The only part
Pavel continued down the thin dirt road he was on, his gear was painted green to blend in with his environment although that wouldn’t help here. Any nearby infestations were capable of feeling his footsteps in the dirt for as far as the veins stretched through the ground. All he had was a special-forces issue AK-105, his vest, a handgun, ammunition, a few grenades and a single flare he decided to save. Pavel’s entire detachment of soldier were wiped out by these horrible things almost moments after they landed, but he had survived for days, living off anything he could hunt or forage for he even went as far as to steal form the villagers. He felt remorse for that but they were past saving anyways, the water around here was full of spores and most of them were deathly sick. But today he had a plan as he’d been studying the behaviour of the hivemind, how they moved and how they hunted, how they interacted with one another. He had found a gap, a way out of this forest and today was the day he was going to give his all to get out of here and hopefully to the safety of his comrades. As he neared the biomass, he pulled out his flare, it had already sensed him and he knew it, this flare would hopefully keep the creatures away from him and alert anyone nearby he was still alive that was if there was anyone out there. They were within his view now, they way the things moved was far from natural, they would almost snap in and out of place to make simple movements, and they towered over the trooper, but Pavel had faith in flare. It was dark, very dark and the creatures gave of a slight glow so that was one perk of it being night, you knew where they were. Pavel would lift the flare above his head as he finally got close to the pulsing tumour coming out of the ground and said his prayers before he walked past the thing, it was clearly interesting in Pavel but wouldn’t attack him as long as he had the flare, he was now right next to the biomass. The ground would squelch with each step but he kept on moving, his rifle close to him in case they decide to get a little too close. So far it seemed like there was no one nearby to save him. He had finally gotten past the creatures, he kept moving with that flare above his head, but the biomass didn’t stop as far as he walked until he had come to the realization that it wasn’t just the forest that the tumour had grown outwards for god knows how far, no one would react to his flare because there was no one to react to his flare. He found what looked like a gas station, or at least the remains of one. He sat down inside as his flare died out and looked at his rifle. Was there a way out of this? He could hear the things howling in the distance, they’d followed him to the gas station.
Realizing that bullets wouldn’t work on these things he looked at his rifle, it was nearly usless, nearly. He would pull out the magazine from the gun before putting it back in and raising the barrel of the rifle under his chin. He was finally going to escape.
