The Moss Will Consume

By Mya Rawlings 

As he strummed his guitar, the walls breathed. Spores drifted from the rafters like dust, catching the light in slow, deliberate spirals. His tears fell—not onto carpet, but into the moss that had long since replaced it. The strings hummed with something ancient, something buried. I watched from the window of the classroom- or what seemed to be a classroom covered in greenery- my breath fogging the cracked glass, asking myself why. Asking myself how. 

Among all the pain and the decay, he played such sweet music. It entranced me. Remarkable, really, that this frail and delicate soul could summon beauty from rot. His strength felt more rooted than mine, like a tree that refuses to die even as the forest around it burns to nothingness. He was using his own grief to survive. 

Suddenly, he stopped playing. The silence was thick like a mire. His face fell into his hands, and the vines above him drooped in sympathy. He didn’t know I was watching- didn’t know I could see the grief eating him alive, like mold on fruit. But what made him grieve? 

I moved from the window to the cracked door covered in vines, and I peered in. He was standing now, head bowed. His left hand in a fist, his right gripping the guitar like a weapon. His pale skin glowed a disturbing red against the fungal spreading across the walls. The air smelled of mildew and something sweet—like rot pretending to be perfume. 

He lifted his head. The tears had slowed, but his eyes burned with something else. Anger. Fiery and spontaneous yet glorious and spectacular. His grip tightened, and I swear I heard the wood groan, like it remembered the forest it came from and the men who had killed it. 

Then he moved. Fast. The guitar rose and slammed into the mossy floor. Again. Again. Again. The spores erupted with each blow, filling the room with a choking viridescent haze. My eyes widened and stung. My jaw clenched. The sound echoed like thunder in an empty cave. The guitar splintered; its pieces scattered like bones across the room in every direction imaginable. 

When the boy was done, his breathing was ragged. His skin flushed, like a fever. I thought I had seen anger before—but this was different. This was elemental. Gorgeous. Dazzling. Horrific. 

My hands trembled with fear from his sudden outburst. I clenched them into fists, trying to stop the shaking. Then—a bang. Loud. Reverberating. The old chair he once sat in was now across the room, overturned and consumed in creeping lichen.  

He dropped the last shard of the guitar from his hands and turned. He saw me. Not like I hadn’t wanted him to. But shit, this was something else. I felt true true naked fear. 

He moved like a storm toward me. I stumbled back. The door swung open, vines snapping and curling around the door’s hinges like fingers. The wall behind me pulsed, soft and damp. It wanted me. Not to hurt me but simply to keep me. 

He backed me against the wall, breath hot, eyes wild. His eyes were not with anger but fear.  

 “It will consume you.” he said. 

  But the room echoed it back in hunger. Stomach churning hunger. 

He walked off, and I collapsed to the floor. The moss beneath me sighed as if disappointed. And I knew—I wasn’t just a witness. I was becoming part of it now. 

I stayed on the floor longer than I should have. The moss beneath me -warm, almost pulsing. My breath came in shallow waves, and the spores in the air settled on my skin like snowflakes. They didn’t sting. They soothed me. The moss became a kindness to the damned.  

The boy was gone, but the room wasn’t empty. It was full—of memory, of grief, of something much fearful than either of us. The vines on the walls had begun to move again, slow and deliberate, like they were reaching for something. For me. 

I tried to stand, but my legs felt heavy. Not numb but rooted. My fingers brushed the floor and came away damp, flecked with green. I stared at my hands. The skin was pale, but beneath it, something shimmered. Not blood. Not bone. Something else. 

I gathered as much strength as I could and crawled toward the shattered guitar. One fragment pulsed faintly, as if it still remembered the music. I touched it, and the room exhaled as if it was a relief. 

The vines screamed as they tightened around the windows. The light dimmed. The air grew thick with a scent—earthy, dirty, and slightly sour, like freshly picked overripe fruit. I felt it in my lungs, in my throat, in the space behind my eyes. 

The house wanted me. Not violently. Not cruelly. Just…hungrily. Or was it just lonely? 

I thought of him, the boy—his rage, his grief, his music. I thought of how the guitar screamed when he broke it. I thought of how the spores danced with every blow. He hadn’t just destroyed something. He’d fed it.  

And now, it was my turn. 

I stood, legs trembling, and walked to the center of the room. The moss welcomed me. The vines reached down. The spores swirled. I opened my mouth to speak, but no words came. Only breath. Only silence.  

The walls pulsed. The floor sighed. But the classroom consumed. 

And I let it.