The natural world is often painted as fragile under the threat of rapidly developing civilization. Trees, shrubs, flowers and grasses, are poorly equipped to handle the changes.

Mycelium knows no such fragility. It spreads, expands, consumes, adapts, and assimilates. When mold finds its way into the walls, it does not let go. After a devastating fire or a battle, the first life to grow is always a mushroom.

Assimilation is inevitable. Assimilation is the embodiment of this force of nature. Assimilation grows and takes over beings like a ring of mold takes over the skin of an orange. It is not driven by will, other than an inherent and perfectly natural instinct to become.

Just like a flower releases a scent to attract pollinators, Assimilation uses what it learns from those it has absorbed to cause hallucinations in those it is about to: the laughter of one's own child, or the smell of a pie from one's childhood.

The spores have already breached the threshold of your nostrils.

Soon, you too will shed your fragility. Allow yourself to be welcomed.