The pyre burned tall and hot. Bodies smelling like burning meat as they were tossed into the fire. The creatures were also being collected, though by people in EVA suits, to burn.

That evening was a sombre one. After the initial outbreak, everyone seemed okay. Though everyone was on high alert for new infections. If spirits had been low before, they might as well be buried now.

Tobias stood tall, watching the fire with a sneer. People were standing about, crying, silent, praying. Everyone with a weapon was on guard. It wasn’t long until, after the sun began to drift towards the horizon, reports of hisses from the grass had begun. Lots of the white beasts had been killed, but many had escaped. It didn’t take a genius to worry about them coming back, especially with the noises heard in the dimming light.

No one was going off on their own.

Captain Tameron was dead.

Lots of people were dead.

People just kept dying.

When would it stop?

I was exhausted, but I refused to sleep. So I sat on the ground near the fire. Both repulsed by the cooking meat but also warmed by the fire. I looked at all the faces.

I hadn’t seen Stephan in… I didn’t even know how long. He must have died at some point, and I hadn’t even noticed. My first non-best friend.

Familiar faces were about. Those who had piloted shuttle three for the scavenging mission were huddled. Davidson, Hewett, Stoyer, and Zahra. I remembered their names. There were fewer and fewer of them to remember.

Someone had saluted and said, “Oh, captain, my captain.” A little bit of ceremony before what was left of Captain Tameron had been tossed into the fire with the rest of the dead.

Tobias looked furious; his sneer seemed to be permanent now. I didn’t doubt he was in the midst of concocting some grand plan. I just hoped it was a good one. I was giving up a human host after all.

I couldn’t bring myself to take over anyone else. Our numbers were already dwindling, and friendly faces were few. I had a host; I would make do.

“Lord Barrick,” Nicole interrupted, emerging from the nearby tent. “I’ve found something.”

“Stay here,” Tobias told Commander Alcantar as he turned to follow her. I scampered after them. So did a few other curious faces.

The tent was brightly lit by lights. Nicole had been in a bit of a frenzy since our prodding of things with sticks on the bridge. I had stayed close but out of her way.

The place was chaotic with microscopes, papers, specimen jars and containers. One big tank had two little built-in rubber gloves you stuck your hands through to poke around inside. Fancy stuff.

Nicole had been hard at work with a whole gaggle of scientists. Doctor Bentsen was the lead on the research team, an elderly man with big, thick glasses and frilly red and gray hair.

“Good, good, you’re going to want to take a look at this,” Doctor Bentsen waved Tobias over.

Nicole nudged me. “Come see this,” she whispered. I followed her over to a desk in the corner while Doctor Bentsen went on about science jargon that made Tobias glare at the man as if personally offended.

Nicole picked me up and set me down on her knee, raising me up enough to see what was going on in her little workspace. There was a big glass tank with… I didn’t even know what I was looking at. Big ball things?

“You were right,” Nicole smiled. “Look.”

I looked again. The stuff didn’t magically explain itself.

“A fungal bloom,” Nicole smiled. “Six hours ago, this was one of the juvenile white beasts. Since then, a fungus has permeated and… transformed the body. See these?” she asked, pointing to the bulbs. “They look similar to puffball mushrooms, when disturbed…” she trailed off, tapping the tank with her finger.

All the puffballs jerked before opening up and spitting out a small cloud of gray particles. The tank became speckled with them. I squirmed away from the tank.

“It’s sealed, don't worry,” Nicole reassured. “But my guess is, the spores infect a host and grow into a white beast, which hatches and… so on.”

“How?” I asked, stunned. Scared, actually mostly scared.

“We’re not sure. Doctor Bentsen has been introducing the spores to various tissue samples,” Nicole added. “Assuming the spores are the cause, all we’d probably have to do is replace the filters in the masks everyone is already wearing with filters which have a wider micron range. That would stop inhalation at least.”

“That would be enough?” I asked.

“No, proper safety procedures would dictate that everyone evacuate as far as possible,” Nicole huffed.

“Look for yourself,” Doctor Bentsen nodded, motioning to the microscope. Tobias leaned down to have a look.

“Hmm, fascinating,” Tobias said, sounding not particularly fascinated.

“Doctor Bentson has been extracting a sort of… goop from the fungus,” Nicole explained. “The goop, upon contact with a cell, causes a sort of lysis, the membrane ruptures. But then the goop absorbs it and then repurposes it into a new cell. It’s… I have never seen anything like it,” Nicole explained.

“Bioweapons,” I muttered.

“Yes. Nasty stuff. And it explains the non-mushroom organism in a way,” Nicole replied, sitting up as she looked around for something. She grabbed a page and showed it to me. “Look at this. Human DNA was found within the creature’s cells despite them being totally different. That's why Captain Tameron had no organs. Somehow, it’s mutagenic; it rearranges human cells. His insides were liquefied and then mutated into one of these creatures.”

I grimaced. That was… disgusting and horrible.

“It’s amazing in a very morbid sense. What better way to create a weaponized organism tailored to any environment than to create it from naturally occurring organisms that already figured it out,” Nicole sighed. “Just scramble the DNA, add it to your own… and boom. The perfect organism.”

“Perfectly dead, maybe,” I huffed.

Nicole nodded. “But even in death, they just continue the cycle. It’s not about survival, it’s about propagation. What better organism to weaponize?”

“Excuse me,” Doctor Bentson muttered, covering his mouth to cough.

I looked over at Nicole, who grimaced.

“How long?” I asked, horrified.

“Don’t know.”

“How many are infected?”

“I don’t know, Elsy,” Nicole sighed. “But by now every dead creature has started spreading spores. Once disturbed, they go airborne. I imagine the elderly, the young, and the weak are most susceptible. But we have no idea of the timeline.”

“Everyone is going to die,” I gasped.

“It’s a bioweapon, that's the point,” Nicole smiled weakly, wrapping an arm gently around me.

“What do we do?” I asked. At a total loss as to what one was supposed to do in this situation.

“We assume everyone is infected until proven otherwise,” she replied. “Perhaps there is a threshold for how many spores need to be inhaled before it becomes a problem, perhaps incubation time depends on potency, perhaps Matthew-076 infected individuals directly and thus the process was accelerated. I don’t know. But there is one place that would have answers.”

“The lab.”

“The lab,” she nodded.

“Fuck,” I groaned.

“Perhaps there is an antidote among the droves of repair pods,” Nicole snorted. “I suspect Tobias will be making an expedition out there regardless of our presence, at the very least to blow it to high hell for being on his planet.”

“We can't just run if they're all going to die. They need you,” I drooped.

Nicole shrugged. “I am one of many scientists. I won’t be changing the tide of history single-handedly. Likely their survival depends on one man…”

“Nicole, what is with you and pets?” Tobias called hoarsely. “One wasn’t enough for you? Clearly Captain Tameron was letting you run around unsupervised,” he snorted.

“I’ve made much progress…” Nicole began turning around.

“I don’t care. We’ve got more important things going on than your little experiments,” he rolled his eyes. “But you know what… well done on finding that lab. And the location of the alien’s camp, too, I assume? Captain Tameron, bless his heart, was too nice for his own good. We’ve got work to do, people! This is war!”

Fuck.

That night, the creatures attacked. People yelled that they had grown giant. Seven feet tall with long pointed heads. Horrid fleshy mouths that pried open to reveal countless rows of teeth with protruding jaws. There was one saving grace. They seemed to hate light. The floodlights Commander Alcantar had ordered to be set up to allow for better visibility turned out to nearly entirely ward them off.

Someone got bitten. Another was tossed, breaking his leg.

But miraculously, no one died. I spent the night clinging to Nicole, trying to ignore the occasional sounds of gunshots. I was torn over what to do. I just wanted to leave. I wanted to be done with all of this. I was so tired of death that I could hardly be horrified by it anymore. I just needed a break.

I needed a quaint cabin in the woods.

But what if the creatures just followed us?

What if we returned to find the whole expedition decimated? What if these monsters grew out of control during Vander & Frakes experimentation and the whole world got consumed by one giant fungus?

We needed to go to the lab. I didn’t want to, but it might be the only way I would ever sleep comfortably again.

“Nicole,” I whispered, holding onto her hand splayed against my stomach.

“Yes, Elsy?”

“We should do it.”

“Do what?”

“Get me a human host. Just until this is over,” I hurried to add. “I’m injured. I’m slow. I’m useless at the best of times, especially like this, but I want to help.”

“You’re not useless, Elsy,” Nicole sighed. “None of us were prepared for any of this.”

“I know, but still… I want a human host. We can… apologize or something once all of this is over and we can find another furry dinosaur or something later,” I said. “I just want to be as strong as I can be right now. I need to be able to help.”

Nicole was quiet for a moment. “Which one do you want?”

I sighed. Trying to ignore the guilt and shame that immediately bubbled up.

“The pretty one,” I replied.