tell me what happened.”

“Dr. Marteneiss was there,” Suisei explained. “She saw it. A Type One case’s corpse had been left out in the corner of the reception area, seated on the floor just out of sight. It was overgrown with masses of fungus— fruiting bodies. Dr. Marteneiss said the fruiting bodies burst, spewing spores throughout the room.”

I stared at him in shock. “The corpse exploded? Why is this only happening now!?”

“Nearly two-thirds of our staff have died, as are about half of the soldiers. Just in the past two hours, everything has been grinding to a stop. I expect all of WeElMed’s non-transformee staff to be incapacitated or dead within a day or two. We are in free-fall.”

“Fudge…” I muttered.

Suisei nodded. “Quite.”

We rounded a corner.

“So, what now?” I asked.

“As per quarantine protocol,” Suisei explained, “the reception lobby was sealed, as were many of the surrounding rooms and hallways. Dr. Marteneiss has been leading the effort to gather enough ethyl alcohol to spray down the room before the spores eat through the floor. Once the spores are neutralized, we can begin removing the bodies, be they living or dead.”

“Beast’s teeth…” I muttered.

“It gets worse,” Suisei added, grimly. “High spore concentrations lead to much quicker and more intense fungal growth, which expedites the disease progression. If we do not act quickly, more fruiting bodies might emerge and rupture. The resulting cascade of spores could eat through the building’s walls and structural supports, and bring the roof crashing onto our heads.”

I stared at him. “What…?”

“You heard what I said. At the moment, Heggy has called for a tactical retreat to E Ward’s IT hub in order to assess the damage and figure out the details.”

“We can at least use the mycophage to slow down the progression somewhat,” I said.

Suisei looked at me, perplexed. “I was under the impression that the mycophage did not work.”

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

I sighed. “It doesn’t. Any benefits attributed to the mycophage were really just Andalon’s doing, but the patients don’t know that, nor can they.”

Briefly, genuine hope shone in Suisei’s eyes. “She can stop the disease?” he asked, barely above a whisper.

I shook my head. “No. She can just slow it down a little. That’s all.”

“I… I see,” Suisei said, after a long sigh.

Through my wyrmsight, I could still see the snow-in-a-snowglobe motes of Suisei’s spore-deterring pataphysical weave as they swirled around him, but it was fainter than ever before, its fading brightness coming in pulses.

Suisei might have been one of the few people in the world who hadn’t yet been infected by the Green Death, but he was anything but a picture of good health. His features were sunken and emaciated. Exhaustion was written all over his face.

“Now, what were you expecting me to tell you?” he asked me.

“For starters?” I said. “Everything.”

He smiled gently. “You seem confident I will tell you.”

“I am,” I said, nodding proudly.

He sighed. “I swear on my honor, Genneth Howle, once this latest crisis has passed, I will tell you everything.”

I knew he meant every word.

“And what if it doesn’t?” I asked.

“Then I will tell you everything when it does,” he replied.

“I’m sorry for not trusting you,” I said, softly. “For what it’s worth,” I looked him in the eyes, “it’s been an honor serving beside you, Dr. Horosha.”

He chuckled. “Much appreciated.” He motioned with his head. “Now, enough delay.”

I nodded, and followed.

Suisei pressed the elevator call button as soon as we arrived back in the Administration Building. I plastered my palm against my hazmat suit’s visor as we stepped out on the ground floor, reflexively trying to cover my mouth.

“By the Angel…” I muttered.

Suisei was right, we were in free-fall. And if the poor sod that had detonated in the lobby was any indication, the mounds of bodies I saw piled up like sandbags in E Ward’s rooms and hallways made it clear that the finale the fungus had in store for us was going to be spectacular.

“If all these bodies go the way of the exploded corpse,” I said, “this is gonna be a real firework show, that’s for sure.”

“You are assuming we will live to see it,” Suisei said, with a smirk. “I admire your optimism.”

The bodies of the dead became less and less numerous as we approached the reception area. A handful of still-living people were staggering around in shock. By this point, the only difference between the patients and the healthcare workers were their clothes. This wasn’t the WeElMed I’d come to know over the years. No, it was a waypoint between life and death, and everyone was on their way out.

And yet…

“It’s funny,” I said, softly, “in a way, Dr. Skorbinka wasn’t a failure, after all.”

“The mycophage is not the cure he hoped it would be,” Suisei said. “It is Andalon’s doing, after all.”

“But the people don’t know that. As far as they know, it gives them a little bit more time before they pass.” I bit my lip. “It gives them a chance to say goodbye.” I nodded. “We owe it to the people that got trapped in the lockdown. They deserve better than to die alone and afraid.”

“As do we all,” Suisei said.

Finally, we arrived at the scene of the disaster. The main double-doors leading from Ward E’s heart into its reception lobby had been extended into a plastic airlock tunnel. The tunnel stretched out from the doorway, and was long enough for the six personnel to all stand within it, double-file. They were covered head-to-toe in green hazmat suits, likely fresh out of the matter printers.

Floating out in front of me, Andalon stared blankly at the lobby’s double doors.

To think… if this disaster had happened a couple of days ago, we would have wheeled in cabinets and refrigerators filled to the brim with vital medical supplies: IV fluids, corticosteroids, blood bags, antifungals. But now, all we had were chilled boxes filled with the latest batch of mycophage fresh from the Mark IIIs, as well as transparent plastic aerosol bottles filled with what I hoped was some kind of alcohol.

Suisei spoke up. “Dr. Marteneiss said she was…” He looked around. “There!” He pointed at a nearby open door. “The IT room.”

We walked inside.

An ordered waterfall of plastic-sheathed fiber-optic cables wove one of the walls. The room was relatively small-ish; the long, minimalist desk sitting against the wall opposite the cables nearly spanned the length of the room. The desk had multiple consoles mounted onto it, desktop-computer style. The wall behind them was a cluttered quilt of monitors and switchboards.

From what I could tell, most of the screens on the wall displaying the live feed coming off the cameras of the consoles mounted on the walls of the areas inside the lockdown. The screens were variations of a single scene: people morosely mulling about, somehow managing to be even more on edge than usual. There were still a few stragglers futilely pounding on the lockdown barriers from the inside. Those who tried to find a hidden way out were sorely disappointed as they met either metal barriers or the crossed arms of a soldier or two who’d had the unluck to get trapped in the lockdown with them.

Heggy stood at the nearer end of the long desk, leaning over a microphone stand mounted atop it. A darkly uniformed soldier sat in a swivel chair in front of one of the consoles near the desk’s far end. A door on the far wall flanked a great glass window, through which I could see and hear whole colonnades of thrumming CPUs. The computers’ green LEDs flickered like Vineplain fireflies.

WeElMed could never have enough IT rooms. The hospital’s IT-AI network was a nervous system in its own right—literally so, ever since ALICE had been installed. Tech rooms like this were scattered around the hospital, where they did for our network what ganglions and the thalamus did for the human nervous system.

Unlike the human nervous system, though, I didn’t understand how any of this stuff worked—not in the slightest.

Heggy spoke into the microphone. “Remember, folks, no matter what happens… don’t panic.” Her voice issued forth from loudspeakers hidden in E Ward’s walls and ceilings.

I was disturbed by the way Heggy was speaking. In my experience, Dr. Marteneiss had a knack for exuding calm and confidence, even when your every impulse was to run around like a headless chicken, screaming in terror. But I wasn’t sensing any of that here. There was a tremor to Heggy’s voice, and the microphone magnified it several fold. We could hear her every pause, and each uncertain smack of her lips.

One of the healthcare workers lined up in front of the tunnel spoke up. “Alright, everyone…” He interrupted his own words with a pained cough. “Let’s do this.” His voice was raw and gravelly; it wasn’t the kind of voice that inspired confidence.

Then the team closed the doors at the entrance to the tunnel and engaged the airlock. As I watched, my stressed imagination hyperphantasized the suction-cup sounds the doors would have made as they closed to form their hermetic seal.

Heggy stood up straight and turned to face us.

“Hello boys,” she said, dryly. “Took you long enough to get here,” she added, in a low, breathy mumble.

“I see you started without us,” Suisei said.

“It’s not like we’ve got time to waste, Dr. Horosha,” Heggy said.

I noticed Dr. Marteneiss wasn’t making direct eye contact with us. She’d aimed her gaze low.

I cleared my throat. “Heggy, I—”

She closed her eyes and shook her head. “—Vernon’s in there, you know.”

Oh fudge.

“Angel, Heggy,” I said, “I’m so sorry.”

On instinct, I stepped forward to embrace her, but she stuck out her palm, stopping me.

“Why are you here, Genneth?” she asked.

I inhaled sharply.

Beast’s teeth, that hurt to hear.

And it hurt to see her say it.

“Mr. Genneth.”

I felt Andalon’s tug on me.

“It’s coming!” she said. “It’s coming!” She floated around in front of me.

What do you expect me to do, Andalon? I thought-asked.

“It’s not safe,” she said.

I know.

If something awful didn’t happen in the next five minutes, I’d go to one of our gift shops, buy a hat, and eat it—and not just because I was feeling peckish again.

One of the soldiers with the expedition team spoke up. “Dr. Marteneiss?”

Leaning over, Heggy picked up the microphone. “One sec.”

I turned my attention back to her. She’d asked me why I was here, so… I told her.

“Why am I here?” I said. “I’m here to help, however I can. And to that end… it would be nice if I knew what you were doing here.”

Suisei glanced at one of the screens. “I take it the spray bottles are filled with alcohol?”

Heggy nodded. “It turns out someone in B Ward had set up a moonshine machine. We’ve also got some of the matter printers on alcohol duty. We’ve been grinding up the paintings and paper sculptures on the walls to give the printers organic matter to ferment.”

“And here?” I asked, tilting my head toward the soldier at work at the table.

“We’ve made this tech room into a temporary base of operation,” Heggy said. She pointed at the soldier by the console. “Ian here’s been workin’ triple duty, analyzin’ the footage to figure out what the fuck happened and figure out what the fuck we need to do to prevent it from happenin’ again.”

“Alright, Dr. Marteneiss, we’re going in.”

I saw the interior half of the double doors open on the feed from one of the cameras in the lobby, only to look away as a chair beside the opening doors rose up from the floor of its own accord. For a split second, the feed from the lobby quivered like a mirage.

I swear, I could see sparks kindling in the middle of the air.

And then everything went wrong.

The feeds coming in from the various cameras suddenly diverged from one another and went wild. In one, people moved at triple playback speed, their motions blurring into jittery chaos. In another, time seemed to slow to a standstill. Strange masses encroached on the images, as if fingers were moving to block the cameras. Patches of the images swelled and shrunk, like the space itself was a predator, breathing in the scent of fresh prey.

And the sounds…

I heard screams and moans, crashes and thuds, eerie growls. The sounds cut in and out, fragmenting and reassembling, stretching and shrinking as they dissolved into high pitched chirps and deepest as whale-song, and so many other noises.

The sounds smeared across the audible spectrum until, all at once, they tore themselves to shreds. All the screens cut to softly buzzing static. Our gasps blossomed in the stillness.

Heggy spoke into the microphones. The technician—Ian—went through each and every console in the lockdown area, hoping to hear someone respond, but the result was always the same.

Silence.