Two weeks passed since the night of shrieks and golden spores.
The village had settled into a rhythm again, the kind that only comes after blood has been washed off wood and the fires of fear have died down to embers. Hunters returned from the outer groves with baskets of glowing roots and meat from strange antlered beasts. Black stains still scarred the bark where Mawborn had bled, but life moved forward because it had to.
I, unfortunately, was still trapped in the body of an infant—helpless limbs, soft bones, and zero dignity. If not for my intact memories and inner monologue, I'd be nothing more than a drooling fungus burrito. Instead, I was a drooling fungus burrito with existential dread.
My parents did their best to ease me into this world, though they didn't exactly agree on how.
Kaelen and Liora
My father's name was Kaelen. The man was built like someone had carved him from oak, then wrapped him in scars for decoration. He had the kind of presence that made people stop mid-conversation when he walked by. To the villagers, he was the shield between them and the endless dark below. To me, he was the juggernaut who cradled me in one hand as if I weighed no more than a loaf of bread.
"Strong lungs," he said once, after I'd screamed at the top of my baby range because he'd tried to put me down too early. He smirked, which was about as close to affection as a man like him got.
My mother, Liora, was softer in appearance but sharper in every other way. Where Kaelen was iron, she was fire. Her voice calmed storms, her hands healed wounds, and her glare could silence even the rowdiest of soldiers. She wasn't just a mother; she was the soul of the village, whether the villagers admitted it or not.
I'd often wake in her arms, her voice humming lullabies that felt older than the trees themselves. Sometimes golden tears still streaked her face when she thought no one was looking. She'd lost me once—at birth—and I suspected she'd never stop fearing she might lose me again.
Life Among the Trees
The village itself fascinated me. Entire platforms stretched across branches wider than city streets back on Earth. Rope bridges swayed between trunks, woven from fibers stronger than steel cables. Homes were carved into the living wood, their walls glowing faintly with patches of bioluminescent fungi.
Every day brought movement: women grinding spores into paste for food or medicine, men sharpening blades against whetstones, children chasing one another along the walkways until parents shouted them back from the edges. The air always smelled of moss, smoke, and earth—alive, rich, heavy.
I watched it all from my cradle, my mind a thirty-year-old gamer trapped in a body that couldn't even crawl. I cataloged everything, from the way guards rotated shifts at the bridges to how mushroom kin pulsed faintly when excited, as if their veins carried light instead of blood.
And then, one day, I made a friend.
Thalos
He arrived like a storm of noise and mischief.
Thalos was about four years old, give or take. Mushroom kin, but not like the elder with her sagging cap. His cap was tilted like a jaunty hat, streaked with faint blue lines that glowed when he laughed—which was often. He had a grin too big for his face and eyes that constantly glittered with ideas no adult would approve of.
The first time I saw him, he leaned over my cradle, poked my cheek, and announced, "He looks like a wet mushroom."
"Thalos!" Liora hissed, swatting him away.
He just cackled and bowed dramatically. "Sorry, Lady Liora, I meant no insult to the blessed miracle baby."
Then he winked at me. A wink that said, You and I? We're gonna get into trouble someday.
From then on, Thalos was everywhere. He brought me carved wooden toys shaped like beasts, though half the time he smashed them together in mock battles before I could even touch them. He narrated my life out loud—"And then the mighty baby warrior drooled on his foes!"—and had the entire gaggle of village kids giggling at my expense.
I should've hated him. But I didn't. He was funny. Sharp. And underneath the bravado, I caught glimpses of something else: strength.
When he thought no one was looking, I saw him concentrate, his cap glowing brighter. Tiny mushrooms sprouted from his palms, then crumbled away like ash. Other kids couldn't do that. He was different. Like me.
Playing in the Branches
A week later, Liora insisted I be taken outside for "fresh spores," which I assumed meant fresh air. She handed me to Thalos, of all people, declaring it was "time the miracle baby met the other children properly."
Kaelen grumbled but didn't argue.
And so I found myself slung over Thalos's shoulder like a sack of potatoes, carried out into the bright, pulsing heart of the village. Children swarmed, curious and wide-eyed. Mushroom kin with caps like parasols, humans in patched tunics, all wanting a peek at the baby who glowed when he cried.
"Behold!" Thalos shouted, raising me high like some kind of fungus-born Lion King. "The baby who makes mushrooms grow on command!"
He wasn't wrong. Because right then, nervous and embarrassed, I sneezed—and a puff of golden spores erupted from my mouth, drifting down onto a wooden toy beast.
The toy twitched. Then it sprouted stubby legs. Then it ran away.
The kids screamed—not in fear, but delight—and chased after it, laughing and cheering. Thalos doubled over with laughter, holding his stomach. "You see? I told you he's blessed!"
I groaned internally. Day one of social interaction, and I was already the clown of the playground.
But as I watched them laugh, really laugh, something shifted in my chest. These weren't faceless NPCs in a horror game. They were kids. Real kids. And for the first time since I'd woken in this world, I felt something that might've been belonging.
Refugees
Not everything was laughter.
Two days later, a horn sounded at the far bridge. Refugees.
A small group shuffled into the village—three humans, gaunt and bleeding, and two mushroom kin so thin their caps sagged like wilted flowers. They collapsed at the gates, whispering of Mawborn packs in the groves.
"They hunt everything," one man rasped. "Not just us. Beasts, trees, even each other. They… they don't stop eating."
Kaelen's jaw tightened as he listened. Liora rushed forward, already glowing with healing spores as she tended to their wounds.
The debate began almost immediately. Some villagers demanded the refugees be turned away—they had too little food as it was. Others, led by Liora, argued they couldn't turn their backs on survivors.
"They are us," she said firmly, golden tears streaking her cheeks. "If we close our gates today, who will open theirs for us tomorrow?"
Kaelen stood silent for a long time before finally nodding. "We take them. But we prepare. More mouths mean more risk."
The crowd broke into arguments again, but the decision stood. The refugees were welcomed, fed, and given a corner of the village to sleep in.
That night, I overheard Kaelen and Liora in hushed tones.
"They'll keep coming," Kaelen said. "Every beast that wanders drives more survivors here. Soon, we'll have no choice but to fight for food ourselves."
"Then we'll fight," Liora whispered back. "But we will not become monsters to survive."
Her words burned in me. I was still just a baby, powerless in most ways, but I felt the weight of them settle into my bones.
Seeds of Belonging
Days bled into one another. Thalos became a constant fixture, dragging me along to "play" in whatever ways an infant could participate. Sometimes that meant me lying on the ground watching him duel imaginary beasts with a stick. Sometimes it meant him making me the "prisoner" in a game of heroes and villains.
But more often, it meant laughter. Real, genuine laughter that echoed across the platforms and drowned out the whispers for a while.
And though my spores still frightened me—healing and twisting at random—I began to see the value in them too. Every time a refugee was healed, every time Thalos clapped me on the back and declared me his "partner in crime," I realized something simple and terrifying:
I wasn't just surviving here.
I was living.
And for the first time in two lives, I felt like maybe, just maybe, I belonged.
A month slipped by before I even realized it. Days blended together in a haze of glowing light, the scent of moss, and the creak of bridges swaying under countless feet.
Time in a baby body moves differently. When you can't walk, talk, or even hold a spoon properly, you start measuring progress in inches instead of miles. The biggest milestone of my new life so far? Crawling. Or, at least, the baby version of crawling—which looked more like a drunken caterpillar dragging itself across the floor.
Still, to the villagers, I was a miracle. To me, I was just a thirty-year-old brain trapped in a body that couldn't even wipe its own nose.
The Village in Motion
I'd grown used to the sounds of the village. Dawn began with the hunters setting out, their boots pounding against rope bridges, spears strapped to their backs. By mid-morning, the air filled with the crack of hammers as smiths reforged dented blades. Mushroom kin farmers coaxed glowing caps to sprout from the edges of platforms, while human women spun fibers into ropes stronger than any I'd seen back on Earth.
And always, there was laughter. Kids chasing each other across branches. Traders haggling over baskets of roots. The occasional shout of alarm when someone leaned too far over the edge.
This place lived, breathed, and thrived, even in the shadow of monsters.
The Mawborn were still out there, but their presence had changed. They weren't armies or swarms, just scattered predators—roaming in small packs like wolves. Hunters came back with stories of corpses chewed to bone, claw marks gouged into tree trunks, and strange howls in the distance.
But here, in the treetop sanctuary, life pushed forward.
Kaelen and Liora
My father, Kaelen, returned to his usual routine: sparring at dawn, training recruits, and patrolling the bridges. Even when he was home, he never truly left the battlefield. He carried war in his posture, in the way he scanned every shadow, in the way his hand always rested near a weapon even while holding me.
But sometimes, when no one was watching, he'd let me grip his scarred finger with my tiny hand. His lips would twitch upward, just barely, and I knew—behind all that steel—there was warmth.
My mother, Liora, kept busier than anyone. With refugees arriving every week, she spent her days tending wounds, calming frightened children, and brewing remedies from roots and spores. Her glow seemed endless, though I noticed the lines of exhaustion growing beneath her eyes.
She never complained. She simply worked, then came home at night to hold me against her chest, whispering lullabies until I drifted into sleep.
If Kaelen was the shield of the village, Liora was the heart.
Getting to Know Them
I wasn't just learning my parents. I was learning everyone.
There was Doros, the blacksmith, whose hammering echoed day and night. He had arms like tree trunks and a laugh that shook the rafters. He'd sneak me shiny scraps of metal to play with, which Liora immediately confiscated.
There was Sira, a mushroom kin seamstress with delicate hands and a cap that looked like spun silk. She made me tiny tunics I immediately drooled on, then clucked her tongue at.
And there were the refugees. Some stayed only a few days before moving on. Others settled permanently, weaving themselves into the fabric of the village. They came with haunted eyes and scars, but also with stories. Each one reminded me that this world outside the branches was vast, dangerous, and full of lives colliding.
Thalos the Menace
Of course, no one made a bigger impact on my day-to-day than Thalos.
The four-year-old menace treated me like his personal sidekick. He'd barge into our hut without warning, scoop me up, and drag me into whatever adventure he'd planned that day.
"Come on, baby hero!" he'd shout, hauling me toward the other kids. "We're storming the evil tree fortress today!"
I'd dangle helplessly under his arm, praying he wouldn't drop me off a bridge.
Despite the chaos, I couldn't deny he kept life interesting. He teased, he joked, he laughed louder than anyone else. But beneath all that energy, he was different. Stronger. His spores glowed brighter, his tricks lasted longer.
One afternoon, I watched him sneak off to a quiet corner of the village, concentrating until glowing fungi bloomed from his palm. He grinned when he noticed me staring.
"Don't tell anyone," he whispered. "I'm practicing. Gotta be the best someday."
I would've told him he wasn't alone. That I was different too. But all I could do was gurgle and drool. He laughed anyway.
Belonging
The strangest part of all was how quickly the village began to feel like home.
I knew I didn't belong here. I wasn't really their miracle child—I was a man from another world, shoved into this body. But the villagers didn't see that. To them, I was hope. Proof that life could bloom even from death.
Every smile, every pat on the head, every whispered prayer over me sank deeper into my heart.
For the first time in either life, I wasn't just surviving. I wasn't just playing games or chasing distractions.
I was part of something bigger.
Whispers in the Dark
Of course, the voices never left.
Grow. Consume. Spread. Protect.
They whispered as I played, as I ate, as I slept. Sometimes soft, sometimes urgent. Sometimes they felt like encouragement. Other times, like hunger.
I still didn't know if they were guiding me or waiting to devour me.
But for now, surrounded by laughter, warmth, and a friend who wouldn't stop calling me "baby hero," I let the whispers fade into the background.
For the first time, I wasn't afraid.