“Sweetie, stay close to me!” Nire watched as Stacy ran out the still opening door of the research hub. She sighed exasperatedly and followed her daughter out into the cold, dank air. The research hub was set up in an area of relatively low biodiversity. Below it was an underground river system, and above it was desert. The most Dr. Nire had seen so far were different species of bioluminescent algae. Not true algae, she corrected herself.

Stacy ran back, staring at her mother while pouting. “C’mon, you’re taking so long!”

Nire chuckled slightly. “Ya didn’t get your energy from me.”

For a split second, her mind filled with a series of images, like a rapid slideshow. A man, holding a drink, slurring drunkenly. Stacy, still young, sobbing her lungs out. Nire screaming at the man. Nire running from the house, Stacy in her arms.

She shook her head slightly, focusing instead on Stacy’s face. Before her daughter could react, she rushed towards her, wrapping in her arms, smothering her with kisses.

“Mom!” Stacy giggled, trying to push Nire’s face away.

“I just want ya to know that I love ya!” Nire pouted comically herself.

Stacy giggled again, the sound filling Nire’s heart with something soft and happy. “I love you too mom.”

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She stared into the writhing depths of the pit, the blue light bathing her face. She flicked her lighter on and off.

“I’m waiting.” Stacy whispered into her ear, a delicate sound carried by the nonexistent wind.

“I’m sorry.” Nire whispered back. She stepped closer to the pit.

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The researcher gently let her daughter to the ground, grabbing her hand. Together they walked aimlessly.

“Where do you want to go darlin’?”

“I wanna go to the river!”

“Let’s go to the river then. You wanna hear a story?”

Stacy nodded emphatically. They walked, the quiet cave walls echoing with a story of a brave woman escaping a tyrant who kept her locked in a cage. The tyrant was one of a long line of tyrants, each inflicting pain on one another. This tyrant, in an act of mercy to his subjects, hoped to be the last. He met a woman who changed his life, and for a moment, things changed.

The tyrant became a kind and gracious ruler, and the woman a wonderful queen. Then she realized she was holding his child, and the tyrant grew furious with rage. He became worse than what he was before, hating the woman for continuing his line. One day, the woman had had enough. She took the child she had borne, and she ran.

Nire’s voice was hoarse by the time she finished the story, and Stacy was enraptured by it.

“Did the lady become a queen again?” Stacy asked, her eyes barely visible in the darkness.

Nire shook her head. “No darlin’, she realized that her child was worth more than any crown.”

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Nire took another step towards the pit, her mind finally clear. She could feel Stacy was with her, she could hear her laughing. The fuel itched at her skin, burning slightly. She flicked the lighter on for the last time. Fuel dripped off her raised arms, and she took one final step. Tears flowed down her cheeks.

“I’m comin’ darlin’.”

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Quiet slowly settled into the darkness, both of them finding comfort with one another. Stacy ruminated on her mother’s answer quietly, Nire searched for the floodlights marking the river. A strange light caught her eye, an orange light seeming to throw off embers.

Stacy saw the light as well. “What is that?”

“I’m not sure darlin’. Wanna find out?”

Stacy nodded again, and so they walked towards the light. Nire was anxious for some reason, a pit opening up in her stomach. She wasn’t sure why, they hadn’t found any dangerous alien species yet, and most of what they’d found was beneficial or harmless.

The light grew until they saw it. It was a strange orange growth, exuding glowing spores that flickered in the darkness before dimming out. Stacy pulled Nire closer by her hand until they were about five feet away from the fungus-like growth. There was something odd about the shape, somewhat elongated and sinuous. Nire stepped slightly closer, her eyes straining to make out details. Stacy let go of her hand and stood even closer, her face lit an eerie shade of orange.

“Stace, get back here.” Nire held out her hand.

“I just wanna get a better look.” Stacy squatted down, her nose nearly touching the growth.

Nire saw something that made her chest tighten. An untouched portion of whatever the fungus was growing on. A dead alien eye stared at her. A pathogen. It was a pathogen. Stacy was reaching her hand out to touch it.

“DON’T TOUCH IT!”

The growth exploded, coating Stacy in millions of spores, Nire in thousands. Nire grabbed her daughter up, sprinting towards the research hub.

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Nire turned towards the boy. Adlai, his name was.

“Remember me.” She said, a final request.

She let herself go, Stacy was waiting for her.

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“It’s a contagion, I’m sure of it! Highly aggressive dispersal. It colonized a goddamn alien.”

Her other researchers stared at her coated in orange spores, holding her coughing daughter. They all wore hazmat suits, and they all looked at her the same way Stacy’s father looked at her. Disgust and hatred. Nire was forced to stay in a separate compartment, no one dared give her daughter medical attention. Stacy’s decline wasn’t quick either.

She went from a bright young girl, full of life and laughter to a bony, dull-eyed wreck. Nire banged on the hermetically sealed doors, the researchers ignoring her presence.

“PLEASE!” She sobbed.

All of them looked away.

“She’s fading fast, please.” Nire whispered, almost to herself.

She didn’t have a choice. A loud bang startled the other researchers. Nire held a fire extinguisher, a crazy light in her eyes.

“DO SOMETHING! PLEASE!”

The researchers stared at her with their cold masked eyes, and one left to return with something in his hand. There was only so much one could do against a loaded shotgun. Nire staggered out of the research hub, carrying her daughter in her arms. Stacy was no longer Stacy, but rather a fungus that had taken Stacy’s body. There was nothing left of her. Nire couldn’t believe that. It was simply wrong. It didn’t make any sense. Why would it make any sense? It just didn’t! It was funny, but not in a funny way. It was funny in a sort of sad funny way. Nire couldn’t help but laugh. It was funny.

She laughed when Stacy’s corpse exploded with spores, laughed when she could feel them take hold. She laughed as she went down to the river. She laughed when she found the uses of the parasite, its affinity for scaring off local wildlife and its explosiveness. She laughed when she thought of a grand plan of starving it out. She laughed when she found her bait.

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She laughed when she fell, laughed as she felt her body became riddled with holes, laughed until the fire caught when she couldn’t laugh anymore. Her story was over. She would be remembered.

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