Coco needed to find a good place to corner the Queen once everything else was in place. She turned down a narrow alley, and there she saw Adrian. He was turning over boxes, looking inside holes in the wall. Looking for her.

“Adrian!” she called out and ran to him. He turned to her with that same cold expression. Only a faint glimmer of recognition flashed through his eyes as he approached her.

Coco threw her arms around him. Adrian stood perfectly still, a shell of who he once was. He did not smile. Coco was desperate to save him. He wrapped his hand tightly around her wrist and began to drag her from the alley, without a word.

“Where are we going?” Coco asked.

“To the Queen. She wants to eat your heart. My love will have the meal she desires.” His words fell flat without any meaning behind them, like a drone.

Coco dug her feet into the ground and pulled away from his grip. “The hell she will! Adrian, please! Help me stop her.”

“Stop her? The Queen will have whatever her heart desires. I want to make her happy. I love her,” he said flatly.

“But you don’t. She’s brainwashed you. You wanted me! It’s this spore. It’s making you say these things. This isn’t want you want.” She pleaded with him, hoping to get through. Hoping that just maybe there was some small piece of him inside that remembered that he had cared for her almost instantly. That he liked her.

Adrian just stared at Coco with dead eyes and said, “You’re covered in shit.”

Coco looked around for something sharp. She found a large piece of broken glass on the ground and picked it up. Adrian grabbed her by the arm and pulled her toward the castle.

She played along, shuffling a few paces behind him. Once she was sure he was not going to turn around, she walked a bit closer. She held the glass deftly in her hand and slid it between the spore and Adrian’s skin. She twisted the glass to pry the spore from his head. The spore made moist, slurping suction sounds as she peeled the thing off her knight’s head.

Adrian stopped mid-stride. The spore landed on the ground with a squishy plop. It immediately began to squirm toward him, but before it could move an inch Coco impaled it with her glass shiv. She stabbed it once, twice, three times, until it was a puddle of purple goo.

Adrian bent over, one hand on a knee to support himself, the other clutching the back of his head. The area where the spore had been attached was a gory mess. The spore had eaten away a portion of Adrian’s skull to get at his brain, and Coco could see the gray bloody tissue poking out from the wound. She knelt beside him as he slowly crumpled to the ground.

“Coco,” he smiled at her through his apparent suffering. “I’m not going to make it. No one survives the spores.” He coughed and rested his head in Coco’s lap.

She looked down at him, knowing he was dying and there was nothing she could do about it. She cradled his head and stroked his hair. “But I didn’t even get to know you. You CAN’T leave me. Please.” Coco began to weep.

Adrian smiled weakly. His eyes slowly floated up and back, until they were stark white. Adrian let out a gurgling moan and he was gone.