Another one went missing today. I don’t know their name — we don’t bother with that anymore as no one lasts long enough. The only impact their disappearance will have is on the food supply; there might be a few more chunks left in the trough. That is, until they throw another stray in here with us.

 

Maybe I’ll be able to get one first. If I dart my hand in, I can snatch it away to my corner before anyone else eats it. I know that’s a risky move — there are others here that are healthier and stronger than me, and I haven’t fully recovered from the last fight.

 

My ribs are jutting out more, though, and I don’t have many other options. They do come in occasionally to toss bits of food at us. They make a trail of it that leads back to the door. Following it never ends well.

 

* * *

 

Nobody knew what to expect when they arrived. It wasn’t like the movies; their ship didn’t blot out the sun as it descended through our atmosphere with an ominous hum. There were no gifted linguists deciphering the codes hidden in their pheromone trails. The ship just phased in, completely silent. It appeared in the middle of the city as if it had always been there, and everywhere its undulating contours intersected with the existing buildings their geometry was simply subtracted.

 

We never understood their language. We had no way to communicate with them on even the most basic level — spent years trying to understand why they were here, and what they wanted. Eventually we just attacked. It was thought better to get rid of them once and for all than to keep trying to figure out how to ask them to leave. We brought down all the firepower we had on them and only managed to incapacitate their ship… trapping them here with us. We had no idea how resilient they’d be, or how adaptable. Each piece of their scattered remains spored thousands more. We couldn’t contain them.

 

* * *

 

I was pulled out of the remains of a building in what we called the human sector. The systems there had all long since failed. The infrastructure had also collapsed, but at least there was still concrete under our feet and not the unsettling spongy growth that had taken over everywhere else. There were others with me. Some of them escaped, some suffocated during the night under all our weight. I was on top of the huddle we made for warmth and far enough from the crush of bodies to be able to breathe.

 

I was also, I realized too late, within easy reach of their finger-like grasping appendages.

 

* * *

 

They brought a new one in today. He looks rough and sounds worse, a mix of hyperventilation and delusion. He says he’s not from the sector and claims to be a mycologist doing field research for some secret lab developing weapons for the fight. He’s been here collecting samples and sequencing their DNA, which he says they shouldn’t have. It’s been speculated that extraterrestrial organisms could have a biochemical code, but not actual DNA, and not a sequence so close to terrestrial species. They may be a million generations of mutation away, but he’s convinced that they’re fungi and that they’re originally from here — in their very distant past, which is paradoxically our far future.

 

I understand his trauma. I’ve felt the shock of being captured. This isn’t even the craziest thing some newcomer has said or believed. When they first locked me up in here, I was sure there was some kind of waiting room behind the door. In it were these cage-like carriers. They were there too, with smaller versions of themselves, waiting eagerly to pick their own human and take it home — at least, that’s what I used to tell myself. It gave me the will to hold on until the next feeding.