The Bear

Thoughts flooded into Flake's mind, into the whole of his being it seemed. Alien thoughts at that, not the immediate grounded thoughts that drove his survival and social interactions throughout the whole of his life. These thoughts were distant, abstract, forward thinking, and self involved. As if for the first time Flake was able to have a conversation with himself, inside his own mind. Like his thoughts had evolved from the animal immediacy of his entire life into something more, something nebulous and undefinable. “What just happened to me? Why do I feel so… different? Like a stone has been lifted off my mind.” Flake thought to himself, in his mind, not so much in directly seeing the different signs and gestures of his people but intrinsically feeling them. While concepts that had no gestures were either replaced with the spoken word of human language from his previous tribe among the giants or made up of a compounding of different words. The whole concept almost startled and confused him, never before had he really formed these sort of thoughts, and Flake just subconsciously knew that they were beyond the limits of his previous self.

Flake started to walk, his hide clad feet kicking up dust and dirt from the suddenly and nonsensically barren Oak grove around him. The trees were still there, though their canopies had thinned considerably, and the grass in the clearing around the colossal boar skeleton was still there. Yet the mushrooms, the obscenely dense fungal ecosystem, which resembled a sort of eldritch living cave in design had simply vanished. Even their mycelial networks within the roots below which Flake couldn't see but could intrinsically feel as if his own hair had grown under the ground were all gone now. Every movement Flake made was more dexterous, more controlled, more graceful than anything he could have ever done before, as if he could easily pick up an individual grain of sand from the beach with the grip of his toes.

Even with his full mind and body evolution Flake didn't feel alien to himself as he walked out of the valley and up the hillside, spear in hand. Instead what Flake felt was fullness, one he hadn't felt since that quiet moment with Three Fingers before he would be washed away in the storm that brought him to this land. Yet it was something more, a wholeness, a oneness with himself, how his conscious human mind and unconscious animal mind no longer seemed to compete with each other. There was no more internal war of dominance between primitive reason and wild instinct, there was only Flake.

Flake was now unsure of where to really go, should he continue his descent down the mountains and back into the coastal forests? After all that was his initial goal for survival, yet with the intelligence of an expanding consciousness also came doubt and a lack of sureness. The idea was so simple at first, there were so few factors Flake could even begin to consider, but now a hundred little what ifs and then whats began to swarm his mind like flies swarming a dung pile. The only thing he knew was that he was not yet ready to take his revenge, his metamorphosis was still immature and that there were far more of those monstrous men than Flake had ever seen himself. For this knowledge wasn't his own, it was implanted deep within his psyche like a distant memory that wasn't his own. What was he to do then? Was his goal to strike out and find more spirits to devour to steal their power? No, that would just create more vengeful spirits like the mushroom that so graciously granted him this gift. Could there be others like him? Those who have partaken of spirit flesh but aren't of the tribe of his enemies. Maybe, but Flake would have to venture far into unfamiliar territory to even stand a chance of finding them. For no other humans seemed to have dwelled in the Southern coastal forests, at least that he had seen.

So it was decided, Flake turned from his initial cardinal direction of South and began to walk North with nothing but his new self, his spear, and hope. A hope that he could carve out a new tribe in lands unknown so that they may take revenge upon those who have wronged both him and the late mushroom god. As Flake traveled he found himself looking at the world around him in a way he never had before, in which he found himself not just observing passively but speculating how natural phenomena can do what it does. How does a butterfly fly? How does a spider make its web? Why are all the stones in a creek so round while all the rocks on land can be so angular? Why is grass so soft even though it's shaped like a series of tiny blades?

As days drifted to weeks and weeks into months Flake continuously found himself both asking these questions and beginning to attempt to mimic the natural world around him in order to understand his own budding powers. The first and greatest of Flake's teachers were the wild fungus around him as he walked, not just the fruiting mushroom bodies some of which he ate, but the entirety of the subterranean mycelial networks interwoven through all environments. Upon making contact with these networks, typically through their fruiting bodies Flake’s own internal network would always receive a signal. At first the signals were meaningless, like a jolt of spastic flailing through his mind as opposed to a true gesture. Yet each time Flake was bombarded with a signal his newfound curiosity only grew. Soon Flake found himself attempting to decode the signals for mean, for true communication. Flake observed conditions in his surroundings first to try and gain insight into what these networks may be communicating about.

Carcasses meant nutrients, bugs meant invaders, rain was a signal to fruit and sprout. Flake quickly found himself able to readily listen upon the subterranean orchestra of electrical and chemical communication simply by reaching and touching a mushroom or digging down and touching the mycelial network itself. They never had much to say beyond basic concepts, communication even more primitive than what his previous minds were capable of but it was communication. Excess nitrogen here, redeposit carbon there, grubs are eating us here. It was all emotionless, almost lifeless seeming. Still Flake was driven by the curiosity of his own powers to explore this communication further. Flake struggled in his attempts to create his own electrical signals, he kept getting caught up in dead end ideas like mental visualization or trying to gesture while maintaining contact with the mycelium via his foot.

Flake was almost at the point of giving up when he threw out one last idea, he focused inwards, feeling the long tendrils of mycelium that inched through every part of his body through his brain stem. Every muscle, blood vessel, bone, and nerve ending the mycelial network touched Flake could feel. Then as if moving his arms or legs Flake commanded the mycelium to grow beyond his fingers. Flake then saw his hand turn a pale white as tiny webs of mycelium sprouted forth from them. When contact was made Flake felt as if he were suddenly thrown into the center of some chanting tribal ritual. For he didn't sense just or two signals, suddenly Flake was fully connected to the entire forest around him. Every tree, every mushroom, nearly every square inch of soil now bombarded him with signals. Excess carbon here, low nitrogen here, low moisture on the edge on the edge of the forest is causing the fungus to die back there, etc.

The flood of information nearly overwhelmed Flake as every signal bounced and echoed through his body with a static tingle. Flake held his breath to concentrate, attempting to shut the bombardment of electrical signals assaulting his mycelium nerves and focus purely on his mind. Flake then thought of one thing, food, something every living thing needed to survive. Flake then reopened his mind to his expanded mycelium nervous system and instead reversed the flow of energy, his thought of food was sent as a signal from his mind and into the white tendrils of his body before it was sent across the forest. Communicating in their strange universalist way the forest responded in turn. Sugar needed there, send sugar, sending sugar now. And before long a supply line of glucose and fructose, those leftover sugars produced by the plants photosynthesis was then transported along the mycelium’s hollow tubes and injected directly into Flake's body. Though it wasn't nearly enough sugar and nutrients to feed an active thinking animal such as himself Flake was amazed by the results. Flake had just communicated with the plants and fungus and discovered how truly interconnected they all were.

Finally Flake receded his own internal mycelium network and severed the connection, the electrical moot of the forest finally falling silent to his mind. As Flake began to walk again he thought about the means of communication, they were simple electrical pulses in certain patterns that seemed to bypass the need for interpretation, like the information was communicated without being reliant upon any active senses to receive it, the brain itself received the information in its purest form. Flake wondered for a moment, thinking back on his encounter with the fungal god. All his old memories from before his fungal metamorphosis seemed hazy, like he was looking at them while still half asleep and as if they were a reflection in a puddle. Still the feeling came through, the feeling of how the fungal god communicated with Flake. It was that same direct depositing of information yet without standard human communication, just like with the mycelium network. Yet it was different somehow, the Fungal god needed no direct contact with Flake to communicate with him. Nor was Flake connected to the rest of the mad fungal realm while communicating with the fungal god. The concept was the same but it must have been through some other means Flake had no understanding of even still. As he walked Flake wondered if this method of communication could work on other beings than plants and mushrooms, like with other humans or even animals.

Months still had passed, the long warm days and summer breeze gave way to biting autumn winds and freezing rains. The broadleafs shifted color from their usual green to a rainbow of yellows, red, oranges, and browns. Winter would soon arrive for the whole of the land, yet Flake was unfortunate enough to get a taste of its icy grasp early. For when he awoke from his usual sleeping position, perched high in a tree with his spear the pale white snow had begun to blanket the highland grounds below him. With his muscles stiff from the cold, Flake slowly climbed down the evergreen tree, only to quickly need to catch himself after his hide covered foot slipped off a snowy branch. Thankfully he would catch himself with ease via his grasping hand of curled fingers before gently letting himself down from the trees with the natural grace of a macaque.

Half asleep Flake grumbled as he reached inside his coat and produced a handful of nuts he gathered a few days prior. Still warm from his body heat, Flake began to chew and eat them one by one until he finished the last of his food reserves. “I need to head down from these mountains. Winter’s here early and I don't know how well I can make it on my own. How many humans are in this land I wonder? I don't think I could have gone so long without finding another tribe's territory back home. I wonder how Three Fingers, Long Hair and everyone else is doing?” Flake mentally rambled to himself as he trudged through the ankle deep snow.

As Flake forced his cold hide covered feet through the snow for hours he would see something in the distance sticking out of the snow. Flake first looked around and saw no signs of movement or anything else around, before he walked up closer to the dark thing sticking up from the snow. It was the carcass of a deer. Yet it was strange, like no deer Flake had ever seen before even with his three years of living in the lands to the south. Its fur was long and dense, primarily dark brown in color with patches of creamy white on its neck and rear. Its hooves were strangely broad, almost flat in shape with two long almost claw-like nails sticking down vertically behind them. The antlers meanwhile were freshly shed, only leaving two sore spots upon its head that would have been still healing at the time of its death. The carcass looks as if its ribs were crushed in and its throat was torn out before the shoulder and the rear were both eaten.

The whole scene was strange, to Flake. Most animals prioritized eating the organs of their kills first. Yet there were no signs of the deer being butchered with stone tools. Besides, the ribs were crushed in with more force than any human was capable of producing. As Flake stood up from his kneeling inspection of the corpse he would see a massive track in the snow, one of the only clear ones in the stampeding mess around the carcass. It was a bear track, and a massive one at that, over a quarter of the size of Flake's torso alone and nearly as wide as his shoulders. Flake's blood ran cold, though he had never seen a live bear before he did see one half the size of this the hunters brought back to the tribe a couple years ago. The thing had massive claws that looked like they could easily tear somebody open, and the hunters talked about stories of bears killing tribesmen before in a similar manner to how this strange deer died.

Flake looked up from the track and the carcass with his pure white eyes wide open in fear. Only to see a giant brown mass in the distance running at him rapidly. Flake broke into a sprint towards the tree line, yet his small striding legs and his flat feet failed to carry him to the tree line before the bear closed the distance and circled around in front of Flake. The beast was a deep dark brown nearly black in color and at the shoulder it was well taller than Flake. The bear then reared back on its hind legs standing over ten feet tall and let loose a bellowing roar that shook the air in Flake's lungs. Flake knew he couldn't run so he stuck his spear forward as he braced the back of the haft into the ground as a brace. Yet what Flake couldn't understand was why the bear didn't just run him down and trample him from behind before crushing him like it did that deer. It was almost like the bear was going out of its way to try and terrify him before it killed him.

What the bear did next equally surprised Flake, rather than lunging forward mindlessly the bear swatted the spear downwards, shattering its haft into a million splinters before dropping its weight forwards onto Flake. This made no sense to Flake, never had he seen an animal smart enough to bat away a spear rather than just charge in past its point. Were bears just that cunning? No this had to be something more than an animal. Was it a wild god? Like the boar the fungal god that gave Flake his powers once was? But it didn't seem to have any abilities beyond the fact it was a massive bear. Was it instead a man like himself? One who had eaten the flesh of a god and thus gained its power for themselves? Flake didn't have time to finish those thoughts as hundreds of pounds of raging bear rained down upon with his lips peeled back to reveal long killer fangs.

Flake had to improvise and quickly as to not be killed in the first bite. Without thinking, Flake commanded his inner mycelial network to expand out from his body as rapidly as it could. Flake's body then practically exploded with a dense web-like network of mycelium surrounding his body inches deep. The bear snapped its fangs on what should have been Flake's head only to receive a mouthful of bitter spongy mushroom-like material instead. The bear slunk back as it spat out the mycelium with a look of pure disgust on its face before it batted at its face with a massive paw and licked at the snow on the ground to rid itself of the foul taste.

Flake then took a chance and concentrated the mycelium sprouting from his body into a single tendril and shot it forth from a pointed finder straight into the bear’s forehead. Flake would attempt to communicate with the bear in the same manner he communed with plants and fungus of the forest weeks earlier. Yet Flake was unable to send any sort of message before the bear swiped a massive clawed hand at the tendril and tore it to shreds. Yet one message came through to Flake loud and clear, revenge. The burning hateful longing for total and brutal revenge. It was fiery, it was passionate, but most importantly it was human. For it lacked the emotionless monotone quality of the fungal god's request for cosmic vengeance. This passionate and maddening hate was reserved for the ranks of humanity and humanity alone.

The fact that this thing was human like Flake told him everything he needed to know, but most importantly unlocked a new realm of possibility in Flake's. A means of mimicry so complex you become an even greater being than what you initially tried to mimic. Flake didn't have time to think as the bear went in to charge again. Instead Flake pulled from his very DNA a beast his people had evolved to so deeply fear over millennia the beast would never leave the depths of their animal minds no matter how long it had been since they last saw one. Now full mushrooms began to sprout from Flake's body yet they didn't sprout randomly or without reason. For if through the powers of a god a man could become a bear, then it stands to Flake's newfound sense of reason that he could become a beast of his own choosing as well. As the mushrooms grew and sprouted forth from his body a new form began to tower over the quadrupedly charging bear making it stop in its tracks. For the form Flake nearly instinctively chose was that of a truly colossal Varanus komodoensis, a Komodo Dragon, or as Flake knew them, a Death Jaw. Whose body was made up entirely of several different species of mushrooms shaped to resemble a massive Death Jaw who from tip to tail was ten feet in length and whose sharp fangs were made entirely of toxic mushrooms.

Flake made his fungal construct rear up on its back legs with its long powerful tail out along the ground to balance it, just like when two Death Jaws face off to wrestle for dominance. The bear noticed the challenge and with a chuff reared up on its hind legs again. The bear still towered nearly two feet above Flake's fungal mimic yet with a loud hiss and and a swiping of his claws across the bear's face Flake didn't back down. As the bear went to swipe for the Death Jaws head Flake sent it darting forward under the side swiping paw and lunged for the bear’s neck with its fangs. The bear counters by bringing a massive arm down on top of the Death Jaw construct and digging at its back with its claws before going in for a bite to the back of its neck. Flake instead chooses to make his construct dive and get back on all fours before the bear's teeth can rip into its fungal neck from behind. Slipping between the bear's legs the construct sends a powerful lash of the tail into the back of the bear's leg causing it to buckle.

The bear also drops back onto all fours before the construct rears up behind the bear and latches onto its back with powerful claws before biting at the back of its thick skinned neck. The construct lashes and thrashes about attempting to slice into the bear’s neck and spill as much blood with its poisonous mushroom teeth as possible. The bear then turns and swipes at the construct, sending leathery chunks of mushroom scattering to the snow below as the back of its neck bleeds profusely before it rears back up on two legs again.

Flake makes his construct meet the challenge and stand back on its hind legs again to face the bear. As a sign of respect the bear waits for the construct to return to its bipedal stance before it once again rushed in to swipe at the construct’s head, hoping to knock it off entirely with one swipe. Instead the swiping paw was by a clawed hand and batted safely downwards where it misses the construct's fungal body by a hair before the constructs lunges in another attempt to bite at the bear's throat. The bear instead lunges past the construct causing it to fall onto its side. Flake only barely manages to make the construct slink away before two massive paws come down on the snow where it once lay.

A standing lunge sends a handful of sharp claws across the bear's eye in turn as the beast grumbles in pain and frustration. Instead of reeling back however the bear lunges forwards in turn and catches the falling construction under the arm with its teeth before it shakes it head and tears out a massive chunk of the construct's fungal body along with the entirety of its right arm. Flake panics at the crippling wound his construct just received yet still he perseveres. With the bear busy with a load of fungus caught in its mouth, Flake sent the construct lunging with its remaining legs to the underside of the bear's throat, batting down the bear's arm with the construct's remaining arm along the way. There the construct finally got a hold of its ultimate target, a furry and fleshy mouthful of the bear's throat before Flake sent the construct thrashing as powerful as it could. Blood rained the jagged wound like water during a monsoon swell. Yet when the bear finally rid itself of fungal mouthful it would send one last devastating swipe down through the fungus and crashing into Flake's torso, both tearing and throwing him from the construct in one fell swoop.

With Herculean force Flake was battered and torn from his fungal shield before he was sent flying through the air before his tiny body was sent bouncing across the frozen ground a few times. The bear then tore the construct apart completely in a fit of roaring mad rage. Before rearing back up on its hind legs and then shrinking down. Its fur, claws, and fanged snout receded into its body as it shrank into a six foot tall, robust, broad shouldered, behemoth of a man. His skin was lightly tanned with a red hue along with long black hair and a long black beard drooping well past his face to where Flake couldn't tell if he had a chin or not. Most notably beyond his almost uncannily bulky and broad build was that he had a massive, heavy, and protruding brow with a sloped not, not entirely unlike Flake's own, just significantly larger and more robustly built. The man angrily stomped over to where Flake lay battered in the snow to hurt and dazed to move.

As he kicked up snow and shouted in a harsh guttural language that sounded more like he was still trying to attack Flake only now verbally the man picked up half of Flake's spear before walking over to him and picking him up by his throat with ease. There he shouted again in his harsh alien language in Flake's face before he held the spear tip to Flake's chests with the intent to run him through once and for all. Flake couldn't breath, and didn't have time to think either. Why was this man so angry, so ravenously hateful to Flake? Had the bear had its jaws around his throat Flake could understand, but why was this shape changing man so murderous? Was Flake the only human with power that hadn't gone mad with murderous rage? It didn't matter for now, all that mattered was that he somehow survived yet another impossible situation.