KROFE

by Emily Gillette

The world didn’t become a burned-up hellscape like they expected it to. Nor did humanity die out, choking up after the freshwater ran dry and the food system collapsed and the animals fell in their tracks when the weight of their own bones became too much to carry. Nor did they strangle their ecosystem with plastics, though they got far too close. 

What they did get after krofe—after life itself seemed to hold its breath for a brief period, approximately eight days, three hours, forty-seven seconds—was spores. Millions of spores, twisting up out of nowhere like a dust storm and settling in drifts over city centers across the world. Perhaps it was some misguided company’s “for the good of humanity” attempt to fix things in the typical one-size-fits-all approach; or perhaps there was an unfortunate (irresponsible) radiation leakage that mutated the wrong ecosystem at the wrong time. Regardless, it only took several hours of examining the “amber snow” before people began to realize that falling spores were only the first wave. Rain came afterwards, dousing the spores, matting them into the ground—but the ones that took root, the ones that sprouted in a matter of hours were the ones clinging to buildings, concrete, asphalt, metal, and plastic.

In only a few days, the cities became unrecognizable towers of impossible, giant mushrooms, shadowed by the haze of spore release and windstorms as the less stable structures toppled to the ground. Powder engulfed the streets, choked the air, pushed who was left by then (after buildings collapsed, after atmospheric disruption, after being buried alive in the dense ‘snow’ with a consistency of kneaded dough) out into the countryside, away from the metal and city pollutants—the only place where there was enough of a reprieve from the human-altered substances to deter the mushrooms from growing.

You could imagine the fights over every strip of green land—or you could imagine that at that point they were too tired to fight any longer. Or you could imagine the wolf cries that hadn’t sounded quite right since krofe, the ones that lingered on the outer rims of the green spaces but never entered. People disappearing into the night.

Ironically, Sona was on the second hour of a midday psilocybin trip when the world collapsed around them. They only remembered that it looked like the walls of their apartment were melting off, and the weird half-giggle, half-choking noise they made in response, and how that caused them to laugh even harder. They don’t remember being discovered by some good Samaritan, or being carried out of the building, or how this person even managed to clap a gas mask over their face while they were dissociating.

They do remember digging into their pocket for a phone and feeling it crumble away in their hands, surrounded by a bluish-brown powder that they couldn’t seem to wipe off anywhere, and thinking how that was definitely a psilocybin thing and it would be back in their pocket later. They didn’t mind being dragged away from life and into the deep-forest wonderland around them: wild patterns and textures painted the burnt-umber sky and Sona rolled in the stranger’s arms to try and see them better. They also remember thinking vaguely that they might have taken a trip to Disneyland and wondering when the park owners installed the giant mushroom-tower rides and whether they were too short to ride on them—was 5’7” too short? They weren’t 5’7”, they just thought that was something important to worry about at the time. The sensations that had been advertised as a ‘mystical experience’ quickly began to jar Sona up—they were way too far out of their own body now, miles away from the whole Earth restructuring itself. The first hints of anxiety from their coming-down faded into acceptance, acceptance faded into peace, and peace faded into an uneasy sleep.

They also recall the thunderous awakening they had approximately three hours later when their good Samaritan collapsed, breath ragged, as a building somewhere behind them exploded into giant oyster mushrooms and shook the ground beneath their feet. And they remember knowing that that wasn’t supposed to happen when you were sober.

Sona doesn’t touch psilocybin anymore. And they don’t refer to it as “shrooms”, either; that seemed indelicate.

They never spoke a word about how they escaped the city and survived the days-long mass exodus to the small patches of green beyond. Burnt into Sona’s brain like a brand, yes; the image of a ragged too-small group of people emerging from the spore clouds in gas masks would never leave them. But neither would it help them move on. And the good Samaritan (whose face they can hardly remember after seven years) disappeared into the then-crowd of people only hours after Sona had recovered. They never saw their savior again.

✵✵✵

The sound it made was a cracking, popping noise. Kro.

The sound was sharp, but the ending was smooth, like stone fitting into place. Fe.

The sound swept over cities and howled.

The sound was the final breath of a beast before it falls.

The sound was something new crashing into life.

✵✵✵

The midsummer dusk clung to the last light of a reddish, dripping sun; it stained the grass an orangish brown and made it hard to discriminate from the drifts of spores beyond the village. Sona scanned the shadowy line of trees that marked the border of the village and the hinterlands, watching as a group of people stepped through with backpacks piled high over their heads. It was return day for the trade group, with whatever goods and news they’d gotten from the other distant villages. Sona stayed out to greet them as they came back, every month, because of Ren.

From across the field, Ren gave them a wave as he removed the makeshift cloth mask from over his nose and mouth. Sona lifted the walking stick they’d been carrying in response, letting it fall back down to the ground with a thud. They waited patiently as the party approached, shadows leaping out across the grass.

  “Welcome back,” Sona said as soon as he’d reached them. “What took you so long?”

“We got held up at Gingen—they had some news come in at the last second, so we stayed to hear it.” Ren shrugged off his pack and dropped down to Sona’s side. The other two travelers waved their goodbyes and walked on to the center of the village. 

“And? What was it?”

Ren frowned, searching for the right words and drawing up blank.

He was the first and fastest friend Sona had made while adjusting to their new life. After krofe, everyone took the chance to purge whatever happened in their past and start fresh. Some people renamed themselves, some made up a story about their life before, and some pretended that krofe was the way things had always been. Ren was different. From the day they met, he’d known how to till the soil, forage for food, mend or make clothing, and a whole host of things that Sona had been removed from growing up. He never explained how he knew or where he came from (not that that was relevant anymore), but Sona was constantly surprised by his quiet knowledge of the world, the way he took every obstacle in stride and without complaint. Before krofe, the two of them might have been polar opposites. That didn’t bother Sona, though. They watched Ren smooth out his beard before prompting him again.

“Bad news?”

“No. Just strange—it might not even be real. Do you remember the stories they told us about the fallout bunkers?”

They did. When the rumors first started circulating about the alleged fallout bunkers, Sona clung on to every word for any scrap of petty retribution it might have brought them. There was no chance of forgetting those ghost stories.

✵✵✵

It is said that the wealthy elite hid from the disaster in caves and ancient, musty bomb shelters. Each of them brought—or had, if they were the type to prepare for the end of the world—tinned food, water packaged in plastic bottles, spare clothes, spare blankets, maybe even spare weapons.

They did not take the time to study their surroundings or consider why the Earth sought to retaliate so brutally against its inhabitants. The metal-lined bomb shelters collapsed within the year from the same sinking rot that ate away at skyscrapers and planes mid-flight. The caves fared better, with no metals or glass or plastic except what the wealthy brought in themselves. Those people may have survived if they had enough of the supplies. And if the dark did not drive them to insanity first.

A village watch once reported a strange cluster of people drifting outside their borders, with translucent skin and hollow bodies. They were barely strong enough to walk, pale and sinewy like the mycelium itself. But that was not all that made these people stand out: it was that they stood at the edge of the village, right on the tree line, and stared at its inhabitants. They did not ask for any food, drink, medication, clothing, nothing. By that point they may have been beyond asking; they had some strange expectation for the villagers to come forth and know who they were and know how to help. They did not know what to say, and they did not understand the world they saw before them.

So they stood like ghosts; the village could not afford to help those whom they knew they could not heal. After the sun set that night, the ghosts glowed translucent against the watch-fires, until one by one their glow dipped back into the shadows. By the morning there was no trace of them, in the village or beyond.

✵✵✵

Sona tried to remind themself that it was petty and childish to wish ill on the formerly wealthy people, especially since the much more likely story was that the rich were living among their own communities, trying to forget their pasts. That was the goal, after all: krofe is supposed to be a second chance. In reality, it was much harder for them to forget, so instead they kept it to themself.

Remember only what serves us in the present.

Ren’s voice yanked Sona out of their musings. “There’s a rumor spreading that a group of people was spotted leaving mountain caves. Probably miles away, I don’t know how far the rumor spread. But there is a concern that they have weapons.”

“What type of weapons?”

“Not sure. Someone said a crossbow, but another messenger had heard it was a rifle.”

“A rifle shouldn’t last long in the hinterland, if they go there,” Sona said. “and if it was a rifle, it’s a miracle it stayed intact this whole time.”

“That’s what I thought too.” Ren leaned back and laid his head on the grass. The last of the sunlight had sapped away and the smell of woodsmoke drifted overhead: the evening cooking fires just getting started. Sona glanced back at the village behind them, at the warm golden glow of candlelight from sod-roof cabins. For a second they forgot themself.

“What do you think are the chances that it’s true?”

“Slim to none,” Ren responded, too quickly. Another thing about Ren—he was a terrible liar.

Sona snorted. “Come on, you don’t actually believe it?”

“I do believe it,” Ren said. He stared up for a moment before turning on his side to face Sona. “I believe that they’re back, and they’re scared, and there is a high likelihood that they will get eaten by wolves in the hinterlands before the month is out.”

“And what if they don’t?”

Ren grabbed Sona’s arm and gently tugged until they laid down next to him. “I’m not sure. What do you think?”

“I think...” Sona frowned. “Well, two options: first, they fight us. Or someone. Obviously we kick their asses.”

Ren made a noise that sounded like a cough, but quickly devolved into laughter. “Superb. What is the other option?”

“Uh...we finally get an extra set of hands to help us rebuild the old barn.”“In other words,” Ren finished for them, “they’ll be our friends?”

Sona looked at Ren. His eyes twinkled when they caught the light of the village behind them, and they could just barely make out the shape of an amused grin beneath his beard.

“Yeah. Maybe they’ll be our friends.”