Day 489

They started out as spores, he found out.
Tiny little spores clinging to the mould-soaked palettes, long left to rot.
He'd heard about the floating corpse - everyone had.
Didn't think it was a thing.
Didn't think he'd come out so changed.
So ready.

He'd gone in around nine in the evening, through the hole in the wire fence.
Cracked tarmac that was once the former car park was covered in graffiti up to a certain point.
There was a ring around the old storage unit where nobody dared to go further.
Except one signature right in front of the broken door in neon pink spray.
It read something like guess who's going in?

If they could go in, surely he could too?
And so he did, step by overly-cautious step he crept through the doorway and into the musty room.
The air inside stank like old mushrooms and damp wood - probably from the abandoned palettes.
They lay all over the place, stacked, collapsed, torn to shreds and wrapped tight in plastic.
Feeling confident in the empty room he made his way deeper inside.

It was far larger inside than out and frankly rather dull.
An office had been built into the side which became his new destination.
The door from there was missing too and again it looked so much bigger than the outside was.
In there he saw her, just as the rumours said.
A rotting, floating corpse.

He didn't notice the powdery clumps that clung to the wood outside.
Nor did he see them floating in the air like dust-specks but bigger.
His body quickly succumbed to the spores and he moved not of his own accord.
Soon enough he stood right next to her decomposing form and reached out.
The second his fingertips made contact with her corpse she burst into spores.

He screamed and they filled his gasping lungs.
The world turned dark as images flashed through his head of all the others who'd gone there first.
All the people who had been like he was becoming - the host.
Those who had stayed outside and had gone on to spread word of this place.
They kept the hosts in regular supply.