[sylvanSpider]

Aren wore on his person the uniform of a city dweller, give or take the oddities of the P-96 on his hip and a hardcover copy of The Book of Fungi: A Life-Size Guide to Six Hundred Species From Around the World tucked under his arm standing out from the expected sagging and torn in places hoodie and jeans barely clinging to his hips. The two looked like they couldn't have come from more different worlds, yet they were drawn into the same space with what was undoubtedly an all too similar story. It seemed that story was one shared by most since the Reckoning; few led lives void of tragedy now.

“Kid.” The word stuck in Aren's mind and echoed back in his brother's voice. A wave of uncanniness washed over him and he shook his head to shake off the thought before realizing that he was in company, nodding then to relay that he understood. “Got it,” he added to confirm and praying that his verbal response would detract from his noticing his odd verbal cues that he didn't mean to convey. With his mention of shooting, his hand drifted down to the gun at his hip as if to make sure it was there. Ideally, once he was finished, there would be hesitation to shoot. Every clicker, every runner, is a person who had the potential to be cured. That is, if the fungus didn't kill the host upon infection. If that was the case (and Aren sincerely prayed it wasn't), then everything Aren was doing was in vain unless he found a way to eradicate the fungus all together, found a weakness or a way to keep the spores from spreading.

Aren followed Ian into the storage closet and then into it, amazed that such a thing could be hidden in basically plain sight. He kept his arms dangling loose at his sides resisting the urge to jam them into his pockets. He knew he needed them available in case an infected came upon them, and he wanted to be extra cautious. “Kinda amazes me, y'know? How much they don't see. They aren't that hard to fool, are they?” Aren dropped in after him and brushed off his hoodie.

Generally, he stuck close to Ian. The subway's lights were long out, and the only mode of seeing was through Ian's light. He'd forgotten a flashlight. Of course that should have been first on his mind with the knowledge that fungi had a tendency to culminate in dark, damp spaces though it wasn't a necessity. There was some relief on reaching the outside. The sun still hung high in the sky, but its harshness melted through the branches of trees. The area around them was green, so very green. All around them Nature reclaimed what was rightfully Hers and it was...beautiful. Beautiful was the right word if it was also accompanied by “humbling” and “terrifying.”

Aren shook his head, “Not only mushrooms, man. Fungi in general. This place is home to over ten thousand different species. Least it was before the Reckoning. But, you ain't no idiot, I'll give you that. If I can get my hands on the Big Bad, I'd like to. I understand if you don't wanna fuck with that, but I've gotta try. I ain't exactly the most brauny guy there ever was, so I'm gonna make a difference with my head. It's all I got.” Aren couldn't help but raise his eyebrows, “I've got masks, yeah. And gloves. I came prepared in case you were willing to actually take me. This place gonna be rife with Runners?”