Mindless Beasts

The caterpillar kept inching towards where Sly landed, dragging along the soldier ants and Dr. Jennings for the free ride.

As Sly was sinking beneath the ants it definitely felt like falling into quicksand.

Every insect rushing towards him was solely aiming for the purple fruit that he had miraculously managed to avoid squashing during his free fall.

Despite the number of bites he received all over his legs Sly stubbornly refused to let go of this fruit, he was determined to sell it to the highest bidder if he made it out of this fiasco alive.

Covered with tiny purple ants Sly struggled to breathe, his endurance was low and he had very little energy to put up much resistance, also he was downright exhausted.

His eyes had turned watery red and was swollen, he was having an allergic reaction to the bites from the ants and the last straw was when the caterpillar launched a volley of poisonous vomit in his direction.

The fumes alone made his eyes water and many of the purple ants that covered his body died instantly after inhaling or coming in contact with the Bone Collector’s poison.

Some of the ants clearly were either blinded or had an adverse reaction to the Bone Collector’s poison where they could no longer tell friend from foe.

They turned on each other, exhibiting the same cannibalistic behavior as the Bone Collector as Sly watched on in horror.

Everything about this situation was now out of control and he could feel himself dying, to think that everything had escalated to this point.

The next thing he could feel his grasp on the fruit loosening and he watched as the fruit rolled out of his hand and was picked up by Dr. Jennings.

Before Sly could breathe a sigh of relief that the plum was in safe hands.

Dr. Jennings crushed the plum right in front of his eyes then forced the pulpy juice of the fruit down his throat knowing full well Sly was too exhausted to avoid his exertions.

Keeping his hand over Sly’s mouth so that he couldn’t spit it out if the majority of it hadn’t slid down the back of his throat already.

Surprisingly, the bright purple juicy looking fruit was bland and had no taste at first.

Sly was disappointed he had gone to so much effort to secure the fruit and to have it wasted on himself he couldn’t even get mad at Dr. Jennings properly as his brain shut down.

Until his tongue started to swell like he ate a thousand hot peppers.

The heat from his mouth started to spread to the rest of his body making it tingle and sweat fell from his pores.

Instantly Sly could feel the plant essence from the rare fruit coursing through his veins.

Dr. Jennings struck the killing blow on the Bone Collector and now he and his spirit animals were fighting against the purple ants.

Was Sly going to die from being poisoned by this strange rare fruit?

His tongue was so swollen that he couldn’t even call out for help and Sly felt really helpless in this disastrous situation.

Sly Foxx saw it clearly, a glowing fungus spore erupted from the head of the dead Bone Collector but no one else seemed to have noticed.

Unable to speak because of his swollen tongue, Sly could only watch helplessly as the glowing red spore shot towards him.

"I know what you’re thinking," said the glowing red sentient fungus spore. "I’m a plant master that had failed my tribulation and been reduced to this lowly life form...I’ve been searching for years for a decent host and now I finally found you."

He surmised from its words that this particular parasitic fungus had long since hijacked the Bone Collector’s body turning it essentially into a mindless zombie.

This was no ordinary fungus found in the dense forest; the colour of its essence was ruby red that meant it had been around for more than 10,000+ years.

This fungal spore had spent years searching for a suitable host to infect with its fungal spores and penetrate through to the victim’s exoskeleton.

Dr. Jennings couldn’t seem to hear the fungus talking to Sly; he was still distracted with fighting the Ant Queen and her loyal army of ants.

Eventually, the Ant Queen retreated but there were still ants lingering to ensure the outsiders didn’t follow the Ant Queen and her loyal protectors underground.

Sly’s body was still paralyzed by the venom from the Bone Collector and the allergic reaction from the ant bites.

He could feel the rare spirit essence fruit coursing through his veins but it wouldn’t heal him in time to prevent being taken over by the new threat from the parasitic fungus.

Without any warning, the fungal spore attached itself to Sly’s chest.

That was still recovering from surgery and forced itself inside violently tearing open the stitches that had just recently started to heal.

Slowly, entering and shoving its way in causing a great deal of horrid pain while infecting Sly’s body!

He had no protection from this invasion and his body started to react immediately moving from hot to cold in a heartbeat.

Icy green vine-like tendrils that glowed red wrapped around his body.

The sentient spore started chanting in a high-pitched sing-song manner as if thanking its ancestors for the feast it was about to devour.

Then the sound became almost indistinguishable as it devolved into humming, making Sly’s hair stand on end and shivers ran down his spine.

By now his body was covered with the spores of the fungus from head to toe.

He was covered in something that reminded Sly of a red moss.

It felt like the natural defenses, parasites of his own body, his own bacteria that fought off common colds, were fighting against this intrusion in vain.

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