Archive of Our Own ^beta

It used to be that if anyone wanted to bury a body, they had to do it immediately, or everything, bones and all, would be eaten by the spores.

Nowadays, there’s barely any people around to die and be buried.

Ye Xiu burned his parents and brother instead. He carries them in three separate prescription pill bottles, with their names written in sharpie.

Little Dot is still alive. He’s on the older side for a dog, and sometimes Ye Xiu has to carry him, but he doesn’t mind. It would’ve been quite lonely otherwise.

He’s carrying his dog when they arrive in what used to be Hangzhou. Most survivors were going north, where the spores couldn’t grow in the cold, but after the Third Mutation power lines and cell service had been spotty. Ye Xiu lost what little contact he had with his friends in the Pro Alliance— and he couldn’t bring himself to head northwards when there was a chance he might leave someone he knew behind.

The streets are empty. The traffic signals don’t work anymore— he’s starting to doubt many people remain.

Mushrooms grow on the walls and between the cracks of the road. Everything is covered in a fine layer of spores, but he’s still able to make out the words on street signs. He goes to Happy Internet Cafe first. It’s closer, though he doesn’t expect to find anything there.

Fungi grows on the computers. They replaced the chairs at the front desk at some point when he was gone. He checks the seal on Little Dot’s mask and protective clothing, and sets him down.

As expected, there’s nothing upstairs. Nothing alive besides the fungi, at least. There’s the rooms where Happy used to practice in their first few years, and next door for the guilds. The team moved out into a proper club building sometime after Season Twelve, and judging by the signs, the second floor went back to being a bunch of VIP rooms.

Chen Guo’s apartment is at the end of the hall— it was her room back before he went back home, anyways. He doesn’t know if it is anymore, but he tests the doorknob. It’s unlocked.

He’s met with a cloud of spores when he pushes the door open. Ye Xiu splutters instinctively, and wipes the dust off his gas mask with a gloved hand. 

One of the windows is open, which explains the mushrooms growing everywhere. It doesn’t look like it’s been occupied for at least a year.

He checks all the rooms. Empty, but he finds a couple sausages in a cabinet. From the looks of it, they’re still edible, so he sticks them in his front pocket.

Little Dot is sniffing around the broken drink fridge. Empty. Ye Xiu scoops him up and tries to remember the way to Happy’s club building.

He ducks inside through a hole in the glass. There’s surprisingly very little fungal growth, perhaps a few dark spots on surfaces where it can’t be rubbed off, or growing in patches sixty feet up on the ceiling.

Either the surfaces have been treated with some relatively effective fungicide, or there’s someone living here. Or perhaps very recently dead. Or dying. Ye Xiu isn’t very optimistic about finding people who aren’t going to die within the next month.

He keeps holding Little Dot, nevertheless. He doesn’t want to risk him getting eaten or something.

There isn’t much to take in the lobby. He takes a moment to locate the stairwell— the grate fencing off the way to the basement is actually unlocked. Ye Xiu pulls at it carefully. It squeaks.

Maybe later, then. He goes to the second floor instead.

The grimy signs in the hallway tell him it’s a bunch of PR offices. Everything that’s supposed to have a lock is missing a handle, and if it doesn’t have a handle there’s a hole cut into the door.

Aside from his own breathing and his dog’s panting, he doesn’t hear anything. He doesn’t expect to find anything, either, but he decides what the fuck and ducks into a random office.

There really isn’t anything left. A few small scraps of paper scattered on the floor, the rest of it probably taken away for kindling. There’s a circle in the dust covering the desk, as if there used to be a small dish sitting there.

A little fungi grows in the corners of the room. At some point somebody gutted the computer for scrap metal.

The second floor isn’t much better. More offices, all showing evidence of being broken into.

Third floor— R&D. The entire floor has an open setup, probably to ‘encourage collaboration’ or whatever. The desks are illuminated in a weird orangeish light, due to the spores covering the outside of the window. 

Surprisingly enough, the stuff on Glory equipment and stats is relatively untouched. So are the cabinets of hardware and things.

For a moment, Ye Xiu considers going up, presumably to where the guilds and teams and all are located. But he decides against it. In the off-chance he stumbles upon a skeleton hidden among some mushrooms, well. He doesn’t think he’ll handle it well if he has reason to believe it’s one of his former teammates.

Back to the stairwell, downstairs. Ye Xiu tests the gate leading to the basement again— it squeaks, and this time he ignores it. Little Dot barks, and he shushes him.

The walls are streaked with soot. There’s a bowl of burnt paper at the foot of the stairs. The fire is already out, and Ye Xiu looks in both directions for other signs of habitation.

Nothing else. He opens the stairwell, and almost drops Little Dot as something whooshes past his face.

It strikes the door and bounces off. Ye Xiu turns to find a crossbow pointed at himself.

The weapon was clearly crafted from salvaged parts, but it looks functional. The bolt from earlier would’ve embedded itself in his arm if the attacker’s aim was a little better.

“... Can you put that down?” From this distance, he can’t discern the other person’s identity behind their mask and goggles.

“Drop your weapons first.” The voice is a little muffled behind the mask, but it sounds gruff— perhaps masculine.

“I don’t have any.”

The other person doesn’t move. 

Ye Xiu holds their gaze for a moment, and then digs through his pockets for his swiss army knife, throwing it at them. “That’s it.”

“That’s it?”

“What are you, the basement police force?”

They scoff, and set down their crossbow. “What are you doing here?”

“Looking around.”

“There’s nothing here.” They wipe at their goggles with a gloved sleeve, and step closer.

“You’re here.”

“What the fuck would you want from me—” They pause, and lean in slightly. Ye Xiu can see their eyes behind the goggles. It’s vaguely familiar. “Lao Ye?”

“That’s my last name. I don’t know who you are though.”

They punch him lightly in the shoulder. “Put your dog down.”

“You won’t eat him?”

“Who the fuck do you think I am?”

They pick up both weapons, handing the knife back to Ye Xiu before leading him further down the hall. They stop at a pail of some liquid with a washcloth floating in it, and wipe off their gloves.

Then they hand the washcloth to Ye Xiu. “Bleach.”

“What?”

“You’re not bringing spores into where I live.”

That’s fair. He wipes down his clothes and mask, and then bends down to wipe off Little Dot.

They wave Ye Xiu through a set of double doors— it looks like it used to be a storage room. Ye Xiu looks back as they take off their mask and goggles.

Wei Chen meets his eye, a bit weirded out. “You look like you haven’t interacted with another person in months.”

“I could say the same for you.”

“But I look less batshit crazy.”

Ye Xiu’s mouth twitches into a small smile. “You should look at yourself in the mirror sometime, then, because you do.”

Wei Chen leaves his mask, goggles and gloves at the door. “I’m perfectly fine. You just don’t have taste. You like mushrooms?”

“If they’re not trying to kill me, sure.”

“You have any food on you?”

Ye Xiu pulls out the sausages from earlier.

Wei Chen cooks in the hallway— explains all the soot. Ye Xiu comments on the shitty ventilation, and Wei Chen points out that it really wouldn’t make a difference, considering they both smoke.

“Like there’s any cigarettes around anymore.”

“Maybe not for you.” Wei Chen skewers the sausages and some mushrooms from god knows where— Ye Xiu is under the assumption they’re safe to eat, and that Wei Chen isn’t still alive out of some miracle of probability.

“You have some?”

“Yeah.” He doesn’t clarify any further, and props the skewers up over the fire. “You know, we really took spices for granted.”

“You took spices for granted. I ate out of cans.”

“And you dream of cigarettes, but I’m the one that actually has some to smoke.”

Ye Xiu makes a grunting noise, as if acknowledging his statement, and the conversation falls silent. 

The mushrooms are pretty bland. Ye Xiu thinks he’d also gripe over a lack of spices if this was the only thing he could eat for months.

Wei Chen offers him a cigarette. He lights it over the fire.

“... You know, I wasn’t really expecting to find anyone down here.”

“You can’t kill me that easily.”

“I mean here.” Ye Xiu makes a vague gesture with his hand. “I thought you would’ve gone north.”

“I would’ve.”

Ye Xiu doesn’t reply. 

Wei Chen holds his hand out for the cigarette, and takes a drag. “You’re early. Wait a few weeks, I’d probably been out”

Ye Xiu nods, still parsing the meaning of his words. “You think dogs can eat the mushrooms?”

“The rats could.”

Ye Xiu takes that as a yes. Wei Chen hands him a roasted skewer, and he picks off chunks to feed Little Dot.

“Is there anyone else alive?” Ye Xiu stands to one side, watching Wei Chen set down a bowl of roast mushroom for his rats. They don’t look like the fancy rats bred as pets— perhaps Wei Chen went and just befriended some off the street?

Wei Chen sucks in a breath. 

Oh. “I—”

He cuts Ye Xiu off. “— The last one died a week ago.”

“... Who?”

“Guild, mostly. Some R&D. A few training camp kids didn’t have somewhere to go back to.”

“Mucheng?”

“She left a few months ago. For the coast, I think. Saw the New Excellent Era brats a while ago, said they were leaving for City Q.” He falls silent, and they watch the rats nibble on pieces of mushroom. “You know, I had to close off the rooms when they fell ill. I don’t know if you went upstairs—”

“The dorms?”

“The bones are probably eaten up by now.”

The spores are resilient things. You can burn them off if they start growing on your skin, but once they start growing in your internal organs, it’s a slow death sentence. There’s very little they won’t eat.

“Who’s dead?” Ye Xiu asks, after a heavy silence.

Wei Chen shrugs. “Don’t know. The ones who were here couldn’t go home. Or they wouldn’t.”

“Ah.” He takes a deep breath. “Are you taking the rats north?” He asks, changing the subject.

“Could I?”

“Put them in a box, maybe. With filters. Or something.”

Wei Chen drags him up to the top floor to watch the sunset— they pointedly look away from the doors as they climb the stairwell.

Fungus grows on the walls. It doesn’t look like Wei Chen does much housekeeping up here.

The windows are dusted in spores, but a few of them are missing windowpanes, bits of glass still sparkling on the floor. 

The sky is turning pale. The view is vaguely familiar to Ye Xiu— just a little, if he pretends everything isn’t overgrown by fungi.

“You know, they still have satellites up there. And the space station.”

“I didn’t come up here to think about astronauts starving to death.” Wei Chen replies.

“Fair.” Ye Xiu steps a bit closer to him, suddenly vaguely self conscious of how they might be some of the last people alive.

The sun is obscured by the high-rises, but it still casts golden light through the broken windows.

“... Do you want to look for the others when we go north?” Wei Chen’s voice is oddly quiet.

“Do you want to go south?”

Places in the south were generally affected worse by the spores, though places right next to the coast were relatively safer, since the mutated fungi couldn’t grow in salt water. They really don’t know how City G is holding up— they haven’t been able to establish contact with Blue Rain in the past year— though both of them are quite aware that Wei Chen would probably want to meet his juniors, if they’re still alive.

Wei Chen turns his head. Ye Xiu imagines he’s a little surprised under the face coverings. “Should we?”

“...” Ye Xiu stares at him for a moment. The answer he’d probably want to hear? Yes, go south. The more realistic answer? If they were still alive, Huang Shaotian and Yu Wenzhou would’ve gone to a safer region, less overrun by spores. If not… well, there’d be nothing left to see.

Before he can open his mouth, Wei Chen continues. “You know, they’d probably be going north, too, if they can.” 

“Where next, then, City N?”

“Why not.”

Tomorrow, they go scavenging at the abandoned supermarkets. In three days they leave City H for good. Wei Chen asks Ye Xiu if he has an extra bedroll or something of that sort— Ye Xiu shows him the large coat he sleeps in, and promptly gets a blanket thrown in his face.