Judgment Day of the Solitary Fungus

 The cave was dim and damp, illuminated only by the faint bioluminescence emitted from the plants. Vines twisted around the stone walls in dark green, deep purple, and dense black, like large, entangled snakes. A black insect stumbled in, sporting six hard wings and three mouthparts. The next moment, a giant deep purple bulge appeared amidst the tangled vines, swiftly splitting open like a gaping mouth. In the blink of an eye, it snapped shut, devouring the insect. The cluster of vines slowly began to move, and the swollen part gradually retracted, returning to its original state. Sounds resembling flapping wings echoed through the cave. A drop of mucus trailed by a translucent filament fell from the cave's ceiling, splattering into the sticky moss below. They wriggled slightly, and the sparkling droplet was quickly absorbed, disappearing without a trace on the ground. In a corner—illuminated by the glow of green fungi. Where rocks and soil meet, white surged forth like a tide, covering a vast area with snowy-white mycelium. It grew, spread, and extended billions of tentacles, eventually moving towards the center, converging, elongating—a form took shape. A foot stepped onto the thick, soft moss, which engulfed it, leaving only the snowy-white ankle exposed. Anzhe observed his ankle—a human limb, supported by a skeleton, muscles, and blood vessels, with joints that could move but were not flexible due to the constraints of the bones. The keratin layer formed nails, rounded and transparent, a degenerate relic from the sharp claws of beasts. He lifted his leg, took a step forward, the previously indented moss wet and elastic underfoot, gathering back up after his departure like upright earthworms. This time, his foot encountered something else—a human skeletal arm. In the dim light, Anzhe gazed at the skeleton. Fungi and vines had taken root deep within its bones; dark green vines entwined around the pelvic and leg bones, while bright-colored tiny mushrooms grew on the ribs, resembling blooming flowers. Fluorescent mushrooms emerged from its hollow eye sockets, their green light like fine, flowing sand, blurred in the cave's mist. Anzhe looked at it for a long time. Finally, he bent down and picked up a beast-skin backpack lying next to the skeleton. The items stored inside were unspoiled by moisture: clothes, human food and water, along with a palm-sized blue chip engraved with the numbers: 3261170514. Three days ago, this skeleton was a living human. "3261170514," the young human's voice was hoarse and intermittent, lit up by the cave's eerie green fluorescence, "This is my ID card. With it, I could return to the human base." Anzhe asked, "Can I help you return?" The human smiled slightly, fingers hanging limply by his side, the chip rolling from his hand into the uneven moss. He leaned against the cave wall, lifting his head, his left hand on his chest—where a massive wound was. Gray-white bone spurs pierced from the chest through the back, the surrounding skin rotting away, partly gray-white and fibrous covering the bone surface, while another part showed a dark green hue, rhythmically pulsing with each breath, dripping gray-black turbid fluid. Gasping for air, he whispered, "I can't return, little mushroom." His shirt was soaked through, skin pale, lips chapped, body trembling irregularly. Anzhe watched him, unsure what to say, softly uttering the young human's name, "Anzhe?" "You're nearly fluent in the human language." The human looked down at his body. Apart from pus and bloodstains, his body was covered in snow-white mycelium, part of Anzhe's body. The mycelium wriggled and adhered tightly to the wounds all over Anzhe's limbs and torso. The mushrooms intended to staunch the dying man's wounds, but instinctively, the mycelium also absorbed and digested the fresh blood that seeped out. "Eating my genes enables you to learn so much? This place's pollution index is indeed high," the human said. Fragments of knowledge unfolded in Anzhe's mind, and after a five-second transition, he understood that the pollution index meant the rate of gene transformation. Now, human genes flowed through Anzhe's blood into his body. "Perhaps… after I die, if you consume my entire body… you might gain a lot more," Anzhe looked at the cave ceiling, a weak smile on his face, "Then, I seem to have done something meaningful, though I'm not sure if it's good or bad for you." Anzhe didn't speak. His entire body moved toward Anzhe, his newly-formed human arms embracing Anzhe's shoulders, a flood of mycelium swelling around them, propping up his faltering body. In the quiet cave, only the dying human's breaths could be heard. After a long while, Anzhe finally spoke again: "My existence was meaningless." "…No outstanding qualities; it was normal they abandoned me. Actually, I'm glad I'm not returning to the human base, which is just like the wilderness, where only... those of value can survive. I've wanted to die for a long time. I just didn't expect to meet a gentle creature like you before I died, little mushroom." Anzhe didn't quite grasp the meaning of those terms, like value, like death. He caught the term again, human base. Leaning on Anzhe's shoulder, he said, "I want to go to the human base." Anzhe: "Why?" Anzhe waved his left arm in the air, as if trying to grasp a wisp of void, but caught nothing. Just like his body. His body was empty. A vast void emerged from the deepest recesses of his shell, impossible to fill or heal, followed by boundless emptiness and panic, entwining him day after day. He organized the human language, slowly saying, "I lost… my spores." "Spores?" "My… seeds." He didn't know how else to explain. Every mushroom in its life will have spores, some countless, some only one. Spores are the seeds of a mushroom. They emerge from the gills, scattering in the forest to any spot, rooting, and becoming a new mushroom. Then, this mushroom also gradually grows, owning its spores. Nurturing spores to maturity is a mushroom's only mission in life, but he lost his only spores before they matured. Anzhe slowly turned his head, Anzhe could hear the creaking sounds his bones made as they turned, like an old human machine. "Don't go there," the human's voice was hoarse, speeding up, "you'll die." Anzhe repeated the term again: "...die?" "Only humans can enter the human base. You won't escape the scrutineer's eyes." Anzhe coughed a few times, then took a difficult breath, "Don't go... little mushroom." Anzhe regretted telling Anzhe about wanting to go to the human base. If he hadn't told Anzhe, Anzhe wouldn't have spent his last moments trying to stop him. He might have listened to a story from Anzhe, or perhaps, led him out of the dim cave for one last look at the auroras in the sky. But Anzhe's eyes would never open again. The fleeting memory dissipated into the air, just like Anzhe's life suddenly vanished from this world, leaving Anzhe with only a snowy white skeleton before him. But still, he chose to defy Anzhe's wishes. He slowly opened his fingers. In the palm of his hand, softly lying there, was a brass-colored, metallic, cylindrical bullet case, heavy with inscrutable yet undoubtedly unusual engravings—his possession since losing his spore, never letting go. If there was still a one in ten thousand chance he could find his spore, then this chance lay in this bullet case, a human creation. With a soft sigh, he placed the bullet case in the beast-skin backpack Anzhe left behind, bent down, and picked up the clothes Anzhe once wore. The blood-stained greyish-white long-sleeved shirt, black hard strap pants, black leather boots. After completing these actions, he walked towards the cave exit. Walking, the slightly loose clothes rubbed against his skin, sending fine electrical currents from the embedded nerve endings to his central nervous system. Anzhe, using a human form for the first time, was unaccustomed. He frowned, rolling up the sleeves of the loose shirt. The cave was long and winding. The walls were filled with entangled vines, which receded like the tide as Anzhe passed, coiling at the cave's ceiling. After three turns, the wind blew in, damp and moist. Mushrooms parted the hanging dead vines at the cave mouth. Mushrooms, his kind, stretched out into the distance from close to far, seemingly reaching the sky, everything so quiet, without a sound. Between the shades of the mushroom caps, dim daylight filtered in, the sky gray, flickering with scattered green glows. Anzhe smelled rain, mist, snake skin, and decaying plants. It was still evening. He sat under the canopy of the nearest grey-white mushroom at the cave entrance, taking out a dusky yellow map from the backpack. The map featured varying shades, indicating the danger levels of different areas. Anzhe once pointed out to Anzhe their approximate location in the cave, the darkest part of the map, signifying a six-star danger and pollution level called "The Abyss." The map marked the Abyss area with numerous strange symbols. Anzhe checked each against the index in the map's lower right corner. These symbols meant that the Abyss was home to densely populated mushrooms, man-eating vines, man-eating bushes, simple mammalian monsters, hybrid mammalian monsters, ordinary reptilian monsters, highly venomous reptilian monsters, winged monsters, amphibious monsters, multi-type hybrid monsters, humanoid monsters... Alonside, there were valleys, hills, mountains, human ruins, and road remnants within the Abyss. With north on top and south below, his gaze settled on the map's upper-right corner, a pure white area marked with a bright red pentagram by the name: Northern Base. The green light in the sky grew brighter, darkening further into black at midnight. Anzhe barely recognized the stars in the sky, knowing the brightest to be Polaris, a guide to direction. Thus, he aligned the map's upper-left corner arrow toward Polaris, stepping over decayed wood, fallen leaves, mycelium, and mud, walking step by step outside. Night wasn't dark. The sky, with its shifting green lights—called auroras by humans—illuminated everything ahead. Anzhe's vision was filled with mushrooms. Yellow, red, brown, mushrooms with massive caps. Small ones, clustering densely on the rocks. Round spore bags scattered on the ground, maturing to burst forth spore showers like mist. These spores landed, splitting in the damp leaf-mud, growing into their parents' spherical form. Some mushrooms had no caps, just white or yellow tentacles, clumped together or radiating apart, floating in the air like seaweed. But this wasn't a world of mushrooms alone. Vines, moss, bushes, carnivorous flowers, and strangely shaped trees silently lurked in the night. Amid the flora, shadows, peculiar forms, beasts, or hybrids of humans and beasts, roamed, howled, and fought in the wilderness. Animals fought animals, animals fought plants, or plants fought plants. High and low howls hit Anzhe's eardrums. Rocks and mud mixed with various fresh blood traces. He witnessed a pine tree bending its trunk to devour a black-scaled snake with two tails. He also saw a toad—a giant toad—extending its bright red tongue to wrap around a bat with human arms, swallowing it. Five minutes after consuming the bat, a pair of black wings grew on its bumpy and mucus-covered spine, softly curled. This was but one of countless scenes Anzhe saw, already accustomed. At that moment, a grey beast approached. It had four eyes, covered in scales, feathers, and fur. Its head resembled a crocodile's and a giant wolf's, with seven teeth protruding from its lips. It approached Anzhe, sniffing him with its blood-red nose. Anzhe remained still, leaning quietly next to a mushroom, breathing evenly until thoroughly inspected. The gigantic creature, seemingly finding nothing of interest, lumbered away. Anzhe realized nothing would notice him, even in a human shell—perhaps because mushrooms were commonplace here, devoid of nutrition or aggression, sometimes even toxic. Thus, he and they seemed to be from two different worlds, peacefully coexisting. Maybe as Anzhe said, he was just a small mushroom.