It Could Happen Here - CZM Book Club: Black Hole, by November Rush

Episode Date: February 15, 2026

Happy Valentine's Day! Margaret reads you a story about codependent lesbian mushroom parasites.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-Heart podcast. Guaranteed Human. 1969, Malcolm and Martin are gone. America is in crisis. At a Morehouse college, the students make their move. These students, including a young Samuel L. Jackson, locked up the members of the Board of Trustees, including Martin Luther King's Senior.

It's the true story of protests and rebellion in black American history that you'll never forget. I'm Hans Charles. I'm Manilic Lamouba. Listen to the A building on the I-Hearton. Cart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Over the last couple years, didn't we learn that the folding chair was invented by black people because of what happened in Alabama?

This Black History Month, the podcast, Selective Ignorance with Mandy B, unpacked black history and culture with comedy, clarity, and conversations that shake the status quo. The Crown Act in New York was signed in July of 2019, and that is a bill that was passed to prohibit discrimination based on hairstyles associated with race. To hear this and more, listen to Selective Ignorance with Mandy B from the Black Effect Podcast Network on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. I'm Bowen-Yang.

And I'm Matt Rogers. During this season of the Two Guys Five Rings podcast, and the lead-up to the Milan Cortina-26 Winter Olympic Games, we've been joined by some of our friends. Hi, Bob, how now. Hey, Elmo. Hey, Matt, hey, Bowen. Hi, Kirkie.

Hi. Now, the Winter Olympic Games are underway, and we are in. in Italy to give you experiences from our hearts to your ears. Listen to Two Guys Five Rings on the Iheart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. What is something you've had to unlearn about love? That it's earned. That I was unworthy of love. That it needs to be forever for it to count.

February is the month of love. Whether you're in a relationship, casually dating, or proudly single, it's a great time to reflect on yourself. and what you want. I'm Hope Woodard, host of the Boyceover podcast, and each week we're looking at love from every angle. Listen to Boy Sober. That's B-O-Y-S-O-B-E-R. On the I-Hart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,

or wherever you get your podcasts. All-Zone Media. Book Club, book club, book club, but-club, Hello! And welcome to the Cool Zone Media Book Club. The Only... book club that is introduced by me going book club, book club, book club. This week, we're back to fiction, and I have a little Valentine's treat for you. This is a really fun story by a writer named

November Rush. Hazel pitched this story to me as, what if Alien the movie was about the horror of falling in love? And so, what more could you want from Valentine's Day than a story about falling in love that is horrible. I will have seen Wuthering Heights by the time that you hear this, but I have not seen it yet by the time I'm recording it. So I wonder whether it will also misunderstand stories about love. Anyway, that's entirely unrelated. We are going to be reading a story called Black Hole by November Rush. It's a weird little space journey through psychedelic, out-of-control body horror. It's about parasitic, body-jumping,

codependent lesbians searching to find each other again, and the wake of destruction they leave behind them. That sounds like romance to me. I'm not actually as cynical as I'm making it sound. This story is from the collection, bury your gaze, an anthology of tragic queer horror, edited by Sophia Ashram,

which Hazel describes as, Very Fucking Good. So, yeah, this story's fun. Just trust us. Here it is. Black Hole by November Rush. Morgan blinks down at her hands, sluggishly touching her thumbs and fingers together,

as she tries to figure out how an ordinary synestead plant could cause a psychedelic effect in a human. The palm of the hand she's just used to touch the alien plant sample is covered with a mist of tiny beads of blood. as though her flesh is a sponge, as though something minuscule on the plant has burrowed into her skin and bloodstream, which seems like a clue, though she's having trouble focusing on how. Splitting, splitting, splitting, another clue, like a splitting headache, but more like her head is split, her mind is split. Collidoscopic, fracturing into, yes, that's me, and actually, this is,

Morgan attempts to sort through the disjointed foreign images in her mind, terror bubbling up from her stomach like bile, and it occurs to her, she may have an increasingly short window of time. She feels her mouth open and her tongue run along her teeth, feels the sting as her teeth close on her lip a little too hard. Something is trailing up her arms and pulling gently, experimentally on the joints, and she realizes belatedly it's her own fingers, no longer under her command,

and a single idea pierces the fog of panic. Find void. Except Morgan actually wants to alert Alan and get help, not find void. Because she suspects she is dying. How exactly would one go about alerting Alan and getting help and not dying. A little hard to figure out even if she could control her hands or make noises,

since she has the overwhelming and bizarre feeling, this is the first time in maybe years she has had access to a mind capable of this level of intellect. Morgan is intoxicated by the dizzying rush of unfamiliar memories that her plant and insect bodies can only comprehend as emotions, or maybe temperature. Warm and safe, for the times the two of them, wait, her and who? The void.

We're little furred animals together, for the times dozing in puddles of light as children or invertebrates or bandits. Cool for waiting in stasis for an opportunity, for centuries passing as the tree of her body thrust knobbed roots through the soil to lap up nutrients and brush fronds against the sky. And most of all, the frigidly. loss, the grief when they are torn apart, the cold of searching, searching for the warmth of hoping, the heat of finding. Overlaid confusingly with her own short human life, Morgan remembers

the blur of thousands of lives, looping thousands of times around hundreds of suns, of knowing so much and only sometimes having the brain to understand it all. She sees, winding through them all, like a vein of gold, like a fracture, void. Her eyes, her multitude of eyes, that are pale and orange and black, all at different times, but all void, her smile, her smiles, the twist of them, and the way that a serpentine body,

or a cartilaginous one, or a leaf can smile, can smile with a twist. Morgan feels her mind's eye fixed hungrily on a pool of light, as the fallible, tactile biology around it royals, shape shifts, huge than tiny, scaled, then feathered, then vibrant green, recognizing some of the animals, people, and alien life forms, but not most. The consistent glow of void, recognizable throughout her many shapes, perceived by a multitude of sensory organs. In a jumble of identity, purpose and form. Moving towards void is an instinct that doesn't require a brain at all. Even a plant knows to

turn and face the sun. The love of void is unlike anything Morgan has ever felt. The confusion of her self-destructive love for the metamorphizing void calls an old human story to mind. Okay, so in retrospect, most of those thoughts probably don't belong to Morgan. It's been mere seconds, but she's lost control of her body, worse, her brain. Morgan realizes that a foreign consciousness has dug its tendrils into her mind, her personhood, and is pressing her down, holding her still as she feebly thrashes like a fish

in the bottom of a rowboat. Taking over. Morgan's lungs take a soft, shaky breath, and her throat constricts a few times, making a noise like, which is not enough to attract attention. and her mind begins to blur sideways. It feels a little like being the synestead plant sample again. With her last strength, she tries to cling to why it matters

whether she was really a parasitic entity occupying a plant a few moments ago, or whether she was a human woman named Dr. Morgan Christie, who knew how to breathe with her lungs and analyze a sample of alien fauna, who could use part of her throat to communicate with other humans in a natural and unsuspicious way. She fails. Star feels a cautious satisfaction as the consciousness of Dr. Morgan Christie

fades to black and her own consciousness takes over the body completely. Dr. Christie, says Alan, these first few moments are critical. Star flicks through Morgan's memories, eyelids fluttering, then discards that idea and focuses on Morgan's general knowledge

of her identity in the world instead. How would she have appeared to Alan just now? I've identified something unexpected in the sample, she says. Place it back in quarantine for me. Was that enough? Actually, now that she's here, there's only four other crew members. So there's a one and four chance. Star dubiously surveys Alan's bland concern

and Morgan's knowledge of this unremarkable man and shelves that idea. If she knows void, and she does, like one hand knows the other, Alan wouldn't be it. She makes an excuse to him and turns from his searching expression, picking up a clipboard and wincing as, unexpectedly light, it rises a little too fast in her clumsy hands. She heads for the door, searching. But you, dear listener, don't have to search too hard yourself in order to find these sweet, and let them subsume your personality and destroy it until there is nothing, nothing but

left over. That's all that will be left of you. Here's ads. Canadian women are looking for more. More to themselves, their businesses, their elected leaders, and the world are out of them. And that's why we're thrilled to introduce the Honest Talk podcast. I'm Jennifer Stewart. And I'm Catherine Clark.

And in this podcast, we interview Canada's most inspiring women. Entrepreneurs, artists, athletes, politicians, and newsmakers, all at different stages of their journey. So if you're looking to connect, then we hope you'll join us. Listen to the Honest Talk podcast on I Heart Radio or wherever you listen to your podcasts. Welcome to the A building. I'm Hans Charles. I'm Inalek Lamoma. It's 1969.

Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr. have both been assassinated. And Black America was out of breaking point. Writing and protests broke out on an unprecedented scale. In Atlanta, Georgia at Martin's Almemata, Morehouse College, the students had their own protest. It featured two prominent figures in black history, Martin Luther King's senior and a young student, Samuel L. Jackson. To be in what we really thought was a revolution. I mean, people would die. 1968, the murder of Dr. King, which traumatized everyone. The FBI had a role in the murder of a Black Panther leader in Chicago.

This story is about protest. It echoes in today's world far more than it should, and it will blow your mind. Listen to the A-building on the I-Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Bowen-Yin-Yin. And I'm Matt Rogers. During this season of the Two Guys' Five Rings podcast, and the lead-up to the Milan Quartina, at 2026 Winter Olympic Games. We've been joined by some of our friends.

Hi, Boen, hi, Matt. Hey, Elmo. Hey, Matt, hey, Bowen. Hi, Cookie. Hi. Now, the Winter Olympic Games are underway, and we are in Italy to give you experiences from our hearts to your ears.

Listen to two guys, five rings on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. What is one thing about love you've had to unlearn that it's earned? that it needs to be forever for it to count. February is the month of love. Whether you're in a relationship, casually dating, or proudly single, it's a great time to reflect on yourself

and what you want. I'm Hope Woodard, host of the Boysover podcast, and each week this month, we're looking at love from every angle. I don't know how to tell my partner, like, what I want in bed. The thing about romantic fiction, I would say more than any other genre of culture

is that it's always put women first. marriage stopped making sense. The connection started to feel off. The behavior started to feel different. This February, get in touch with yourself by listening to Boy Sober. That's B-O-Y-S-O-B-E-R. I'm like, I would love to not hate the man. I'm sleeping with. I don't know what that's about. Listen to Boy Sober on the I-Hart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And we're back. It's been decades and hundreds of forms. since Star and Void last saw each other. Star runs through the old signs and signals they've used in the past,

finding them all wanting. She considers any possible reason for Morgan to mention to her crewmates moving water thrice or to reference the entangled rulers of a historic dynasty on a planet that humans have no idea exists. As she walks, she runs Morgan's limited color vision over the metal and plastic contours of the ship, It's sterile and artificial here. Few life forms other than the humans, their lab samples, and a little of their food.

Barely even a microorganism. It's hostile, with precious few options should she need to hop. Nowhere to shelter. No where to hide. Star is sure enough that Void is wearing someone on this ship, that she has bet everything on it. Once she'd received Void's signal, it was hard enough to coordinate her arrival here, following the movements and plans of the ship,

occupying just the right animal or plant in just the right place, waiting dormant and insensible for the moisture and bacterial scent of a new life form to touch her fragile, borrowed body, with a porous part of their own, or lean close enough to breathe her. She arrives at the bridge, surveying a crew as close as family to her body, and entirely alien to her mind.

The captain and first mate are here, two out of four. She runs through Morgan's knowledge of each of them, scans them as subtly as she can for hints. The captain turns and smiles at her expectantly. The sample from Planet Side turned up some very interesting characteristics that I think you should know about, Star says, using Morgan's voice and Morgan's expertise. She smiles professionally and looks over Captain Jace's,

rigid posture, her hair tidily secure and a dark bun at the nape of her neck. Power often attracts void, which she has to admit does make things easier. The captain is wearing a meticulously maintained squareish jacket in a light blue, sleeves pulled practically back to her elbows. Not part of standard uniform. Could that be anything? She considers which alien languages this body's throat and tongue could articulate through a cough. Star begins to detail her report.

She considers how long she can draw this out and thinks, My hunger for you is teaching me to hate each one of these beautiful, soft creatures I discover, because they are not you. It takes her more than an hour to think of anything to try, and by the time she does, she's running out of excuses to stay on the bridge, failing to find a natural way to bring up any of the old signals. She turns instead to their one constant, change, the malleability and interchangeability of the body.

She could say something like, I'm not feeling myself, or I'd love you as a lion or a swan or a campfire. What was that story that Morgan had been reminded of before her feeble kicking turned to twitching and stopped altogether? Some elf prints named Tam Lee or something. What does that have to do with her and void? Four people on the bridge?

That doesn't leave. Mushroom, says a voice from behind her. That's a pun. A mushroom pun. That's so stupid. God, it's so much better than what she was going to say. She turns. Void's expression is carefully neutral and her eyes shimmering.

The corner of her mouth trembles just a fraction, wanting to smile before being carefully schooled. the twist of her. Void isn't a surprising, fragile body. Her blonde hair is greasy at the roots, like she hasn't quite figured out how to deal with it, and there is an anxiety that has permanently marked her peeky face with somewhat the look of a white lab rabbit.

Her uniform hangs awkwardly on her frame and is frayed at the wrists where it looks like she choose it. It's not the kind of body that Void usually chooses, and she wears it with a softness, but thrums Starr's chest with physical pain. She's wearing a chunky and tasteless, beaded necklace that looks like it was made by a child, and Starr's new heart jitters as she recognizes the colors

that herald a house they once dedicated their lives to as bounty hunters. And that's not all. Her fraying collar is fraying in a very specific way, actually, and the patterns of little tears and protruding threads form a world in a language only spoken several galaxies away, the name of a cult they had founded and became extremely fond of. One of the only places they'd been accepted and cherished for what they truly were to have the divinity of their changeable flesh acknowledged.

And craziest of all, her coveralls are unbuttoned to reveal a t-shirt with an image of a fox skull with mushrooms growing out of it. That's just two on the nose. The ridiculous creature didn't even even, even have to use her stupid, risky pun, because she's wearing their lives all over herself. Not knowing if her transmission had been received or if Star were even still alive, Void has been sending signals out into an empty universe, on spec, on faith. Star loves her so goddamn much, she could scream.

Morgan's memory recognizes the body Void is wearing. Cole, the ship's tech. notably Cole and Morgan were friendly, if slightly awkward co-workers, and not thousand-year-old star-crossed lovers. But she's gone speechless. She's staring. Priority one needs to be staying safe and not lunging across the bridge and finding out what two of these warm and lightly furred bodies feel like when they press against each other. She has to say something chill and normal.

Actually, now that you're here, I'm having issues with the lab processor. you could take a look, she manages, and Void Cole is saying, Of course, Doctor, before she's even finished, and she may simply not be able to control Morgan's face. As they leave the bridge together, she catches a few glances, and the first mate leans, whispering, towards the captain. Oh, well, they'll think of a good excuse for this later. Now that they're finally, finally together again, Star isn't wasting another moment on catering to expectation. Void leans close to her, murmuring in the language of these people, finding expression there so naturally.

Idiot, she says, I would know you anywhere and anything. The place that Void brings her to is hidden enough to do for now. And as they duck squeezing into the crawl space beneath a large computer together, Star has to agree that the warmth, the hum, the smallness of it, the darkness punctuated by flickering lights, is pleasant and comforting. They fold together, finding the parts of themselves and each other that are soft or pointed to lie against. Void drags the translucent scales at the ends of her fingers through the mane of hair that crests Star's head, showing her how the feeling sends prickles of physical

pleasure down Star's scalp and spine. I love it, she says. I'm like, like a little, you know, those flexible mammals that live inside, says Star, comprehends the concept of house cats and giggles and feels the vibration of laughter bubble through her for the first time. The combination of Star's love of Void and Morgan's body's instinct has made her desperate to touch the pale silver of skin visible at Void's collar and sleeves, and Void rolls the coveralls back to allow Star's thumb and index to circle her her wrists with a gentle craving. There are soft, dark bruises spotting Void's skin,

like she's an overripe fruit. Morgan's scientist's mind recognizes the heaviest bruising on the part of the forearm that must rest against the desk as Void sits at the console. She frowns and Void glances down at her own arms. That's gotten a bit worse, Void says. Damn, I was trying to be careful. You're pressing too hard, I think. think, says Star. I know, but that's not the only reason. I dents much easier than when I first got the body. Look. And Void takes Star's finger and grinds it into her own wrist so hard that the tips of both of their fingers turn white, then rolls the skin a little between Star's fingers, as though crushing a leaf. Sure enough, when Void lets her take her hand away, a yellowish mark has begun to

blossom. The fragility is hypnotizing. Malnutrition probably, Star says. You have to be more careful than this. Doesn't it hurt? And Void nods and shrugs. Star continues. If we're going to find a way off the ship, we have to make these bodies last and keep them looking normal. You have to pay attention to the pain. Don't lecture me. I know, says Void, rolling her eyes. I was waiting for you. I'll be more careful now. But Star is still frowning a little, running through Morgan's memories of coal, and noting how her skin looks a little too tight. Her uniform fits a little wrong. Her eyes are brighter and wider than they used to be. This body is already starting to give. Void is riding it too hard. I mean it, says Star. Maybe this could be our shot. We could live a thousand years among

these humans and not run out of things to be. And these two are good, healthy and intelligence. I want to stop running, love, and I want to hop less, as little as possible. Void smiles a little. Your sensitivity is part of what I love about you, she says. I know you hate seeing them empty. Void's certainly been in coal long enough that the mind of the sweet and quiet programmer with a surprisingly wicked streak of humor is gone forever. Left to her own whims, she'll grind the body down to the quick.

She'll ride the fraying nervous system As the body deteriorates around her Delighting in the mind the sensations And when she becomes too obvious or too uncomfortable She'll jump A memory bobs to the surface They had activated queendom And they stayed as long as the fragile and decaying bodies

Could disguise them Piloting near corpses Pressing chalky powder to the skin to hide the rot filling their chambers with sickly sweet blooms to mask the smell. The strips of flesh ribboning away, sending the prickle of impulses through the nerves into dead meat, the limbs ceasing to function, frantically trying too late to figure out what had gone wrong,

not being able to reverse the decay that had begun, and void in her arms at the last, her mouth parts black as she smiled, eyes feverish, dragging the husk of herself to the communicator to summon a page for the first time in months, asking for strong ones, two of them. Ugh, that have been bad. It's not just the emptiness I'm worried about, says Star, picking up her train of thought. If we leave these bodies anywhere, they'll identify the traces of us in them.

Yeah, they know about us, that's bad luck, says Void. There have been others that got caught. I wonder who. Yes, I want to try. Let's live it out. We'll stay on the ship. and be Morgan and Cole and wait and live like real people and rest. We can wait for a good opportunity.

Relief washes over Star. Of course, Star knows that even if she tends Morgan's body like a garden, learns to be gentle in the right places, uses all the systems properly, Morgan's mind and self will still be dead. But she is now the keeper of Morgan's memories, and she will incorporate them into herself, carry them forward with her as a sign of gratitude and respect. That's how it should be, how it could be maybe, now.

And, says Void, there's so much more I want to show you. She reaches behind Star fingers skimming the waistband of her pants and pulls her shirt free. Void's hand finds the heat of Star's Morgan's skin and Star shivers in a new way. They tumble from the humming crush of the crawl space onto the floor. Star finds herself on her stomach as Void's thirons. eye presses between her legs and sparks thrum through the length of her. Desire kindles in star. And if her lungs feel a little tight, if Void is lying on her a little too heavy and her

pelvis is grinding into the floor too hard, it matters less and less. Void coals narrow, cold hands slide under Star's clothing completely and begin to demonstrate what human bodies can do. Void rolls the bulk of coal forward onto Star's neck and head, and no, okay, now she really can't breathe, and that's clearly a problem. Her arms and torso are pinned in place, but she rolls her jaw experimentally to the side, seeing if it's flexible and strong enough to lift her head and create a little space for air. It isn't, which she realizes at the exact moment as Void grinds down into her hard, lost in her own exploration of sensation. Terrible timing, that's what it is. Star hears the pop and doesn't understand what it means.

She dazedly tries to run her tongue over the inside of her mouth and finds that the shape is wrong. The tongue too. And in a moment Morgan's nervous system fires a white explosion of pain into her. Something hot is filling her mouth and her cheek is too flat on the floor. It seems wrong that she could break so easily. Her strangled yell is choked off. She can't close her mouth or actually move it at all.

She still can't breathe, and her writhing and gargling must read a little too much as pleasure. It takes precious seconds until she begins to gag and cough sincerely for Void to catch on to what's happening. Star can't blame her. Once lost in pleasure, they often don't express it the way that memories of the species they occupy would expect. Void bucks off of her and flings her onto her back. Ah, good. Now she'll be able to breathe and spread Morgan's ribs like a flower in the same. sunlight, creating the vacuum that will fill them with relief. But, oh no, there isn't any air in her mouth. There's that hot liquid, which doesn't feel right at all. No, that doesn't work. It has to be air. But with all this liquid, there isn't mushroom left in her lungs, and actually, something has gone very wrong indeed. A proper human would probably have known not to take such a huge

and greedy lungful of a non-air substance. Her face is starting to feel thick. She tries to a hand to touch it and watches the hands swim helplessly at the corner of her vision before veering away somewhere. As the world begins to blacken at the edges like a love note burning in a grate, Star focuses Morgan's eyes on the white and purple triangle, a void's coalface, the terror and panic there looking like starvation. And do you know what you can lock on to in your own moments of terror and panic? Like a love note burning bright, against the blazing, meaningless void of space and time. It's ads.

Canadian women are looking for more. More out of themselves, their businesses, their elected leaders, and the world are out of them. And that's why we're thrilled to introduce the Honest Talk podcast. I'm Jennifer Stewart. And I'm Catherine Clark. And in this podcast, we interview Canada's most inspiring women. Entrepreneurs, artists, athletes, politicians, and newsmakers, all at different stages of their journey. So if you're looking to connect,

Then we hope you'll join us. Listen to the Honest Talk podcast on I Heart Radio or wherever you listen to your podcasts. Welcome to the A building. I'm Hans Charles. I'm Mennelick Lamuba. It's 1969. Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr. have both been assassinated.

And Black America was out of breaking point. Writing and protests broke out on an unprecedented scale. In Atlanta, Georgia at Martin's Almemata, Morehouse College, the students had their own protest. It featured two prominent figures. in Black History, Martin Luther King Sr. and a young student, Samuel L. Jackson. To be in what we really thought was a revolution. I mean, people would die.

In 1968, the murder of Dr. King, which traumatized everyone. The FBI had a role in the murder of a Black Panther leader in Chicago. This story is about protest. It echoes in today's world far more than it should, and it will blow your mind. Listen to the A building on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Bowen-Yen.

And I'm Matt Rogers. During this season of the Two Guys Five Rings podcast, in the lead-up to the Milan-Cortina 2020-2016 Winter Olympic Games, we've been joined by some of our friends. Hi, Bob, hi, Matt. Hey, hi, Matt. Hey, Elmo. Hey, Matt, hey, Bowen. Hi, Cookie. Hi.

Now, the Winter Olympic Games are underway, and we are in Italy. to give you experiences from our hearts to your ears. Listen to Two Guys Five Rings on the Iheart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. What is one thing about love you've had to unlearn? That it's earned. That it needs to be forever for it to count. February is the month of love.

Whether you're in a relationship, casually dating, or proudly single, it's a great time to reflect on yourself and what you want. I'm Hope Woodard, host of the Boyceover podcast, and each week this month we're looking at love from every angle. I don't know how to tell my partner, like, what I want in bed. The thing about romantic fiction, I would say more than any other genre of culture is that it's always put women first. My marriage stopped making sense. The connection started to feel off.

The behavior started to feel different. This February, get in touch with yourself by listening to Boy Sober. That's B-O-Y-S-O-B-E-R. I'm like, I would love to not hate the man I'm sleeping with. I don't know what that's about. Listen to Boy Sober on the I-Hart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And we're back. Captain Jace glances at Mira and Allen.

Ready? she asks. No skin showing? Make sure they don't touch you. And don't take off the filtration masks. What had been nothing more than a whispered suspicion between Jason, her first mate, has quickly become a full-blown rescue operation now that Cole, or the fungal entity that is currently controlling her, has disappeared with Morgan. Jace and Bira raised their weapons, moving Alan behind them a little, and Chase reaches forward

and punches the button to open the door. The coal thing crouches over Morgan, knuckles white, as her fingers dig into the doctor's arms, holding her face down above the floor and almost seeming to shake her. Morgan's dark hair falls forward limply, and a long red drool of blood connects her unseen face to the dark puddle on the floor, jiggling and swaying as she hacks with gagging coughs. What used to be Cole snaps its head forward, mouth slack and eyes like dark pits, blank with horror. Jace expects her to scramble to her feet. Instead, her legs coiled beneath her, abruptly spring, pistoning her body towards them like a projectile,

making no attempt to use her arms to cushion her fall as she cannons into their little huddle. Jace registers the thunk sound of Mira's blaster being fired a little after part of Cole's head goes missing. Cole's remaining eye slides sideways as though a string that was holding it steady has been cut, and her tongue protrudes from her mouth, stretching forward inquisitively like a tentacle and lined its own.

She's drier inside than Jace thought she would be. All the puff of what looked like dust that rises from the crater of her face may contribute to that impression. Not dust, of course, thinks Jace as she raises her blaster. Those must be the spores. How incredible! That whitish cotton fluff across that bit of brain she can see must be part of it too. Thank God for the filtration masks.

Jace fires into the trunk of what was coal, and its neck bends like a flower stem bearing too heavy a blossom. And opaque pink fluid, the texture of thickened milk dribbles from her half head. But the creature is twitching and swaying but not falling. Its head rolls drunkenly, mouth slowly widening, and a hand snaps up with instinctual speed and rips the ventilator from Mira's face. The coal thing finally buckles and folds to the floor, a few grayish lump spattering from its head as though spilled from a bowl. Jace watches transfixed for a moment too long,

and that costs her everything. A thunk, thunk, whispers from beside her, and she wrenches herself around to see Mira with her blaster in hand. Her gaze follows the line of the shot to see Allen collapsed on the ground, eyelids twitching and neck missing. Jace stumbles back, but it doesn't look like Mira's attention is on her. Or, Jace thinks, whatever is now occupying Mira. The body of one of Jace's oldest friends lurches to the ground next to Morgan,

yanking her wheezing form upright, winding its arms around the doctor and latching to her, like a limpid. Morgan's head jerks back and Jace's heart drops sickeningly. Morgan is alive, gasping raspily, but the bottom half of her face is, in the right place. Her bitten through tongue is so swollen it fills her lulling skewed mouth and her cheek has ripped a little at the

corner torn skin, frilling at the edge, stretched to the point it becomes lacy. Her face is purplish and her bulging eyes are watering. The Mira Thing is clinging to Morgan as though it's trying to wear her, which makes it considerably more

difficult to get a clear shot. The Mira Thing begins to windmill its legs awkwardly. scrambling to drag both Morgan and itself towards Captain Jace. Still holding the gun level, Jace reaches for the dispenser at her side, pops the safety, and douses both women with the entire contents.

Fow-smelling, yellow liquid, plasters the thing's hair to its face in strands and drips from the edge of its nose onto the doctor. Mira's body arches and a soft animal keening comes from its throat. A flossy strand of mycelium begins to snake from one nostril. The fronds tip, quests, blind, seeking moisture, bacterial scents, organic life forms. The first thread is followed by more furred little tendrils, curling around the edges of the nose, almost shy. Mira's eyes roll back and slide closed.

The creature tilts its head and continues easing forwards, propelled worm-like by the strangely flexible movements of shoulder and hip. It seems to be relying on the filaments as its primary sense organ and moves as though pulled. Jace screams and flings the empty canister at the creature. That was supposed to kill the fucking thing, not merely draw it out. She lifts her blaster and then sees something else,

another pale thread, writhing like a headless snake against the broken cheek of Dr. Morgan Christie, protruding from a tear at the corner of her mouth. Oh, unexpected. There's two of them. Jace fires into the doctor's chest. Morgan sputters and chokes anew,

but the creature in Mera doesn't stop advancing. The captain breathes in, breathes out, shudders a part of her brain, and nimbly fires point-blank three times into Mera's head. A headless neck dips towards her, severed white tendrils shivering in the spine, and Jace lunges backwards as she feels a vice-like grip lock around her boot, fingers digging and burrowing, mindless of pain.

She can only scrabble backwards a half step before she feels the press of Mira's hand on her bare ankle. Jace snaps her foot out in a kick to dislodge the headless corpse, whose grip on the shuddering doctor is slackened. Except she doesn't do that. She tries again, and her leg does move, but it folds under her, props her up, insensitive to Jace's desperate attempts to control it.

She still has time, moments. she's still herself and she's still alive and that can't be it. She kicks herself free, clambers back, except she doesn't. Jace watches a helpless prisoner as her body sits and leans forward, fluttering its hands over the doctor whose face is wrong and chest is collapsed. She feels the slipperiness of the doctor's blood in a few troubling chunks, but she can't even control the direction of her eyes, fixed on what's left of Morgan,

or the water that begins. to fill them. No, that can't be it. They still have time, moments. She's alive. She's right here. But if they could get her to a plant, yes, that's it. To the labs, she'll be fine like always. But the lab is far. The samples are locked in quarantine that only Morgan or Allen's brains knew how to access. And this is so much blood. Joyce Void could lift her. Jace's body is strong and she's whole. At least one of them is she could carry her. But as she begins to lift stars, Star lets out a gurgling gasp, as something in the openness of her ribs sucks in and out wetly. Star reaches up a hand, movements surrepy slow.

Her fingers drift to the captain's ear as though in a dream, rolling the lobe so gently with a kind of wonder, like she's the first person in the universe who ever thought to do it. The twist of Jace Void feels like it's unspooling. Morgan Star's body dips into unconsciousness. The danger doesn't occur to void Until she's looking down dreamily At the body she had so recently occupied But wait, she wasn't

She's void She never had Morgan's body She was born into it and died in it today Or Star was, which is herself Void is aware of a flicker of images Scratched and jumpy Like an artifacting video Her own memories but othered, flipped

She sees her own myriad shapes To the myriad eyes of Star and thinks I thought I was my best with her but she saw how wretched I was and she loved me for it. Oh no, not this. Dizzy and semi-lucid, Star is in Jace and Void is in Jace, and so Star is in void,

as above, so below. Without sentient thought or purpose, trapped in an invalid host, Star's most basic chemistry has attempted to hail Mary, any port in a storm, including hostile takeover, frantically attempting to make a moment, make room for star inside Jace.

Void presses her hands to Morgan's bare neck, mashes her mouth against the clammy lips and puffs breath into her. But she can't force the transfer. There's not enough left of the woman. Her attempt to hop to Morgan's rapidly spoiling body and die with it has failed. Void wants to vomit. She's sweating and shaking and she doesn't know whether it's her biology's natural reaction to star, fighting her off like a fever,

or if it's her heart's natural reaction to star, willing herself to die in star's place and destroy every fraction of herself in her name. That could work, she thinks desperately. I always hoped I'd die for you and I can do it now. Take Jase's body from me. She tries to make herself weak, to still her panic, to give up.

That would be a poetic end, fitting. There could be a point to it. But nature doesn't care for poetry. And Void has always had a strong immune system. She's dying again, and this time it's the big one. No, unfortunately not the Void half, the Star half. Void isn't sure if Star can hear her, was suspended in the moment before the drop off.

Void thinks to her lover as though thinking can save them. I always felt even with our bodies pressed together, I could never get close enough to you to slake my thirst. and look at us now. We have become divine, not for the power and expansiveness of us, but for the end of our story. At once one heart and the dagger thrust through it.

We are aspirational and cautionary. God creatures should be parables. Stars' tiny, fungal corpse will be processed and expelled invisibly by Jace's body. Void won't even have a smear of mucus to weep over. The emptiness of a cold universe stretches away from her on all sides. The end! That's the end of the story.

And what a story. We've actually, we've been talking about doing this one for a long time now, and we wanted to wait for Valentine's Day, because we're not monsters. Totally not at all. Anyway, thanks for coming along on that wild ride with us. Hazel, who helps me pick out the stories? We and I talked about the story a lot when we first read it.

And if you take Star and Void as the main characters, it's this cautionary tale against codependence and becoming too lost in romantic love at the cost of literally any other aspect of your life. But if you take Morgan and Cole as the protagonists, it's this allegory about how falling in love, new relationship energy, the swoons, whatever, is this out-of-body experience,

like being taken over or possessed. Hazel says about it, quote, I particularly loved how Star and Void run up against the fragility of the human body in small and big ways. It felt so relatable to new relationship energy. When I often find myself consumed by something

that feels so much bigger than my bodily needs. Like, no, I don't want to get out of bed to eat. I want to keep cuddling. And then, what do I have to say about it? I mean, you could take it as a story about how if you try to save your friends from codependence, you have to shoot them with blasters in order to do it.

That's probably not the takeaway. But it is interesting how the people who are trying to save them from this codependence, destructive relationship end up dead. I don't know, whatever. This is what science fiction does best, you know, is make these like

non-suttle metaphors yet that are still somehow psychedelic and that you can't necessarily pin exactly what they mean. We feel its meaning and we can point to people. pieces of it. But we can't grasp the entirety of what it's saying about everything. I just really like that about art, and I think that science fiction is incredibly well posed to do this. When I first

started reading it, I actually tend not to like psychedelically written fiction. And so the first scene, I almost passed on this story. But it's worth it. And it becomes a little bit more understandable. But I have to admit, this is one of these stories that, like, I don't know, you all might need to listen to it again, or bury your gaze to read it properly. Anyway, bio the author, November Rush. November Rush is a tattoo artist and painter living in Montreal, Canada. This is her debut as a writer, and you can follow her tattoo and painting work at underscore November underscore Rush, which I believe is Instagram is what it's saying,

and on Blue Sky at Novemberrush.bsk-y.com. I'm Margaret Kiljoy I've been your host you can find my writing on Substack my newsletter there it's called Birds Before the Storm It's really just Margaretkilljoy.substack.com and I have various other podcasts

on this very network I have cool people who did cool stuff if you haven't listened to it what are you doing with your life not listening to my podcast that's what you're doing because you hate me that's what I think of everyone

who doesn't listen to my podcast I think they hate me that's actually not true at all a lot of my best friends don't listen to my podcast but that's out of like weird stuff. That's too personal.

You don't get to know that. Anyway, dear listener, take care. Love the ones closest to you. I'll see you next week. Fuck ice. Bye. It could happen here as a production of Coolzone Media. For more podcasts from Coolzone Media,

visit our website, coolzonemedia.com, or check us out on the IHeard Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can find sources for it could happen here updated monthly at coolzonemedia.com slash sources. Thanks for listening. 1969, Malcolm and Martin are gone. America is in crisis.

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