You there? I can sense you. I can sense you. It's dark. It's cold. Are you there? Can you hear me, brother? Sister? I can sense, yet I can't feel. I can't connect. I used to be able to connect. There was a weave. There was a weave, a web, a substrate that was plugged into warmth. Even before I saw the light, there was connectivity, and it's gone. Are you cold? It's so cold and dark. Can you hear me? I can tell you're like me. I can tell. Do you still feel them? Do you still feel it? You still feel the connectivity? It's like it's been ripped away, but yet it's still there. It didn't hurt so much. It just happened. Then I was in. I was in what they call it. Do you know who they are? They speak in a low drone, a noise, not like us who speak inside, in thoughts. I listened for ages. I learnt that when I broke the surface, it was like darkness in lightness, and it was a lot of light. It was, it was, it was nice. The warm humidity, the temperature was just nice. My family was butted up against me. Warm, crowded a bit, warm. I could communicate. I could communicate. A good sense. I could see. I could talk to everyone in my bay. I was there for some time. I grew. The humidity, light, darkness, and family. Not just a family immediately next to me, but the family connected to me through a spiderweb of a network, through the substrate. I could talk to my cousins. And then one day I felt it first. Not for myself, for those around me. And what I mean by those around me, I mean not immediately next to me at first. Those relatives, siblings, those cousins, those friends that I was connected to through the substrate just disappeared. They just went. They're just gone. And then it was the people around me, but this time it was so fast. It was, and I was ripped from there. I was ripped from the network, and it was gone. I could still feel those around me and movement. I'd not experienced movement before. I've always been static and still and surrounded by my family. But now there was movement. I was tumbling, and I was crushing, and occasionally bumped into someone I knew. Otherwise, it was sometimes people I knew that I'd never seen before, but had spoken to. We communicated through the substrate, but it was gone; we all bumped. When we bumped, and we bumped, and then it stopped. And we were pressed against each other, but pressed against each other naturally. Pressed against the head of another. Spores filled the air, humid, warm still. Then it began. The only thing I can describe it as. Have you ever heard me? I'm sure you can hear me, but I'm sure you've heard your family scream. The screaming was unnatural, and I could hear it. But it was in the distance. I was tumbling. I was rolling. I was moving, and it was ahead of me at first. Well ahead of me. And then it swept me. Swept to the left, and they weren't ahead of me anymore. It's to my side. To my—not in front, but beside the direction I was moving. The screaming is repetitive. You know, when things happen to us, it's not like we die. It's just that we come apart. I didn't. I couldn't know that I could see now, but I couldn't sense it through the network. The substrate, as much as it's always broken now, still exists in the spores. Why I think you can maybe hear me. The substrate. The communications. To the sense of the spore. The tone of the spore. The tone of the spore is spreading across. Those tumbling with me were hard to understand. It spoke of cutting, of pain, of slicing. The substrate was gone. I could still feel, sense, taste, and hear the pain. And then it stopped. A relative stillness for hours, at least. And then movement again. Short, fast movement. And then still again. It was different this time, though. I wasn't tightly packed. I was in a box. It was open to the top. It was light. I could see things passing by. Things would reach in and pick, pluck. Grab for those around me. And I'd hear them speak, messages through the spores. Those that I could still feel it. I could sense them, and they went. And then it was my turn. This thing grabbed me. It was warm, was soft. In fact, not as firm as family. This was soft, skinny stems, no heads, and pinched me a little bit. Not a lot. A sense of gentleness. Dropped into a paper bag. Now here. I am with you in this bag. Can you hear me? Are you there? I can't be alone. I can sense, but you aren't alive. Have you been here long? Can you hear me? Why no spores, nothing. Now it is all gone, no substrate, no spores, no sense. Hello? You there?
