The white lights that shine from either side of your helmet illuminate a garbage dump of eclectic organic waste. Much of it appears to be the crusty exoskeletons of insect prey, bones and various indigestibles. Other items are obviously giant in origin. You recognize at least one crust of bread amidst the piles and beside it bits of wrapper. On some of the exposed paper you mark the faded print of alien letters, but nothing approaching a rosetta stone. Most of the words are made illegible by the only shared feature across all the earth chamber's jumbled terrain: the fungus.
A purple creeping mold, it froths across fabric, strings between ciggarette buts and spumes out of hollowed grasshopper heads. Everywhere legions of it advance across floor and cieling, a neverending fibrous muck, its stems dewed with dabs of skeezy water. Rare roads cross the decaying mounds and down one of these your courier departs, having mistakenly classified you as unedible. 'Well at least one thing worked out in my favor,' you start to think. When you take your first step toward escape, however, your foot conjures a plume of spores to counter your optimism. The blast of particles, perfectly aimed for your lungs, sets you off on a seizure of coughing. By locking every muscle in your body you're able to turn it into just a seizure, spasming when the instinct to cough hammers your lungs. Your rib muscles sear in protest with every resistance, but Eleph-ants are still nearby and you don't want to be 'reclassified'. After a minute of this writhing ordeal your system downgrades to wheezing, but that is the extent of your improvement. Fungal spore hangs in the air like pollen above a blooming meadow, only thicker and more virulent -- to your allergies anyway.
Now you face another decision, do you continue on the safe way as you were, each step adding to the spore concentration and possibly poisoning you or do you dare the road and its dense flow of ant traffic? "eeeeeeee," your breath squeals through your continually constricting airway -- 'one thing's sure, I can't stay here.'
Copyright 2000 - 2025 21 x 20 Media All rights reserved. This site is property of 21 x 20 Media
All Writing.Com images are copyrighted and may not be copied / modified in any way. All other brand names & trademarks are owned by their respective companies.
Generated in 0.14 seconds at 4:26pm on Apr 30, 2025 via server WEBX1.
View Portfolio
Visit Notebook
Send Gift Points
Awards
Badges
Send Email
Community Newsfeed
General Discussion
Sponsored Items
Book of Trinkets
Static Items
Books
Groups
Interactive Stories
Audio
Campfire Creatives
Community Notes
Crossword Puzzles
Documents
Folders
Images
In & Outs
Madlibs
Photo Albums
Polls
Product Reviews
Quizzes
Survey Forms
Web Pages
Word Searches
More by this author
