From Kraft's point of view, the husk that had been hunched over the table, seemingly no different from the other fungal Parasitic Husks, suddenly moved without warning as the three of them approached to examine the jewel box that had been used as a decoy.
It raised its head and upper body. A thin red glow, like a smear of blood on a glass slide, spread rapidly across the tabletop. The light came from something Kraft recognized: a crude mineral fixed to a metal base, swinging against the husk's chest and illuminating a face that should not have been capable of expression.
Its nostrils, nasal septum, and lips had been almost entirely decomposed. Yet the muscles in its face twitched, showing no sign of atrophy. Fungal tissue had filled the gaps between them.
It propped itself up with one hand. The simple movement revealed muscles swelling beneath its scaly fungal layer, and it used a posture utterly unlike that of the other husks—one that conformed to ordinary human habits.
Something Kraft had never imagined happened. While the others retained only their skeletons and the bare minimum of muscle needed for a single burst of movement, this one still had a functioning respiratory system. Air filled its chest, then it blasted out a cloud of spores streaked with hallucinogenic colors.
Kraft pulled Martin and Kup back, but the weight of the armor and the two men slowed them badly. They couldn't outrun the spreading cloud, and no matter how hard they tried, they couldn't escape its reach.
In the final second before he lost consciousness, the pain of his airways burning faded away in his mind, along with a string of sounds that might have been a human voice.
[It's conscious.]
Martin felt his arm again. It took about