“Confirmed visual,” Venn whispered. “Category 3 mimic. Mark it.”
She flinched. Oleson gasped beside her. “Sergeant, I heard that. How—” bbdc 7.1
She lowered her rifle.
The deer’s jaw, what remained of it, unhinged. A cloud of golden spores puffed out, and for a second, Venn saw her mother. Standing in their old kitchen, the one before the Sporefall, humming as she kneaded dough. Then her mother’s face cracked, and from the fissures bloomed the same pale fungus. “Confirmed visual,” Venn whispered
“We were your soil,” the thought continued, calm and terrible. “Your cells. Your dead. You built a wall against your own reflection.” Oleson gasped beside her
“They learn,” Venn said. “Last week it was rabbits with ears like listening dishes. Month before, a tree that whispered coordinates. The Mold is testing the fence.”