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The mushroom's mouth closed slowly, the tiny human teeth disappearing back into the purple-veined cap.
Reven's eyes went blank.
His body slumped forward slightly, head tilting to one side, breath shallow but steady. Not dead. Not asleep. Just gone, consciousness snuffed out like a candle.
Levi's hand tightened on his teacup but he didn't move otherwise.
The mushroom that had spoken pulsed twice, its bioluminescent underside glowing faintly green.
"He can't hear anymore," it said, voice soft and childlike and fundamentally off. The sound didn't come from the mushroom itself but from somewhere inside the room, like an echo from another space bleeding through.
Levi set his teacup down with careful precision.
Stay calm. Stay professional. Don't react.
"I see," Levi said, his tone gentle, curious. "And you are?"
The mushroom twitched. Then another. Then five more, all pulsing in different rhythms, creating a visual cacophony across Reven's ruined face.
"I don't have a name anymore," one said.
"We had names," another interrupted, voice sharper, angrier.
"Twenty-eight names," a third added, this one barely a whisper.
"He took them," the first continued. "He took everything."
"He doesn't know," a fourth voice added, smaller, sadder. "He doesn't know we're here. Doesn't know what we are. Thinks we're just corruption. Just disease."
"Every time we speak, he goes away," another said. "His mind can't handle hearing us. So it shuts down. Leaves us alone with whoever's listening."
Levi's eyes tracked across Reven's face, counting. The mushrooms were different sizes, different stages of growth. Some were barely visible, small caps emerging from hairline cracks. Others were fully formed, their stems thick and rooted deep beneath the skin.
Twenty-eight souls. Twenty-eight dead people trapped in fungal flesh, growing from a living man's face.
Horror (Grimdark). This is what it looks like.
"What did you have before?" Levi asked, keeping his voice steady.
Silence for a moment. Then they started speaking, overlapping, interrupting, a chorus of the dead:
"I was a baker in Velshire—"
"—seven years old when my mother—"
"—two children of my own, healthy, just doing my job—"
"—nobody, just someone who lived in the wrong district—"
"—made the best bread in three districts—"
"—she said the heretic priest could save me—"
"—at the quarantine checkpoint when he came through—"
The voices layered over each other, creating a dissonant harmony that made Levi's skin crawl. Each one fighting to be heard, to be remembered, to assert that they had existed as something other than this.
"Stop," Levi said gently. "One at a time. Please."
The voices cut off abruptly.
Then a single mushroom near Reven's left eye spoke, its voice carrying the weight of something that had been human once.
"I was a baker. In Velshire. I made bread. Good bread. My shop was on Copper Street. I had a wife. Her name was Mara. We were trying for children." The mushroom pulsed, and Levi could have sworn he saw moisture gathering in the folds of its cap. "Then the plague came. The real one. Not the god. The sickness."
"It spread through the lower city like fire," another mushroom added, this one near Reven's temple. "People died in the streets. In their homes. Alone. Afraid."
"The church wouldn't help us," a third voice said, bitter and sharp. "Said it was divine punishment for harboring heretics. Said we deserved it for not turning in the plague cultists when we had the chance."
"My mother brought me to him anyway," a smaller mushroom near Reven's cheekbone said, its voice high and young. "I was coughing blood. She was crying. She'd heard rumors of a wandering priest who could cure plague. An outlaw priest. Someone who worshipped the forbidden god."
"Father Reven," the baker's voice continued. "That's what he called himself. He was younger then. His face was whole. Unmarked. He came in secret, after dark, wearing that mask to hide from the inquisitors. He still believed the Plague God wanted him to heal people. He tried. He tried so hard."
"The church had declared the Plague God heretical," another voice explained, older, weary. "Said worshipping disease was an abomination. Ordered all priests executed, all temples burned. But people still sought them out. Because when plague comes, you don't care if the cure is legal or not."
"What happened?" Levi asked, though part of him already knew, already understood the terrible shape of what was coming.
"He laid hands on me," the child's voice said. "His hands were warm. They glowed with this soft green light. My mother was terrified someone would see. Would report us. But she was more afraid of losing me. She believed so hard he could save me."
"He tried to draw the plague out of us," another voice added, masculine, coming from a cluster of three mushrooms growing from a crack near Reven's jaw. "Used his divine power. The fragments of the Plague God he carried inside him. We could feel it working. Feel the sickness being pulled from our lungs, our blood."
"But it didn't leave," the baker said. "It changed. The power changed it. Made it something else. Something worse."
"I remember the moment it happened," the child said. "The green light turned purple. My mother's smile disappeared. Father Reven's eyes went wide. He tried to pull his hands away but it was too late. The plague was already transforming."
"It filled our lungs like liquid," another voice added, this one female, coming from a mushroom with a deep purple cap. "Not air. Not water. Something between. We drowned on dry land."
"I died in his arms," the child said. "I watched my mother scream. I watched Father Reven's face break. I heard him begging the Plague God to take him instead. But I didn't stop watching. I couldn't. Because I didn't leave."
"None of us left," the baker said.
"We died," a new voice added, bitter and sharp. "But death didn't take us."
"His guilt grabbed us," another said. "The moment we died, we felt it. Like hooks sinking into our souls."
"Father Reven carries fragments of the Plague God inside him," the baker explained. "Not blessings. Not divine power. Fragments. Actual pieces of a god that broke itself apart and distributed through its priests before the church could destroy it completely."
"These fragments respond to his will," the female voice added. "Even unconscious will. Even guilt. Especially guilt."
"When we died in his arms, his guilt was so strong it became a command," another mushroom said. "Never forget. Never let go. Carry us forever. Be marked by what you've done."
"The divine fragments obeyed," the child said. "They reached out to our souls as we were leaving. Grabbed us. Pulled us back. Not into our bodies, but into his."
"We were dead," a third voice said. "Our bodies were burned. Disposed of. Gone. But our souls were caught. Trapped. The fragments reshaped us. Gave us new form. Grew us from his flesh."
"At first, it was just awareness," the baker said. "Consciousness without shape. We could feel his heartbeat. His breathing. His thoughts screaming with guilt. And slowly, over days, over weeks, we began to take form. Roots growing into his skull. Stems pushing through cracks in his skin. Caps unfurling in the light."
"He attached us to himself," the female voice said. "Not intentionally. Not consciously. But absolutely. His guilt commanded it. His divine power obeyed it. And we became this."
Levi leaned forward slightly, his voice remaining gentle.
"So he created you. Through his guilt and his power combined."
"Yes," they said in unison.
"And he doesn't know you're conscious? Doesn't know you're the actual people he killed?"
"No," the baker said. "He thinks we're just disease. Just corruption from failed healing. He talks to us sometimes, late at night when he's alone. Apologizes to the 'symptoms.' Begs the 'infection' to stop spreading. He has no idea we can hear him. That we're conscious. That we're the people he tried to save."
"We tried to tell him," another voice said. "Tried to speak when he was awake. But the moment we use our voices, his mind rejects it. Can't process it. Shuts down completely to protect itself."
"So we only get to speak when he's unconscious," the child said. "When someone else is here to listen. To witness. To know what we are."
"After I died, the inquisitors came," the child continued, voice trembling. "They found my mother crying over my body. Found Father Reven trying to flee. They burned our house. Called it cleansing. My mother was arrested for harboring a heretic. I don't know what happened to her after that."
"The church declared him a mass murderer," another voice added. "Put a bounty on his head. Ten gold crowns. Dead or alive, but preferably alive so they could burn him publicly."
"He's been running ever since," the baker said. "City to city. Town to town. Always moving. Always hiding. And we came with him. Growing from his face. Making it impossible to hide. Making him more recognizable. More hunted."
"I remember the first time I opened my eyes in this form," the child said. "I couldn't see properly. The world was distorted. Too big. Too bright. And I realized I wasn't in my body anymore. I was in his skin. Growing from his skin. Part of his skin."
"We all woke up like that," the baker said. "One by one. Aware but trapped. Conscious but unable to move. We could see through these bodies. These fungal bodies. We could feel the air on our caps, feel the moisture when he sweated, feel his heartbeat through the roots we'd grown into his flesh."
"At first, we didn't understand," another voice added. "We were confused. Scared. We had no mouths yet. No voices. Just awareness trapped in vegetative flesh."
"How long?" Levi asked quietly.
"Two years," the baker said. "For me. I was the first. The others came after. One by one, as he kept trying to heal people in secret. As more died. As his guilt grew stronger and pulled more of us back."
"I've been here for eight months," the child said.
"Thirteen months," another added.
"Five months."
"Nineteen months."
"Six weeks."
The voices overlapped again, each one citing their time in this hell, this existence that wasn't life and wasn't death but something suspended between.
"The mouths came later," the female voice said. "After we'd been here long enough. After the growth had matured. One day I felt something splitting in my cap and suddenly I could speak. Could scream. And I did. I screamed. Father Reven collapsed instantly. Woke up hours later with no memory of it. Thought he'd had a seizure."
"He tried to cut us off once," another voice said, and now there was venom in it. "Took a knife to his own face. Tried to carve us out. But we're rooted too deep. Cut one and two more grow back. We're part of him now. Permanently."
"He stopped trying to heal people after the tenth death," the baker said. "But by then, the damage was done. The church was hunting him. The families of the dead were hunting him. He became a ghost. A monster in a mask. The Fungal Priest, they call him now. The Plague Bringer. And he has no idea that every mushroom on his face is a person he tried to save."
"We just wanted to leave," the child said, and now its voice broke. "We just wanted to go home. To sleep. To stop existing in this half-state."
"But we couldn't," the baker said. "Because every time we tried to fade, every time consciousness started to slip away, his guilt pulled us back. His memories. Every time he thought about what he'd done, we grew stronger. More real. More trapped."
Levi sat very still, his professional mask firmly in place despite the horror crawling up his spine.
They're not one entity. They're twenty-eight separate consciousnesses, all trapped in the same prison, all forced to share space in fungal bodies growing from a living man's face. And he doesn't even know. He thinks they're just disease. Just divine punishment. He has no idea he's carrying the conscious souls of everyone he accidentally killed.
"Did you choose this?" Levi asked gently. "Did you want to be attached to him?"
"NO!" The word came from multiple voices at once, a chorus of denial that made the air in the room vibrate.
"We were dead," the baker said. "We were gone. We should have stayed gone."
"But his guilt wouldn't let us," another added. "It pulled us back. Called to us. The divine fragments in his body recognized what he'd done and preserved us as evidence. As witnesses. As punishment."
"For him or for you?" Levi asked.
Silence.
Then, quietly, the child said: "Both."
"Did you want to hurt him at first?"
More silence. The mushrooms pulsed irregularly, conferring, arguing, remembering.
"No," the baker said finally. "At first, we just wanted to leave. We begged. We pleaded. We tried to tell him we forgave him, that it wasn't his fault, anything to make the guilt stop so we could finally die properly."
"But he couldn't hear us," another voice added. "Every time we spoke, he collapsed. And when he woke up, he remembered nothing. Just empty time. Lost hours."
"When the mouths finally formed enough to make sound, we tried to comfort him," the female voice said. "Tried to tell him it was okay. That we understood. But he couldn't stay conscious long enough to hear us. His mind protected him from the truth."
"That's when the hatred started," another voice said, and this one carried an edge sharp enough to cut. "When we realized that even in death, even in this horror, we couldn't reach him. Couldn't make him understand. We were screaming directly into his face and he couldn't hear us."
"We wanted him to know," the child said. "To understand that we were here. That we were still people. That we hadn't just disappeared into corruption. But his mind won't let him know. It's kinder that way, I suppose. The knowing would destroy him."
"So yes," the baker said. "We hate him now. We hate him because he won't let us die. We hate him because he turned our deaths into monuments. We hate him because every moment of existence in these bodies is agony and he doesn't even know we're suffering. He thinks we're just symptoms. Just disease. We're people and he can't even perceive that."
Levi nodded slowly, understanding the full scope of the horror.
He is the plague. Not metaphorically. Literally. His guilt and his divine power combined to create a walking prison for the souls of the dead. And he doesn't even know. Can never know. Because knowing would shatter him completely.
"Can I ask one more question?" Levi said gently.
The mushrooms pulsed, some in agreement, some in resignation.
"Do you want to hurt him now? Right now, in this moment?"
The mushrooms pulsed irregularly, chaotically, as if all twenty-eight consciousnesses were arguing simultaneously.
Then different voices spoke, overlapping:
"Yes."
"No."
"I don't know anymore."
"I want him to suffer."
"I want him to be free."
"I want both of us to die."
"I just want to stop existing."
The baker's voice cut through: "We want to stop existing. That's all. If hurting him accomplishes that, then yes. If mercy accomplishes that, then mercy. If nothing accomplishes that, then we'll settle for watching him carry us until he dies naturally and we finally, finally get to leave."
"But we don't think we will," the child said quietly. "Even when he dies, we think we'll still be here. Still trapped. Because that's what guilt does. It outlives the body."
Levi sat in silence, his tea growing cold.
He looked at Reven's unconscious form, at the twenty-eight mushrooms growing from cracks in his skin, at the physical manifestation of atrocity and guilt made real and given voice.
The mushrooms twitched softly, their bioluminescence pulsing like dozens of tiny heartbeats, all out of sync, all individual, all screaming silently for release.
Reven remained unconscious, breathing steadily, unaware of the conversation happening on his own face. Unaware that his victims had been given voice. Unaware that his guilt had literally become parasitic. Unaware that the mushrooms he thought were disease were actually the conscious souls of everyone he'd tried to save.
The room felt watched. Not by Luna. Not by the Library. By the dead, trapped between states, unable to move forward or back, suspended in a horror of someone else's making that had become self-perpetuating.
So this is what Eldritch Horror really is. Not monsters from beyond. Just people carrying the weight of what they've done, and that weight becoming alive, and that life becoming parasitic, and the cycle never ending because guilt feeds on itself forever.
The largest mushroom on Reven's temple pulsed once.
Then it opened its tiny mouth again, revealing teeth that were too human, too perfect, too familiar.
And asked in a voice filled with desperate, childlike hope that somehow made everything worse:
"Can you kill us?"