Page 3 of Mushy Stuff
I immediately get out my phone and begin taking photos and videos. I lay down on the ground carefully to take a few selfies with flowers and mushrooms around me, then I get back up and continue exploring. I make it all the way across the glade and stop at the edge of it to record a video for my followers.
I switch my phone to selfie mode and find my best angle before I hit record. “Hi, fellow mushy-heads, you will not believe all the mushrooms I’ve found here! I’ve never seen mushrooms like these before! There are so many shapes and colors, and all of them growing alongsideeach other! It’s a perfect mushroom paradise. Oh my gods, what if I’m discovering NEW mushrooms! What if they let me name…” I go quiet as I notice something behind me. It’s some type of shadow. I stare into the shadows, but I can’t make out anything. I shake the worry off; it’s probably just a large bush playing tricks on my eye. I focus back on the camera and pick up where I left off. “What if they let me name some? How amazing would that be? Oh! Maybe we can do a poll, and everyone can weigh in on the names! Then it would be like everyone…” I see movement behind me in the video, and I go still. That was definitely something. I’m facing the clearing, so everything behind me is cloaked in shadows and dim. But I can see a shape there. It’s a shape like a man…but not a man…and has antlers. It has glowing yellow eyes that seem to be studying my body.
Oh gods, what is this?
It’s a monster.
It’s a monster and it’s going to eat me.
This can’t be real. It can’t be real. I try to keep my breathing even, and I slowly start to lower my phone. I turn around to look at it, and oh gods. It’s huge. It’s so tall that I barely come up to its chest. It has large dark antlers, and fur that looks a lot like moss. But it stands up like a man and has the face of a man. It has menacing looking claws.
Oh gods! It has blood on its hands and arms and smeared all over its mouth and chest.
For a moment I can’t move or make any noise, I can’t even breathe.
Then I scream as loud as I possibly can.
Chapter 3
It’slikeeverythingishappening all at once, but I’m seeing all of it in slow motion.
The moment I start screaming, I also turn to run across the clearing. As I’m turning, I see the monster pause as if startled by me. Then I see it reach for me with those long claws, and I take off.
I run as hard and as fast as I can across the glade. I make it across, and then I’m in the woods again. I make a straight line to the creek.
Maybe this is what the people in town were warning me about.
If I make it across the creek, will it be able to follow me? Considering its size, I don’t know how the monster hasn’t caught me yet, but I refuse to look behind me and risktripping. The creek is mercifully just ahead, and I push as hard as I can towards it.
I’m a mere two steps away from splashing into the water when I slam into something that feels like a wall. It knocks all the air out of me, and I fall to the ground. I see a glimpse of the sky through the trees and then everything goes dark.
***
Wold
She ran from me.
Of course she did. I expected her to be terrified of me.
I follow her at a slow pace. I could easily catch her and overpower her, but I don’t want to scare her more than I already have. And I don’t want to hurt her. I just want to see what she does.
Then I realize that she is running for the creek.
The creek is a border between our realms, and sometimes there are thin spots in the magic there. She must have come through a thin spot at the creek, but now it has closed up. She is going to run into a magical wall.
I open my mouth to yell for her to stop, but it has been ages since I last spoke to someone. My voice comes out in a raspy growl. I doubt she heard me, and even if she did, it would have only made her more afraid.
I’m too far away to possibly stop her, all I can do is helplessly watch as she hits the wall and collapses.
I run to her side. She is still breathing, but unconscious. I pick her up and carry her to my cave of mushrooms.
While I carry her, I can practically feel her scent sinking into me. It’s like it’s becoming a part of me, like she is becoming part of me. I don’t understand it.
Once we get to the cave, I lay her on a flat, moss-covered boulder in a darkened chamber of the cave. I keep myself busy, tending to the varieties of mushrooms that I have so carefully cultivated here while I wait for her to wake. I have some mushroom clusters that have grown too large and are ready for division, so I spend my time very carefully dividing them. This type of mushroom is fragile and can fall apart if I am not careful. But I am distracted by this human. I destroy more than one cluster when I stop to check on her due to the little noises she makes in her sleep.
Chapter 4
Ohgods,mywholebody hurts. I crack my eyes open expecting bright sunlight, but wherever I am it is dark and shadowy.
