#myspores

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His back was turned and busy fiddling in the corner of the cell when they threw the other one in there. It came with the warning of hurried feet.

Two strangely dressed cookies entered- within their hold on the long end of a pole was dragged a smaller figure clad in white with hair to match. They hurried, throwing it inside and releasing the pole’s hold before backtracking quickly through the double layers of door. The figure laid prone on the cold cell floor away from him, hair splayed and limbs crumpled under its form. He thought he heard the sound of soft hissing.

At first it seemed to have come from the figure itself- then purple shot up, faster than what he could speculate it to be, at the crack in door as it was closing and suddenly there was muffled yelling and screaming and the sound of an alarm blaring.

Mold made a confused wordless sound as wide eyes tracked the figure who was now sitting upright facing away from him- a blast door slammed from just outside, bright emergency lights snapped on in his cell and the acrid burn of magic clung to the air.

Mold slowly backed up, the cell was now far too small, far too bright. His vision threatened to swim before him as it snorted and spat on the ground. Phlegm sizzled and sputtered with purple. Maybe if he was slow and quiet he could get away this once.

Was this a test? Was this the Smiling Cookie’s idea? Dark Enchantress’? It only mattered in the way that one cookie preferred to torment him with nothing-instructions that didn’t make sense to him much of the time.

This seemed like a Smiling Cookie test.

The other one sat on the floor near the door as Mold quietly inched towards the small area he designated his sleeping area. He just had to go a little further, the cloying smell of magic stung his eyes and nose. They were being watched, but why? He held his breath and inched his way along, heart stilled and muscles aching.

A few seconds of feet stretched into a mile road as he finally made for it- a sad lone piece of rumpled cloth the color of clotted cream that divided the room. He had an idea, but it meant getting this cookie’s attention. It also meant he had to wait for the troubling presence of being watched to leave.

Now which would come first.

He took slow shallow measures of air- he never liked how the magic stun his lungs. The pale shimmering light unfriendly and exhaustively tied to his being- and this new cookie from the looks of it. He just had to wait it out and hope the crackle of static didn’t break the near silence.

Whoever was watching this time, whatever they wanted- they had enough of it and left.

The blast door was still shut and emergency light still illuminating every corner of the room. He swallowed thickly and that was enough to tip the other off that they were not the only one in the cell.

Faster than thought, Mold leaned away to the side as a strand flew by his head. He heard sizzling from next to his ear, his eyes were wide and heart was chasing for something unknown deep within him. His chest ached, this test was harder than he was expecting.

“They mentioned there was someone else in here.”

The cookie still had their back turned to him, though as it gained its footing on the cell floor, familiar chains jingled. Only these were broken. He ignored how much that scared him.

“…”

Was he suppose to say something? He turned its words over in his mind. He’s never been directly addressed that didn’t involve instructions of some kind before. That didn’t involve more than a quick objective affirmation they taught him from his first pained breath. At times he would peer over, if only for lack of task, to watch the lab assistants converse and laugh amongst each other, but rendering the path that each cookie paved in conversation felt like carding through muck. He held firmly onto how they were nice to each other. Tones jumping high and low, affirming and easy on the ears.

To his quiet dismay, no real words came to mind that would slot into this dissolving back and forth. What they said didn’t sound like a question.

He didn’t want to risk failing this test and stood silent.

Between the moment of them speaking and his silence he quickly dipped one side low under into the corner of the cloth- pawing and gathering single-handedly before coming up, hands now protectively enclosed around his idea.

The other cookie, now having stood up, dusted themself off and taken stock of the doors and locks and the various magic that kept them there then turned around.

Their single curved brow shot up.

Even hunched inward as the cookie before them was- they were easily eaten up by its shadow, dwarfed by half a fold of their form. ‘Massive’ wasn’t even quite touching it. They now witnessed one possible aftermath of what the head scientist considered The Ultimate Cookie. Compared to their own lithe build and holding it up against the denizens of the castle; it would have been considered grotesque in its sheer bulk by any other who had the polite mind to describe it.

Standing before it there was something. Off.

It didn’t move an inch standing flatly on top of a tiny blanket. Its wide angled drawn eyes stared strongly next to their head at the wall, not making any kind of contact, and held a very present watery shine. Its mouth was a small flat line. Either it found difficulty in having the means of building rapport or it simply didn’t have the want.

Its hands were folded on top of each other as though it was concealing something. It hunched a little more into itself as it felt them giving it a once over.

Security made it sound frightfully powerful outside. Stronger than the thick enforced walls that held it within. But standing here, they thought it looked… timid.

They cleared their throat. Fluid still stubbornly clung to the inside of their lungs. “Not what I was expecting, but hello.” What else did other cookies say to each other? “Nice to meet you.” They coolly rolled out their greeting.

They then made a small gesture to its tucked palms “what do you have in your hands?”

This new purple cookie was so different and so unlike anything he’s ever seen before.

But not… Bad. Upon his most comprehensive recollection: it was the most anyone has ever spoken to him willfully. Aside from the dangerous purple goop earlier, it didn’t seem like an angry cookie.

He shifted his weight from one foot to the other and while running a thumb over the meat of his wrist he mulled over his few options- the authority of this cookie was up in the air and his response could mean catastrophic failure. Meanwhile he allowed his eyes to wander and it chanced across to meet the other cookie’s and his form stilled.

This cookie, though brief as it was, and through the murkiness of his mind’s eye that allowed him to remember his own self starring back at a dull reflection, had a commonality. A pattern.

It started to make sense and his breath picked up. They shared the same spiraling eye- rings around rings. A purpose and task. Destined war that called them both and withered all dreams that came beyond the waking day. The power, the containment, the shackles. Perhaps not the same ingredient, but maybe the same dough batch. The purple cookie had that fresh wet rasping wheeze, too, as faint as it was; and slightly not of the mind to exercise the same caution he did. Dark Enchantress, was this a fresh cookie? No. They couldn’t be making more. They. It…

He sat down hard.

The emergency lights had finally released their grasp on the room, and it was plunged back into the dim and dreary.

The purple cookie took an inching step forward, a shadow of concern etched on their brow.

Was this cookie finally at the end of its half-life. They shuffled a foot closer and leaned as its gaze was momentarily far away from now, caution on the odds that this was its hour of expiration.

There was a faint hint of a loose powdery gray film here and there, and just perceptible flecks of black mold dusted it. Time had already pocked and marred their visage. They caught the start of a hairline crack around more than one limb.

A touch of slow dull panic was written all over it.

They reflected back the moment before its legs gave out. There had been a reaching of eyes- was it so shaken as something as that benign? Crumbling at the mere touch of company. Righting themself to their former position they felt a twinge of something icy and heavy well up in their chest.

Before they could entertain the thought further the giant cookie made a low throaty vowel of a sound.

He motioned with his folded hands, trying to catch its attention.

Its face had grown hard and furrowed for a second. The air filled with an unfamiliar sharp sting, viscous gel started to gather- all roads had pointed down to nothing good. He nearly forgot about his idea. About his answer.

He lifted his clasped hands, the other cookie followed them. Slowly, as much as he could he leaned over and with unbearable gentleness he had tipped the contents of his hands, allowing the bits and pieces to roll and tumble and spill in a neat little pile near its feet.

What it had held, what it was so keen to keep a close secret up until this time, was what seemed to be a small humble handful of pale stale ration crumbs freckled with its own mold and the stray outside contaminate here and there.

They stood there dumbfounded staring at the pile. They had put two and two together and locked eyes with this giant bizarre cookie. It looked to be working itself up to something, breath still heavy and arms now set to rest on its knees.

He recalled his earliest memory. It was a cookie, not the Smiling One, but one of the many smaller assistants. Cotton haze not unlike a dream, the cookie had lifted the corners of their mouth, and whispered.