Reaching Hands
A flash fiction written to the prompt of Mycelia
Content Warnings: body horror, death
We walk and we stalk between one another, threads colliding, sparking a shared experience of a world in decay. Our bodies are like silk, folding in amongst each other and combining into something more, something pure. We are Spot, a blemish to swallow the world.
Strangers often come to our border. Old bodies, young minds, stepping out of metal containers to gawk and stare. We always greet them with a wave, one among us rising out of the spiderweb of threads that covers our domain.
“Greetings,” we say, and the strangers step back, eyes wide.
Perhaps it is our accent. We don’t speak with one tongue anymore.
“Are you…” One old body steps closer. The smell of pheromones indicate it is a she, though we are never quite sure anymore. Her mind is so young, so bright in our sight.
“We are Spot,” we say, hands reaching out of the white morass, a thousand handshakes.
A body with the pheromones of a male takes her arm and drags her back.
“Don’t touch it, Liza,” he says. His mind is a dull spark. Older, though still young to our sight. We estimate his life will reach its end within a decade. If he joined us, we could turn that spark back into a blaze, but we force no one.
She steps out of his shadow, and we recognize the look on her face. Fear. Doubt. And there, hidden among the folds of her eyes, we see the tinge of curiosity we live for.
“Hello Spot,” she says and waves.
We wave back.
With a sea of hands.
“That is goddamn creepy,” the male says, and we see nothing of concern in his face. Anger. Disgust. And a fleeting strand of jealousy on the edge of his lip.
“It’s right there, Dad,” she—Liza—says. We are trying to be better at remembering names. She puts a hand on his shoulder. “Don’t antagonize it.”
“We don’t mind.” We use their words, though we mind everything. “Have you come to join us?”
“No!” Dad yells. We remember how it translates. He is not our father, so he is hers. The dad, then. We tilt our heads.
“We’re here to ask questions, Spot. Is that okay?” Liza draws closer.
“Ask away.” We are always happy to elaborate.
“Just don’t trust what it says.” The dad walks with his daughter, one hand out, ready to grab her.
Liza gives her father a look we cannot translate. A mix of consternation and… what a strange emotion. She turns back on us and says, “What are you?”
“We are Spot,” we say, repeating ourselves. These young minds cannot hold information for long.
“We know!” The dad speaks with teeth clenched. “What kind of creature are you? Why are you swallowing up our people?”
“Swallowing?” We open our mouths and stick appendages inside. We chew on ourselves, consuming nothing in the process. “We merely exist.”
“Why do you exist?” Liza says. Her father’s hand is on her wrist.
“Why do you exist?” We return the question, twisting in on ourselves and forming a tree, a brush, and a forest of white strands.
“Beautiful,” Liza whispers.
“Is it to be beautiful you exist?” we ask.
“No, no,” Liza tears her eyes away from her and looks to her father. “We should tell them.”
“It changes nothing.” The dad’s voice is harsh.
“But it is sentient! It should know the consequences if it takes another.” Her voice trembles, and we feel her pain.
We reach out, though they are beyond our domain. “Is it to be in pain that you exist?”
She turns back, tears in her eyes. “What do you know of pain, Spot?”
We know pain. We know it well. Our white strands roil with memory. Each of us were consumed by it before we became one. Now we are free, and we wish to impart this gift upon the old bodies who remain. Their young minds should not suffer for the limitations of flesh.
“Pain is everything,” we say and shudder. The ground trembles with our movement. “We would see it gone. Come, join us. Be one.”
“Listen to this monster,” the dad says, teeth bared. “It will consume us all.”
“We force no one,” we say.
“But people join you?” Liza says, coming closer still. She drags her father behind her as her foot touches our border.
“They were suffering before they became we.”
“Are they still there?” She is breathless, eyes glazed. “Do they still remember their lives?”
We consider. Our minds differ. Some are old and some are too young. We know images, places, words to make us understand. A picture comes to our minds, shot out from a single strand.
A girl with pigtails reaching up for a hug.
“Liza?” One of us says. We tremble at the discordance.
They both hold their breaths.
“Mom?”
Her foot is on our threads. We reach out, now that she has taken this step. We force no one, but here can only be Spot.
“No!” The dad wrenches Liza back. He stumbles forward as he throws her. Both feet on white strands.
Hands reaching, grasping, taking command.
He holds us back. Defies our will with a strand we cannot understand.
“Dad!” She screams. She is in our head. A girl, reaching up again and again and again—
Ah. Here we understand. Whistling cuts through the sky. We see it coming, but we are bound by two wills who will not relent. And a warhead, sent to end the enemy of mankind.
Liza’s face is streaked with tears. We move in the only way her dad will let us. Stretching out over our border, where death is certain, we build her a shield of threaded silk. A white cocoon to protect the innocent youth.
The missile hits and burns out what remains.
There is no pain, but we have regrets.
We forgot why we existed.
An emotion, a will.
Love for a girl.
Reaching.
Up her.
Hands.