can you feel your heart burning? can you feel the struggle within? the fear within me is beyond anything your soul can make. you cannot kill me in a way that matters

  -Blog Post, Late 2010s, Author Unregistered

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  The figure stares at us, and we stare back, dead silent in the dark. It doesn’t move. I can’t sense the whisper-scream, the never-ending lure of the other mold-forms, but I also didn’t hear it speak. The words just sort of arrived, half-coherent and carrying with them an implicit threat.

  But it doesn’t move.

  I’m all out of grenades. Frankly, considering how effective they were, I’m a little pissed that I didn’t make more. Without testing them first, there was no way to confirm that they’d be useful, or that I should spend more of my constantly dying savings to get the meat for them, but still, I wish I had.

  And still, it’s just… waiting.

  “Ilia?” Jay asks, his voice quiet. I can see his hands out of the corner of my eye, gripping tightly to knife and flashlight both. His knuckles are pale from the pressure, but I can see the tremor in them, too.

  “Yeah, Jay?”

  “You see it too, right? The… the eyes?”

  I nod.

  “Ok. Just checking. Feels very weird to look at.”

  State your business for transaction purposes. Trespassing is not allowed in the Mill.

  Jay and I both flinch as the “voice” comes back. Did we cross some kind of threshold, something that allows him to see? Something for later. Focus.

  Get behind the glass. Analyze.

  This thing isn’t as tough-looking as the “slug” corpse, or as loud, but the voice is clearer, somehow. When it “speaks”, I hear more than vague impressions- there’s intention behind the words that weren’t there for the other one.

  State our business for transaction purposes.

  “Transaction purpose… is to acquire fresh samples of product.”

  The head of the dead man falls to one side, stiff and yet altogether too fast for the movement to seem human.

  Samples are not for sale to unregistered customers..

  It’s… it’s a lot of fucking words to understand, all at once. I-

  “We- I. I wish to register as a customer. I have the sample. If we do that, there’s no problem, right?”

  Silence in the mill, save for the sound of my breathing. Harsh. Are there spores here? Alongside the mold? It wouldn’t make sense for there to be, otherwise we’d have seen growths of it separate from the tendrils, it wouldn’t need lures. It’s fine. We’re fine.

  Fuck. Fuck. I let my fear get the better of me. I should’ve stayed in town. I got-

  Registration is allowed for willing customers.

  I blink.

  Get back behind the glass. You’re slipping. Focus.

  “What… what does registration entail?”

  “Ilia!”

  “Jay, stop. I don’t… I don’t have any more grenades, ok? I- Let me fix this. I don’t want you to get hurt.”

  No harm to customers. Customers are required for [Propagation]

  That sound… that wasn’t right. That wasn’t like the rest of them. It was louder, somehow, and even as it speaks I can hear it “echo” in the mold around us. Trails of it, thick strands across the floor, from the ground and walls and shadows, vibrating in tune with words that aren’t real, that speak in scent more than sound.

  It… It clicks on something. In my mind.

  Skills: Glimpse Beyond

  Yeah. Like that. Just like that, in fact. Is it… is it like a skill? Something that they have, in place of my own abilities? How does that work?

  Around every corner, another unknown. Another strange impossibility. Another set of symbols in patterns that I don’t understand, but which point me towards something unknown.

  Could be this fucking kills me. Could be it changes everything. I won’t know… unless I explore.

  I shouldn’t have brought Jay here. That was my mistake. I shouldn’t have let him help me. I should have done this alone, so that it wouldn’t hurt him if I get hurt, so that he wouldn’t get hurt in the first place. It’s my mess. It’s my responsibility.

  Fuck it. We ball.

  Two options. Prepare a counter, some sort of trick we can use to strike at this thing while it’s unprepared… or I risk myself. Act as a distraction, whatever the cost, and make sure that Jay gets out.

  Only one option doesn’t include Jay. This thing wants… something. I don’t know what, but something, most likely the very same concept that pinged my mind earlier. It’s mold, right? It wants to spread. If I can keep its attention, then maybe, just maybe, Jay can get behind it, properly harm it somehow.

  But there are… so many unknowns. And only one, single way that I can think of which guarantees that I keep its attention entirely.

  Stolen novel; please report.

  The “big guy” killed me in a heartbeat. All it took was for it to touch me, and it pulled me apart, killed me dead. I don’t know what this new thing can do… which means that I don’t know it won’t do the exact same fucking thing to Jay.

  I should never have let him come. I should never have let him help me. He’s already too close to this, and it’s all my fucking fault.

  “Ok. Ok. I… what’s your name? You have one, right? A name? We need a name, if we’re going to negotiate terms. A contract. You want to do that, right? Negotiate?”

  Silence in the mill… followed by a clicking sound. A whirring, one that oozes wetly at its edges. The man in the ill-fitting, gray suit twitches, and I can hear something in him, like the sound of something wet moving against something long-dried. I… for a moment, I think I see the grey in its eyes, shifting and roiling, like carpet being pulled along inside a window.

  N… name.

  I wave a hand to Jay, ushering him towards the door. I don’t look at him. I don’t turn away from him. I try my fucking hardest to do nothing to indicate to the thing in the suit that I remember he’s there, in the hopes that it will reciprocate. It’s silent, unspeaking, but the sounds I hear inside of it seem to echo for that fact.

  I am the manager of the mill, it says. If it could be said that a smell might seem unsure, this one most certainly does. But it has said it, and it doesn’t… feel wrong.

  Can it lie? Is there enough of it to lie? Is it even sapient, or just… aware?

  Operate on the assumption that it’s sapient and cognizant. Assume that it’s capable of lying, and be pleasantly surprised otherwise if you’re wrong. Focus. Track the steps.

  I have the Glove- useless without getting into contact with this thing. Scalpels and needles and other gear-bits, things I can use as a weapon but which aren’t designed for it, not on purpose. It’s something to magnify my ability to modify other constructs down the line, designed to put things together more than take them apart en-masse. I have the totem, in my bag, a tool I haven’t had a chance to use, be it as a scout or otherwise. My first experiment in… something more, brought here for the sake of “maybe”.

  The grenades were… like, the whole thing. I wasn’t prepared for this. For all my best efforts, all the righteousness of my logic, I wasn’t ready.

  I need knowledge. Almost as much as knowledge, maybe more, I need weapons. I need to keep…

  I need to keep Jay safe.

  I don’t look over. Please. Please be moving. Please be moving. Go to the door. Get out.

  I am the manager of the mill. You are a customer of the mill. The customers wishes for transaction. Transaction for samples.

  “Yeah, big guy. That’s right. I’m just here for some samples, ok? Some information and some samples.”

  This transaction can be undertaken.

  “Ok. Ok. What… uh, what are you… selling? Or buying?”

  Move. Move, Jay. Walk to the door. Let me know you’re there. Let me hear the door opening. Be safe. Please.

  It was stupid to let him help me. Stupid to come here without reconnaissance. I’m scared, and I let it make me stupid, stupid enough that I rushed into this and let him decide to risk himself over my stupid shit.

  The mill desires [Propagation]. The customer desires samples. The customer desires… information.

  Samples = [Propagation]. This transaction is acceptable.

  Information is… expensive.

  Negotiations.

  First- verify status as customer.

  And it reaches out a hand.

  I thought the hands were human entirely, as pale and thin as they are, but they’re only as human as its face.

  Where the palms should be, there is instead torn-open skin, ragged and ripped. The same tearing and violence extend to the fingers of the hand, like it’s gripped something that’s eaten away at it entirely.

  Beneath where the skin should be, there is grey. Not the grey of dead flesh, of disease, of even decay… just grey. Furry and shifting, like carpet being pulled through a window.

  A sound. A little whisper, coming from behind the manager.

  It’s almost nothing. I barely hear it, and I pretend so fucking hard that I don’t, because the whole point is that I want him to leave.

  I reach out a hand to shake.

  The manager-corpse reaches back, the soft fuzz of the mold shifting like grasses in the wind, growing ever so slightly out of the palm as if in anticipation-

  Jay steps up from behind the grey-thing and shoves the knife into its back.

  The corpse makes no sound, save for the tearing of its skin beneath the blade. It does not exhale, or “say” anything- but its neck crackles as it turns, a full 180 degrees, to stare down at Jay.

  I don’t see what it shows him, but his eyes are wide, and I think I hear him whimper as the skin around the head of the manager’s face tightens, pulling open the orifices such that I can see the edges of its mouth extending. A scream without sound, gaping open to unveil-

  I grab the thing by the sleeve, pulling it towards me and off-balance.

  No time to let myself regret or feel confused. Jay committed to this, so now I have to, and we need to move.

  The corpse-manager staggers, but the movement is almost insectile, like something that doesn’t really use muscles or joints the way that the shape it holds would imply. It’s fast, fast enough that I can’t-

  NON-CUSTOMER INTERFERING WITH [PROPAGATION]

  The whole mill starts to go wild, the ground and walls and shadows roiling and churning- I can hear the wood creak, the sound of an old building held still for years and years suddenly settling and waking and moving. It ends quickly, the energy brief but abrupt, and for a moment, I feel a sense of deja-vu, of pulling flesh from out of walls as they shudder.

  And the manager skitters, spasms, collapses in towards Jay, ignoring me entirely- which leaves its back and side open to me doing an attack all my own. I never actually let go of my knife, and I shove it forward like I’m pushing it into a wall. I feel the suit tear, more like stiff leather than cloth, and the skin beneath it, almost like paper, cut open with an audible shearing sound- and then the mold.

  It’s like punching into a rotten orange, offering too little resistance and too much feedback at once. That’s not what a person feels like. It’s barely how a body feels like. There is a ghost of a ribcage, something harder than the surrounding tissue but brittle, and I feel the mold shuffling, something of it moving against the blade that’s almost like a heartbeat.

  And the face turns to me.

  Its eyes are so wide, they take up more than half its face. It’s like the skin has been disconnected from the underlying tissue and then pulled back, scrunched towards the back such that each eye is wider across than a fist. I don’t even see any skull, I don’t even see any bone, just shifting mold and the grey fungal matter it has created. The mouth gapes wide, the teeth wiggling, and-

  The teeth are wiggling, the roots pulling up and forward like worms, beaked by enamel taken from the man that was and no longer is. They reach for me like a new set of fingers, crawling out of the mouth as the face deforms, more alien than it would be if it had never looked human in the first place.

  I twist the knife, kick at his fucking knee, and as I feel something pop beneath my bootheel, run.

  Jay sees me moving and sprints ahead of me, the both of us dashing madly towards the door. It clicks open, half-stops against a mass of mold that rises up as if to trap us, but it’s too slow. Jay rips the door open and throws himself past, glancing back only long enough to see if I’m still behind- and his eyes widen as they catch on something behind me.

  I can’t help myself. In spite of the glass, in spite of how badly I am trying to keep myself intact, I can’t help myself, and turn to look.

  Its arms are so long.

  Its legs are like sticks, vast and stretched and horrifying, allowing it to move in jerking movements that skitter towards me.

  And its face…

  The smell alone screams at me, louder than anything I’ve ever heard and entirely, inhumanly silent.

  NO TRESPASSERS IN THE MILL

  7-8 ish (it's fluctuating with this week's mad dash!) chapters on Patreon and more to come!

  And just for funsies, here's the discord!