00:05 AM — 15th October

Vermillion University.

Mushroom Research Center.

Noah runs through the corridor. He grabs his lab coat from the hook without stopping, the fabric swinging behind him as he moves. His sleeves carry the chill of the night air, boots still wet from melted snow, leaving thin marks on the floor as he reaches the Field-Simulation Wing. His breath races when he grips the handle. He pulls the door open.

“Holly. shit.”

Noah stands still, eyes wide, then rubs them hard, trying to confirm he is awake and the sight before him is real.

The room explodes with mushrooms.

❧

Flammulina ononidis, described in every textbook as a rare late-autumn species with slow winter rhythms and bloom cycles that overwhelm entire research teams, now surges in violent waves across metal and tile, branching in thick ropes that push against vents and lights as if the room no longer holds enough space for them.

They seeded the batch only yesterday; now the chamber looks overtaken by a force that should need months, even years.

His eyes drop to the protocol panel beside the door.

Numbers bloom on the screen in frantic lines.

The sudden change in temperature when the snow arrived without warning, then the rise again during the day, must have pushed every dormant line of growth into motion. Moisture jumps dramatically from fifty-four percent to eighty-one, turning the chamber into a rain forest under dim lights. A strange electric lift runs through his sleeves when he moves, a dry crackle sliding over his skin and settling along his throat, as if the air carries its own charge.

Ren arrives ten minutes later, eyes wide, face drained of color as he looks from the room to Noah.

“What is happening?” he asks, voice cracking. “Why did the CO₂ level suddenly spike like that?”

It sounds as if the air inside the chamber reaches him from the doorway, tightening his throat mid-sentence.

Noah exhales, hand pressing hard against his temple, a dull pulse rising under his palm. “Come and see for yourself.”

Ren steps forward slowly, boots brushing against the swollen mycelial sheets creeping toward the door.

“We need to record this and report to the faculty in the morning.” Ren said while lifting his phone. “I’ve never heard of anything close. The conditions line up with the textbook, yet this scale…” His words trail away as he circles one of the racks. “This level makes no sense.”

He stops beside Noah, gaze locked on the rising bloom. “What do we do with the flammulina? This many?”

Noah pauses for a moment, then says with careful consideration, “Finish the recording, collect and reserve samples, seal the door, and file the report to Prof. Aldric for an urgent meeting in the morning.”

“Noah,” Ren calls out, one hand still holding the device while the other wipes the fog gathering over the lens, a soft smear that returns the moment he clears it. “The camera refuses to clear.” He tries again, yet moisture climbs back in a thin white film that swallows the frame before any image settles.

Noah raises his own phone. “They’re useless in here,” Noah says. “Humidity, spores, static… all of it hits at once.”

Ren stares at the bloom swallowing the chamber. “Then we take notes by hand. Samples too. Anything we can trust.”

They move together through the messy space, writing fast, gathering what they can, unaware that the strangest turn in Vermillion has barely begun.