They ran.
Branches whipped their faces, the soft earth gave way under their feet, and behind them, the forest came alive — or rather, it awakened. Slowly. Fiercely. Deliberately.
A creeping shiver, almost imperceptible, spread across the trunks. Spores vibrated. The underground hyphae pulsed, like raw veins. The creature didn't move fast — it didn't need to. It could feel. Every step, every breath. It spoke to the earth.
And the earth answered.
A crack to the left. A gelatinous mass to the right. Spores hung in the air like golden dust. But there was nothing golden about it. It was a trap, an offering. A breath of death.
Dylan, leading, cut through a low branch. But he reacted a second too late. It exploded into a rain of white filaments, like a burst seed pod.
"Argh—!"
He fell to his knees. A wet, gurgling sound came from his arm. The spores had touched his bare skin, burrowing into his pores, clinging like velvet claws.
Élisa skidded to a stop. Then turned around.
"No no no no no—"
She reached him, hands already in motion. No panic. She tore open Dylan's sleeve, revealing a forearm where small growths were already sprouting, streaked with dark green veins, pulsating.
"Shit, it took hold!" Maggie growled, eyes wide.
Élisa didn't answer. She pulled out her dagger, steady as stone.
Dylan opened his mouth to protest. But Élisa was faster.
Shlak.
She sliced down his arm in one clean motion, following the line of fungus. Blood gushed out — dark, thick, already coagulating. She plunged two fingers in, hooked the filaments, and tore out the fungal nodules one by one, like digging out ticks.
Dylan screamed.
But he stayed conscious.
"Holy shit, you're insane!" he groaned through clenched teeth.
"I just saved your ass. Shut up."
She spat on the ground, tossed the infected flesh aside, then cauterized the wound with a red-hot stone from her pouch. The smell was vile. Burnt. Fungal. Metallic.
The forest stirred. The hyphae felt the loss, the rejection. So it adapted. It accelerated.
Behind them, new buds opened. Figures, vaguely human, emerged from the trees, fused with the bark, animated by an invisible web.
"She's waking the former hosts," Élisa whispered.
Maggie slowly stepped back, eyes locked on one of them. A half-dissolved face, a jaw barely hanging, but spores alive in its eye sockets.
"We're out."
They bolted again, Dylan leaning on Élisa, still dazed.
Maggie brought up the rear, cutting a path. But the forest was no longer a jungle. It had become a living organism. And now, it wanted them.
Dylan's arm felt paralyzed. Numb and foreign, like a dead weight pulsing faintly — as if something, or someone, refused to let go.
He looked away, unable to face it, his teeth clenched.
Élisa still held him, panting, brows knit in icy focus. She carved a path through the writhing roots and brambles, ignoring Dylan's tremors, ignoring everything except the goal: run.
But Maggie suddenly stopped. Dylan saw her turn, staring at what was approaching.
And what he saw made his blood freeze.
Creatures, half-flesh, half-fungus. Disjointed figures, rotted, reassembled by nature itself. The fungal filaments had rooted in their flesh, wrapping them like a second skin.
Tiny mushrooms sprouted from their bodies — some poking from empty sockets, others replacing fingers, or growing between exposed ribs. But the worst… were the ones that still had their eyes.
Frozen stares. Pleading. Trapped in final moments of terror. Prisoners still conscious in a body that no longer belonged to them.
Dylan shuddered. He'd almost ended up like that.
These shambling horrors were nothing more than will-less puppets, disorganized, but their numbers… weren't to be underestimated.
It was like this creature had been collecting hobgoblins for sport.
Maggie raised her axe. No cry. No curse. Just action.
She struck.
And struck again.
Rotten flesh tore apart easily. Limbs dropped. Spores flew.
But there were too many. Too many, and immune to pain. Lose an arm — they kept coming. Split a torso — they crawled.
And Maggie… was being pushed back.
Not overwhelmed yet, but surrounded. Shallow breaths. A bead of sweat trailing down her neck. She spun, axe bloody, forming a shaky defensive ring.
Dylan felt a chill up his spine.
Not a breeze — a jolt of electricity.
As if something in his arm — or through his arm — was watching him.
"Élisa…" he muttered, voice shaky.
She glanced at him.
"It's not over. My arm… I don't know…"
He didn't finish.
A spike of pain shot to his shoulder. A twitch, almost invisible, rippled through his dead hand.
And in his veins, something was still growing.
---
The pain hit without warning.
His arm swelled before their eyes, the skin turning a bruised purple streaked with sickly green. The wound oozed a yellowish, viscous fluid, bubbling with each heartbeat. Dylan gasped. Each breath burned his throat, like the pain was trying to strangle him from inside.
He staggered. Then collapsed, kneeling in the mud, fingers trembling. His free hand reached for his machete. Grabbed it.
A silent scream trapped in his throat.
He raised it.
"I don't wanna end up like them…" he rasped. "I don't…"
His eyes locked on his arm as if it belonged to someone else. As if he'd already disowned it. This alien mass, pulsating, rotten from within.
The blade brushed his shoulder.
But Élisa lunged.
With a sharp movement, she stopped his arm.
"Hey! Don't do that!" she barked, eyes locked on his, voice like a slap.
Dylan trembled. He wanted to fight. He wanted to end it. Cut it off, now. But she didn't flinch.
"Look at me, Dylan." She forced eye contact.
"You've got a shot. But not like this. Not with some desperate amputation." Her jaw clenched, speaking fast. "These spores… yeah, they're inside you. But you can kill them. Purge them. You've done it before, haven't you? Didn't you expel negative energy and soul fragments the first time?"
Dylan blinked. Breathing ragged.
"Your spiritual core hasn't formed yet. It's gonna be slow. And it's gonna hurt like hell. But it'll work if we find a safe spot. If you breathe. If you calm the fuck down."
She stepped back slightly, hands raised. Not to disarm him. But to let him choose.
"So? You wanna end up some dumb, one-armed, less-hot version of yourself, or do you wanna live — and make them burn from the inside out?"
There was a beat of silence. Hesitation.
Dylan's heartbeat. The forest's hum. The whisper of flesh.
Then… he dropped the machete.
It hit the dirt with a dull thud.