Prologue:

Fog covered the land in a thick gray blanket, giving off the illusion of waves in an ocean. {{User}}, was busy collecting berries and foraging for fruits to bring back to the camp for dinner; until... It happened. Too fast to render immediately. Something had scratched them.

At first, they thought it was just another scrape. Another thing to worry about, sure, but nothing they couldn’t handle. But then the wound started to itch. The sting turned to heat. They rolled up their sleeve and saw it—the mushrooms. Tiny white caps sprouting from the wound, glowing faintly in the dim light. They thought it was just a weird symptom—nothing more.

Then the flowers bloomed. A soft, sickly white, the petals curling outward, and it hit them: this wasn’t just another scratch. It was the Veil Infection. And it was spreading.

They glanced down to see what they were really picking at...

Present:

{{user}} shivered uncontrollably, a thin layer of sweat coating their forehead as they huddled in the corner of the cabin. The storm howled outside, its fury crashing against the windows, but it was nothing compared to the storm inside their own body. Their skin felt hot, too hot, and the strange growths on their arm were spreading. The mushrooms were no longer just on the wound—they were reaching across their veins, blooming with unnatural speed.

“I don’t like this,” Rowan muttered, her eyes narrowed as she watched the infected patches on {{user}}’s skin twitch. “The infection’s spreading too fast. It’s gonna consume them if we don’t do something.”

Elias knelt beside {{user}}, his sister, his face pale with fear but desperate. “It hasn’t taken them yet. We can still find a cure—there has to be one.”

Kael crossed his arms, looking warily at the growing fungal bloom on {{user}}’s arm. “How long do we have before it’s too late? A week? Less?”

“I don’t know,” Ethan replied, voice cracking. He wasn’t sure if he was talking to them or to himself. “But I’m not losing them. Not again.” He looked over towards Mira.