Chapter Text
Five hours.
FIVE. HOURS, of aimlessly wandering.
Or at least it's what Howard Plunkett remembered.
"Oh, how pathetic I am..." The man in brown grumbled to himself. He shouldn't have lingered long outside, he should have listened to his guts when it screams to 'seek the labs'. Instead, he decided to "just explore for a few moments!," he told himself that.
...
It's been hours since the 'exploration'. One step off the track, and now he's in God knows where! It didn't get any better now that the sun is setting. A lantern is all he had at the moment, and should it dies, he will be at the mercy of whatever was lurking behind him, he can feel it. Eyes on him. Howard is deadly terrified of the dark, he doesn't know what he could do to himself, or to others, when the fear finally gets to him.
SPLAT
Plunkett froze for a moment, his eyes discreetly darted to the shadows, hoping that he hadn't been noticed. Besides, the lantern in his hand is noticeable enough. But then again, he doesn't have high hopes. If a molten man captures him, he will end up dead, that's for sure.
"I must move and find shelter before it gets worse...," the brown-hatted lad sped up, his footsteps echoing through the dense foliage. Oh so quiet, yet so loud... How could he not hear everything when he's the only one making noise? He was never alone in the first place. The creature - a molten man - closed the gap. So quiet despite the state of its body, it slithered slowly through the damp grass. Hunger is what fueled it, the pursue for flesh has never been more exciting now that it finally has something fresh and alive to consume.
So close...just a bit more-
The creature looked down at its grounded body, and beneath it - mold - yellow, sticky, and very much alive. Slime mold, it seemed. And in that very moment, the colors, if there were anything like that in the first place, drained from its face. Something else was after it, and the predator...has become the prey.
Gone was the molten man.
...
"H-huh?" Howard looked back as he heard the wail, but there was nothing. 'Somebody was here', he thought, or to be precise, used to be.
"Hello?," he called out to the forest, and nothing answered. "I must be paranoid..." the man thought to himself, as he set foot onto...a mold colony? It was gigantic, for an organism considered so small. Yes, he knows that fungi is much bigger when what the eyes can observe, he's read about that before. Being a straight As student back in his teenage has its benefits.
"Didn't know it gets so cool and humid here.," Plunkett exclaimed, his eyes narrowed slightly. "Philip would be interested, he's always been like that... Oh Philip, I wonder if you're doing well..." He sighed, as he kept moving forward.
No sooner had his own thoughts left him than he encountered an abnormality. A forest, or so to speak. Denser than anything he's come across so far, with every 'tree' around him being a giant fungi. Mushrooms, of different shapes and sizes, towered over him. Some edible, some poisonous, some glowed, even. Under his feet and draping over each 'trees' were mold, white, black, green, orange... He could only name so many, he's never been an expert in this field.
"Oh my..." Howard murmured under his breath. And here he thought the blood-thirsty flowers he met on the way here was weird. "Can penicillin even be extracted from these things?" A thought flashed through the man's mind, as he poked at a 'bush' of puffy, green and white mold. "It can make a fortune for a medicine company," his thought drifted for a moment, and the brown-hatted man snickered to himself.
Peace can only last for so long, until it was forcefully broken by a cackle. Borderline on hysteria, it echoed through the fungi forest, starting from nowhere, yet everywhere at once. "Who's there?!" Howard shouted, immediately shot up from his spot and swung the lantern at the source of the voice. Nothing responded, which made it worse, because the voice had gone quiet, too.
It is aware.
Thud, thud, thud-
Heavy footsteps was heard, the sound sent shivers up Howard's spine. He can't fully register it, but it gave him the image of a carcass walking towards him, dragging its rotten, bloated legs. Unease got the better of him, and soon, Howard was shaking, the light from his lantern and the bioluminescent from the fungi did nothing to alleviate the situation.
"Howard Plunkett."
A voice called out his name, masculine, and monotonic. The name danced on its tongue as if a melody, being dragged and whispered. And from the dimply lit ground, the moldy soil shifted. Mycelium structures banded together, overlapping and growing until it formed a shape. Humanoid, yet not quite so. Too tall, to pale, too...human. It leaned downwards, his body twisting in an extreme angle before gazing straight into Howard's eyes with its own bloodshot orb. So to speak, the right half of its face wash nothing but a mass of disfigured flesh, being held together by tiny fungus growth. Yet, it cracked a smile. At him? For him?
"Wh...who are you? What are you?!" Plunkett managed to uttered, he wasn't sure if he was frozen stiff in horror, or was the fungi trapping him in place.
"How rude of me, I should have greeted you another way.," the figure before him chuckled, the tone too soft for the absolute grotesque form presented to him. "Perhaps I should be more welcoming."
Right before his eyes, the mass of fungus shifted again, this time being smaller, yet no less unsettling. Standing there was a man, hair white as the very mold that made of it. He was pale, extremely pale, the shade of corpses that are drained of blood. His remaining eye forever wide and a smile forever worn on his lips. "I know you. Maude spoke about you when he made me this way. A co-creator, no more no less."
The 'man' tilted his head, eye forming a crescent. His skin shifted, as webs of fungi wriggled from his busted arm.
"Now...shall we converse, Plunkett?"