Still Alive

What's in the box:

A short #sciencefiction by #writer Jeff Arce.

A mysterious fungus has arrived at the ruins of #Chernobyl. It came with an ominous prophecy for humanity, and a messenger to deliver it.

Reading Level: thirteen up for some dark and disturbing moments dealing with body horror, and doomed prophecy.  

Reading Time: approximately 3727 words. Forty minute read. 

more tags: #mushrooms #apocalypse #discovery #ukraine #war #science #nuclear #meltdown

The Mil Mi-8 helo was chopping across the slated sky, flying at very low altitude. The ragged gray clouds cradled the craft like spectral fingers clawing around its sleek silver-blue hull. It was accompanied by two heavily armed Ukrainian military issued Mil Mi-24 helicopters that flanked the craft on either side as they prepared for landing. The emblem for the State Emergency Service of Ukraine was emblazoned across the cargo hold door of the leading chopper—a crimson, four-pointed cross edged in gold, with the Ukrainian trident piercing the center of it. The pilots could see the docking lights winking through the haze down below. The eerie clouds parted before them and the massive silhouette of their destination emerged. The gloomy structure began to materialize near a well-lit helo landing pad. The Chernobyl Exclusion zone was nestled amongst a smattering of dilapidated warehouse buildings that bordered the small, abandoned city of Pripyat. It was once a quaint community that housed the tens of thousands of workers commissioned at the plant before its fabled disaster. Now, all that remained of them was a rotting city, its isolated skyline crowned by a forlorn rusty ferris wheel whispering the ambitious dreams of a lost civilization.

            The spotlights from their armed escort shone down into the forgotten relic, providing its guests only a glimpse at the ruins languishing below. The inky shadows of the night’s sky and its wall of stony clouds spared them of the rest. But the titanic, domed silhouette of Chernobyl’s new Safe Confinement Shelter eclipsed it all. Its famous ventilation stack remained visible, crowning the ribbed, steel edifice like the lone horn of a colossal beast. Its concrete chimney appeared weathered by age, surrounded by ruddy scaffolding, rising over a barnlike structure that protruded from the face of the shelter like an old ladder hanging off the heavens. It stood with a slight lean plaguing its foundation, threatening to tumble over at any moment. Yet it persists. A surviving testament to the lessons learned by man of what it costs to cut costs.

            As the Mi-8 landed on the pad and its passengers were escorted out by a gang of heavily armored Ukrainian soldiers, they could feel the presence of both death and new life all around them. The military choppers hovered over the landing pad, whopping down callous wind from the impetus of their propellers. One was facing east, the other west. Their utility guns searching the perimeter, always prepared for an unexpected ambush from a Russian attack. But the surrounding trees and warehouses remained tranquil and silent. It was a tomb.

            Their four visitors came prepared in full-body radiation suits, helmets, and safety gloves. They were rushed hastily through the first checkpoint by four soldiers equipped with heavy, camo painted respirators, and utility gloves. Each soldier carried with them a medical kit attached to their hips, and an AK-74 at the ready in their hands. Once their guests were bustled through, they were left alone to access the service tunnel into the Safe Confinement Shelter. The soldiers remained at the checkpoint to secure the area.

            “Quite an escort,” the American remarked breathlessly behind his stifling respirator.

            The chief Ukrainian officer and radiobiologist leading their way scoffed at that. With accented English, he said, “We are in a war, Dr. Harris. We either come with guns…or we stay with bullet holes. Which would you prefer.”

            As the racket of the helos behind them were dissolved by their hurried footfalls echoing across the dimly lit, steel corridor, Dr. Harris decided, “Alive is nice.”

            “Так, це так,” The radiobiologist agreed in Ukrainian. “Let us stay that way.”

            Then the Ukrainian woman marching between them asked, “can you tell us more about the subject, Dr. Kovalchuk.”

Her English was impeccable. Every word of it clear and precise. Harris could tell that she has spent a good bit of her time on Earth in the States.

            The chief scientist then approached a steel door and punched in a remembered code into the numeral keypad attached to its frame. The illuminated screen hovering over the buttons turned green. The door clicked and he pushed it open. A loud, hydraulic hiss came with their access as he answered, “His name is Dukh Moroz. A nuclear engineer commissioned on site to assess the extent of the damage after the meltdown in 1986. He was one of the first responders…before most of the world even knew what was happening. He’s been here on site ever since.”

            This information astounded the woman. She gasped, “thirty-nine years…but ARS infection would have killed him in a matter of days. How is this possible.”

            “How indeed, Dr. Ivanova,” he replied brusquely.

            She chortled. “I thought scientists had all the answers, Dr. Kovalchuk.”

            “We have just as many questions,” he countered. “If not more.”

            They arrived underneath a brightly illuminated, yellow scaffolding-like structure that stood nearly sixty-three meters and appeared to be propping up the eroding western most wall of the original concrete sarcophagus. Dr. Harris admired it with unease.

Dr. Kovalchuk nodded, understanding his caution. Stolidly he explained, “Supports to prevent the deteriorating sarcophagus from collapsing. Such a catastrophe would produce a toxic plume of dust, exposing the world to radioactive debris that could injure thousands. Chernobyl is…how you say—a house of cards.” 

Dr. Harris’s grimaced. “More like an atomic bomb balancing on stilts.”

They moved on. Dr. Kovalchuk spared them no time for sight-seeing. He moved them along expediently across the chamber. They were approaching a squat, shed-like building secured by another keypad and steel door. Dr. Kovalchuk opened it and it automatically sealed shut behind them as they slipped inside.

            The inner cavity of the isolated shed was lined with high-tech panels covering every inch of the thick concrete walls surrounding them. There was a busy network of computer monitors positioned directly across the small room. On the desk beneath it all there was a scientific keyboard and some other futuristic tech that Dr. Harris could not immediately identify.

            Dr. Kovalchuk began powering up the station with a few flips on the switchboard that was set to the left of the cluttered terminal.

Gravely, he said, “There is more to Mr. Moroz’s miraculous story. Unbeknownst to his colleagues at the time, he arrived at Chernobyl in critical condition.”

            “Oh,” said Dr. Ivanova, intrigued.

            Dr. Harris asked, “how so.”

            “He was diagnosed with AML only a few weeks prior to the assignment,” the chief scientist divulged.

            His two guests were quiet for a moment, taking in the news with sudden astonishment.

            Dr. Ivanova then said, “Acute Myeloid Leukemia.

            “Precisely,” The chief scientist acknowledged. “The years have already taken their toll on him.”

            “And yet, he’s still alive,” Dr. Harris asked, doubtfully, “at age sixty.”

            “Seventy-three, to be exact,” Dr. Kovalchuk said as he began typing on the keyboard. “But I am uncertain if alive is the way I would choose to describe Mr. Moroz’s current state of being.”

            A wash of chaotic static rolled across the wall of computer monitors in front of them. Then several boxes appeared, each containing the POV from a different camera situated in various sections throughout the vast facility. The radiobiologist continued typing. His dosimeter was strapped around his right ankle. It beeped thrice, very loudly.

            “Should we be concerned about that,” Dr. Harris asked, warily.

            Their guide chortled dismissively. “Calm yourself, Dr. Harris. We have time.”

            The digital boxes on the monitors then began to collapse into the next frame until there was only one left. It expanded, filling the center screen.

            Dr. Kovalchuk said, “we have employed a series of micro rovers equipped with gamma-visors. They help us to map out the Red Zone using the invisible radiation that pollutes the area. Vibrations from sound are collected to establish a perfect three-dimensional image from inside room 208/10.”

            “208/10,” Dr. Ivanova gasped.

            “Yes,” Dr. Kovalchuk answered. “That’s where we found him.”

            “Him,” Dr. Harris was baffled. “You mean…”

            “Mr. Moroz,” their guide said. “The new confinement was near complete before one of our dogs detected him…just lying in there, still breathing—still, existing.”

            “This is beyond impossible,” said Dr. Ivanova. “That is directly across from Room 305—where the bulk of the melted fuel rods reside. Nothing can survive in there.”

            Dr. Kovalchuk nodded. “Nothing should be alive in this city either. But wolves, and mice, deer, and even birds thrive all the same.”

            “How,” Dr. Harris asked.

            Dr. Kovalchuk glanced at their bewildered Mycologist. His visor beginning to steam over as he scrutinized her long and hard. At last, he finally said, “mycelium, it would seem.”

            “Mycelium,” she echoed, dubiously.

            “We have discovered a fungus in this facility that contains a pigment called melanin. The same kind that is found in human skin, only…the specimen appears to feed on ionizing radiation, converting it into beneficial energy for both it and its host.”

“Like a form of photosynthesis,” Dr. Harris asked.

“No,” the mycologist answered. Her eyes were wide and mystified. “Radiosynthesis. Extremophiles fungi—Adaptive Evolution. It’s rare…but possible. There are some macrofungi known to perform a process called Mycoremediation when the specimen encounters a malignant contamination. Like a major oil spill. Their mycelium will break down the complex hydrocarbons within the petroleum, converting it into beneficial energy before releasing it back into the wild as a harmless substance. They clean the mess and gain the rest. A symbiotic mutualism.”

Dr. Kovalchuk interjected, “I assure you, Dr. Ivanova, nothing like this has ever been encountered before. This specimen regenerates instantaneously—in a matter of seconds. It displays a form of intelligence unrivaled by any of their cousins in the fungi kingdom. As we began to study the phenomenon, it migrated elsewhere. One day it was here. The next it was not…as if it were evading a predator. They took their refuge within the broken reactor. And there it remains.”

            Dr. Harris asked, “How did the subject get in there with it.”

            “Look,” the chief scientist pointed at the monitor with its new image filling it up. “The clock is ticking on our rover. The radiation will ultimately destroy it. If you have questions, Dr. Harris, Dr. Ivanova…I suggest you ask Mr. Dukh Moroz while you still can.”

            The grainy feed projected a rudimentary image of a gray room with no light, only three-dimensional shapes. They could make out a cluster of debris here and there, an ancient terminal along the walls, loaded with archaic computer switches and buttons that looked like old Christmas lights. Inside, there was a grated staircase equipped with a deteriorating railing. A figure appeared there, languishing on a pile of shattered equipment and ceiling tiles. The creature appeared in the shape of a man, lying spreadeagle over the stack of debris. His spindly limbs were coiled in tendrils that expanded from the man’s gaping mouth like a shroud of inundating spider webs. Silver mushroom caps clustered about his open mouth, sprouting out in a swelling mass so full they nearly overtook the old man’s gaunt face. There were dark circles that crowned the caps that looked like puckering star-shaped lips. They seemed to writhe with excitement as the staticky image grew nearer and nearer. The creature’s eyes peered over the overgrown head of fungi, wide open. But without color it was impossible to tell what he was looking at, or if he was focusing on anything at all.

            Dr. Harris recoiled, appalled.

            “Oh my God,” Dr. Ivanova grieved.

            “We can talk to it?”

            “Yes, Dr. Harris,” Dr. Kovalchuk provided. “He is quite social.”

            Reluctant, the mycologist then said out loud in Russian, “Mr. Moroz…can you hear me?”

            The mushrooms surged again. Then a deep, resounding, sonorous voice suddenly filled the lab. It answered, “hecan no longer. But we can.”

            Both Dr. Ivanova and the American balked. An unnerving chill trickled down Dr. Harris’s back as he asked their guide, “why is he speaking in English?”

            “He isn’t,” Dr. Ivanova replied, breathlessly. “I heard his answer in Ukrainian.”

            Dr. Kovalchuk nodded. “As did I.”

            Dr. Harris was speechless.

Even through his misty visor, the radiobiologist could see his face turning sickly pale.

            He explained, “the rover is not equipped with a recording device. It would be useless in there with all that radiation. However, this creature is communicating with us, it’s all up here.” He pointed at his head.

            “You mean telepathy?”

            Dr. Kovalchuk shook his head. “Not quite.”

            “The mycelium,” Dr. Ivanova decided.

            The American turned her way. “What about it?”

            She explained, “fungi is a remarkably versatile organism. They can seduce their hosts with their spores to manipulate them into performing tasks that benefit them. Some specimens can even transmit electrical signals throughout their environment to communicate with potential allies.”

            “We believe it may be more of the latter, in this case,” Dr. Kovalchuk reassured. “However, we can’t be certain.”

            “I don’t understand,” Dr. Harris confessed.

            Incredulous, Dr. Ivanova expounded, “fungus takes up two to four percent of Earth’s total biomass. This equates to roughly twelve billion tons of carbon. Humans only account for less than zero-point one percent. Most of their biomass is stored underground in the form of mycelium—their roots. Like the veins of Earth.”

            “In essence,” the radiobiologist provided, “They are everywhere—even inside this bunker. They use their incredible reach to quietly influence its inhabitants.”

            “But what did he mean…” the American licked his lips. Then, nervously, he looked again at the snowy image on the monitor and said, “Mr. Moroz, you stated that he can no longer hear us, but you can—what did you mean by this?”

            The fungus shuddered. The echoing voice returned. “Mr. Moroz is with us but is not present.”

            Dr. Orian Harris glanced curiously at his host. Dr. Kovalchuk did not respond, inviting him to continue.

            “Then whom are we speaking to,” the American asked.

            The voice said, “we have many names in many tongues.”

            “Explain,” Dr. Ivanova demanded.

            The silver tendrils that shrouded Mr. Moroz’s body seemed to slither about his torso like snakes guarding their snack as it answered, “we are the fingers that thread the universe. We are the stitching that binds your reality. We are the womb that cradles your conscience. We are the gravity that holds you still. We are everything and nothing.”

            Perplexed, the psychologist from America asked, “Why have you come to us here.”

            “We are everywhere,” the voice replied. “When the door is opened, we come.”

            “What door,” the mycologist inquired.

            The mushrooms writhed about his face. “Death.”

            Startled, they both turned their curious expressions toward their host.

            The Ukrainian radiobiologist said, “We have been monitoring his advancing condition for months. In the beginning, we thought that the voice was only the result of too much exposure to the radiation.”

            “ARS,” the American correctly surmised.

            “Yes. I ordered my team into quarantine. To be administered by a physician. But the voices persisted. It was not delirium. It was real. We can’t explain it.”

            “If its death, then,” Dr. Olena Ivanova pressed, “who is dying?”

            The creature trembled once more as it answered promptly, “your reality.”

            Silence.

            The creature continued. “A plague is upon your dimension. A conflagration is spreading. The fungus of despair, ruin, and hate has taken root. The sacred union of life is broken—betrayed by mortal lust. The brother of nations has turned against his allies. They cannibalize their friends, their flesh, and their lands. The only conquest that shall prevail, is that of the kingdom of annihilation.”

            Dr. Harris said, “can this door be closed?”

            “Yes.”

            “How?”

            “When it is done.”

            “So, there is no hope, then,” Olena asked.

            “Hope is a false construct manifested by mortal minds who wish not to heed the coming tides of extinction.”

            “What do you mean?”

            Lines of interference rolled violently across the image on the screen as the voice answered, “Your ego blinds you from the truth. It shields you with paper armor. But the seals are broken. The veil is torn. You are drowning. And yet, you lie. It is the greatest of all sins. You lie to yourself. You tell yourself that you can still breathe so that you can still sleep. But the time has come to wake up.”

            “Wake up,” Dr. Harris shrugged, feeling helpless. “Wake up to what?”

            “To the truth,” it said. “The water by which you drown…it is drawn by your own hand—poured from the pail of self-preservation.”

            “You mean to imply that we are responsible for our own demise?”

            “This place was made to bring forth light and warmth—yet it has only bred eternal darkness. Lies were sewn to shade the brother’s scrutiny—yet they only brought death and agony. All in the name of self-preservation. This dome was erected to hide the truth. But a lie is no shelter. Truth cannot be caged. It will come for your kings. It will come even for those who continue to sleep. The hand that gives life takes it away.”

            “Is that what you have done to Mr. Moroz,” Dr. Ivanova asked, “did you take him away?”

            The fungus quaked. The image on the monitor cracked and rippled. The thing replied, “He never lied. He accepted his fate. He came to us willingly. It was to be his final journey. His sacrifice was to surrender to us. To allow us a voice. He is a messenger. We called to him, and he answered. For this, he will never die.”

            Then, Dr. Harris asked, “and that message is?”

            Silence.

            The cocoon of mycelium undulated across Mr. Moroz lifeless frame. “Go home. Cherish what you have. Embrace your loved ones while you still can. The time is nigh. Soon, you will be with us.”

            “You mean, soon we will all be dead,” Dr. Ivanova sulked. “What good can come from such a message.”

            The voice said, “Closure—Peace. To accept that there is only now. For the promise of tomorrow was always a lie. Now, is the only truth. And the knowledge of truth is rewarded with serenity.”     

            Dr. Kovalchuk’s dosimeter began beeping again, just as the image on screen broke apart into indecipherable static.

            “Time to go,” he intoned.

            Inside room 208, the rover stopped humming. The tiny remote-control car sat there on its oversized, serrated wheels, with its bulky mechanical load mounting it, still and dead. Then, a twisting, tangled mass of white and pink tendrils crawled across the soot-streaked concrete floor toward the device. The mycelium wrapped it up and pulled it in. The rover turned back on. Its wheels spinning and whirring. Its power light blinking full green. Then it was gone.

            Before long, Dr. Kovalchuk escorted his guests through the decontamination station to have their hazard suits removed and destroyed before returning to the helicopter.

            When they were onboard and the helos were lifting off, Dr. Olena Ivanova regarded the American seated across from her with curious eyes. Her long, dark red hair was pulled back in a taught ponytail, revealing her attractive, angular face to Dr. Harris in full view for the first time since they met only a few hours prior. She arched her thick, expressive eyebrow at him with puzzling interest.

Securing her headset against an ear she asked him, “So, is Mr. Moroz crazy, or are we?“I beg your pardon,” Dr. Harris replied, genuinely perplexed.

Dr. Kovalchuk was wearing his wireframed glasses again as he glanced across the fuselage to listen in on their conversation.

“That’s why you’re here, is it not,” Dr. Ivanova said. “You’re a psychologist?”

“I am.”

“The best in the world, as I am told,” Dr Kovalchuk put in.

Dr. Ivanova then shrugged her shoulders expectantly. She straightened her posture, resting her back against her seat. “So?”

Dr. Orian Harris sighed. “What kind of fungus can withstand that much radiation and preach prophecy through a human host.”

Dr. Ivanova went quiet, obfuscated.

“You’re a mycologist, are you not.”

Dr. Kovalchuk simpered. “Also, the best.”

She crossed her arms and pouted, frustration evident in her scrutiny. “I’ve never seen anything like that.”

“Nor have I,” the American admitted, fidgeting anxiously with his hands as he leaned in on his elbows. He looked at their host and grinned. “I’m sorry, Dr. Kovalchuk. But you might need a priest for this one.”

He smiled flatly as his answer to this.

Dr. Ivanova then asked, “So, what do we make of it?”

Silence.

Then, Dr. Kovalchuk removed his glasses from his face. He withdrew a handkerchief from his pocket and began cleaning them. He said, “The world is at war. AI is on the rise. Resources are growing thin. The world is getting hot…brother against brother—this is the bit that troubles me most.”

“What does it mean,” she asked.

“Suicide,” the American decided, darkly. “Ukraine, Russia. Israel, Iran. America at war with itself. Man, and his perfidious inventions. We have never been this close to self-assured destruction since World War II. And all of it seems to be driven by greed—self-preservation. A product of mortality salience. Terror Management studies have shown that when people believe nihilistically that death is imminent, they often prioritize wealth and hoarding resources over civility. They become reckless, impulsive…dangerous. We have seen this kind of internecine behavior playout on a global stage as of late.”

Dr. Ivanova demurred, “Yes, but those studies have also found that people tend to be more cooperative in such a crisis as well.”

“Sure,” Dr. Harris allowed, “but cooperative to whom?”

Dr. Kovalchuk opined, “The war-bringers of the world are quite set on total obliteration of their adversaries. Enough so, to risk sacrificing the lives of their own flock—their neighbors.”

“Their brothers,” Dr. Ivanova shuddered. She looked out the window, down at the iridescent sarcophagus that arched over Chernobyl like an icy fortress poised to keep its contents frozen in time as it slowly shrunk away. It was soon dissolved by the dense canopy of dark night-blue clouds.

Dr. Ivanova adjusted her coms around her head. Cupping the mouthpiece with her hand she asked, “What is that thing down there,” she looked up at their host, “God?”

For a long, chilling moment there was only the THWAP, THWAP, THWAP of the helicopter rotors carrying them across the smokey heavens.

Then, Dr. Kovalchuk’s frown deepened as he answered, “You tell me, Dr. Ivanova. I’m just a scientist.”